Gabriel Conspiracy

By: Douglas R. Egerton

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Gabriel Conspiracy

The slave conspiracy of 1800 in Richmond, Virginia, was organized largely by a young blacksmith known only as Gabriel. Born on the Henrico County plantation of Thomas Prosser, Gabriel and his brother Martin were trained as craftsmen and taught to read; an older brother, Solomon, worked in the tobacco fields. As Gabriel grew to be an unusually tall young man, even older slaves looked to him for leadership, which was highly unusual, as West African culture equated age with wisdom. By the mid-1790s, as he approached the age of twenty, Gabriel stood “six feet two or three inches high” and was regarded by whites and blacks alike as a bright and resourceful bondman.

Emboldened by the quasi liberty he enjoyed as an artisan for hire, Gabriel began, in September 1799, to openly resist his enslavement. Caught in the act of stealing a pig by Absalom Johnson, a former overseer, Gabriel knocked him to the ground and bit off the better “part of his left Ear.” In Virginia slaves were not tried as whites but rather prosecuted under a colonial statute of 1692 that created special segregated tribunals known as “courts of oyer and terminer,” composed of five justices of the peace. No jury was impaneled, and there was no appeal except to the governor. Although he was found guilty, Gabriel escaped the gallows through an antiquated clause that gave slaves the right to “benefit of clergy,” which allowed them to avoid hanging in exchange for being branded on the thumb with a small cross if they were able to recite a verse from the Bible.

Gabriel's branding and incarceration evidently marked a turning point in his life; by the early spring of 1800 his anger began to turn into a carefully considered plan to bring about his freedom, as well as the end of slavery in Virginia. As a literate man who moved among urban artisans, Gabriel surely knew that several states to the north had recently passed laws for gradual emancipation and that New York had finally approved such a statute in 1799. As he explained it to his brothers, Solomon and Martin, slaves and free blacks from Henrico County would gather at Brookfield on the evening of 30 August.

As the small but determined band of insurgents, armed with crude swords fashioned from scythes, neared Richmond, it would split into three groups, each with clearly stated objectives. Governor James Monroe, who resided in the small executive mansion adjacent to the capitol building, was to be seized as a hostage but otherwise left unharmed. A small number of whites, including Thomas Henry Prosser, were to die, but most would live as hostages in order to force the Virginia elite to grant the rebels' demands, which included their freedom and an equitable division of white property. “Quakers, Methodists and French people,” three groups that had earned a sometimes undeserved reputation as foes of slavery, were not to be harmed. Gabriel hoped that the “poor white people,” who had no more political power than did the slaves, “would also join” the rebels. If Monroe and the town leaders agreed to Gabriel's demands, the slave general intended to “hoist a white flag” and drink a toast “with the merchants of the city.”

As recruits joined, word of the conspiracy began to spread. Black artisans used their freedom of movement to travel far outside the city. George Smith “hired his time from his mistress” and journeyed to neighboring towns, and Sam Byrd Jr. hired himself out “for the greater part of the summer” so that he might be free to recruit rebels in Petersburg, twenty-five miles to the south. By the end of July word of the revolt had spread to at least six Virginia towns; it was, as Monroe later observed, a secret known “in many and some distant parts of the State.”

The uprising collapsed just before sunset on the appointed day when a severe thunderstorm hit the Richmond area. Creeks rose, washing away fragile wooden bridges and severing communications between Brookfield and the city. Perhaps only a dozen slaves reached the blacksmith shop. The chaos of the storm convinced two Henrico slaves, Tom and Pharoah, that the revolt could not succeed. They informed their owner of the conspiracy, and he hurried word to Governor Monroe. As the state militia closed in, Gabriel escaped south by way of the swampy Chickahominy River. After hiding along the James River for nearly two weeks, Gabriel risked boarding the schooner Mary.

Captain Richardson Taylor, a former overseer who had recently converted to Methodism, willingly spirited Gabriel downriver to Norfolk. There Gabriel was betrayed by Billy, a slave crewman, who had heard of Monroe's three-hundred-dollar reward for Gabriel's capture. Returned to Richmond under heavy guard, Gabriel was quickly tried and found guilty of “conspiracy and insurrection.” On 10 October 1800 the young revolutionary died with quiet composure at the town gallows near Fifteenth and Broad Streets. He was twenty-four. In all, twenty-six slaves, including Gabriel and his two brothers, were hanged for their part in the conspiracy. Another bondman allegedly hanged himself while in custody. Eight more rebels, including Gabriel's chief lieutenant, Jack Ditcher, were transported to Spanish New Orleans; at least thirty-two more were found not guilty. Reliable sources placed the number of slaves who knew of the plot at between five hundred and six hundred.

In the aftermath, as was the case with most slave conspiracies, white authorities (as one newspaper put it) moved to “re-enact all those rigorous laws” that had been allowed to lapse after the Revolution. In late 1802 Monroe established the Public Guard of Richmond, a nighttime police force designed to protect the public buildings and militia arsenals. The state assembly passed a law ending the right of masters to hire out their surplus slaves, and in 1806 the legislature amended the state's Manumission Act of 1782 by requiring liberated slaves to leave Virginia or face reenslavement.

See also Crime and Punishment; Gabriel; Resistance; and Riots and Rebellions.

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