Slave insurrectionist, probably born in Henrico Co, Virginia, USA. Other than being a coachman belonging to Thomas Prosser of Henrico Co, little is known of his early life and how he came to plan a major slave revolt (1800). Richmond, VA, the state capital, where slaves outweighed whites four-to-one, was chosen as the site of the rebellion. He planned to kill all slave owners, but spare the French and Quaker inhabitants he felt were sympathetic to the black cause, along with women and children. He hoped the remaining 300 000 slaves in Virginia would follow his lead and take over the state. A severe rainstorm the night of the uprising cut off bridges and roads and prevented Prosser and c.1000 followers from reaching Richmond. Two house slaves, loyal to their master, informed on the conspirators. Panic swept Richmond, martial law was declared, and some 34 slaves implicated in the conspiracy were rounded up and hanged. Prosser was captured in the hold of the schooner Mary when it docked at Norfolk. Brought back to Richmond in chains, he was interrogated by Governor James Monroe, but refused to divulge any information on the conspiracy, and was hanged on 7 October 1800.
Gabriel (1776–October 10, 1800), today commonly if incorrectly known as Gabriel Prosser, was a slave born in Henrico County, Virginia who planned a failed slave rebellion in the summer of 1800. The rebellion was suppressed and Gabriel was hanged together with other black rebels.
Life
Born on Brookfield as the slave of Thomas Prosser, Gabriel had two brothers, Solomon and Martin. Most likely, Gabriel's father was a blacksmith, the occupation chosen for Gabriel and for Solomon.
Gabriel's Rebellion
Gabriel had been meticulously planning the revolt since the spring. On August 30, 1800, Gabriel hoped to lead the slaves into Richmond, but torrential rains postponed the rebellion. Gabriel tried to escape downriver to Norfolk, but was spotted and betrayed by a fellow slave for the reward.
Historian Douglas Egerton offered a new perspective on Gabriel in his book Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800-1802. Egerton observes, for example, that Gabriel was never known by the surname "Prosser," portraying that as an after-the-fact assumption from a period when slaves and ex-slaves sometimes adopted their owner's family names. According to Egerton, in 1800 white authorities referred to him as "Prosser's Gabriel," but his common-use name in the black community was simply Gabriel.
Egerton found that Gabriel was a skilled blacksmith who mostly "hired out" his time in Richmond foundries, a common practice during this period when the market for tobacco was depressed, soil depleted, and cotton not yet a major cash crop. Egerton concludes that Gabriel absorbed the viewpoint of his co-workers of European, African and mixed descent, who expected Thomas Jefferson's Republicans to liberate them from domination by the wealthy Federalist merchants of the city.
Gabriel did apparently have two white co-conspirators, at least one of whom was identified as a French national.
Egerton also notes that Gabriel did not order his followers to kill all whites except Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen;
It is notable that Gabriel initially escaped on a ship owned by a former overseer, a recently converted Methodist who repeatedly ignored information as to his passenger's identity. Gabriel was turned in by a slave "hired out" to work on the ship, who hoped to obtain a sufficient reward to purchase his own freedom.
Impact
This potential slave uprising was notable not because of its actual impact — the rebellion was quelled before it could begin — but because of the potential for mass chaos.
Southern slave-owners were acutely aware of the Haitian Revolution and became fearful of another slave rebellion. Gabriel had been able to plan the rebellion so well because of relatively lax rules of movement between plantations;
Prior to this rebellion, education of slaves, and training slaves in skilled trades, had not been restricted in Virginia. After the rebellion, and a second conspiracy organized in 1802 among enslaved boatmen along the Appomattox and Roanoke Rivers, slave owners in the Virginia Assembly banned the practice of hiring slaves away from their masters (1808) and required freed blacks to leave the state or face reenslavement (1806)
Sources
Egerton, Douglas R. Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810.
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