Gabriel’s Conspiracy

The Most Extensive Slave Uprising Plot in the American South

Gabriel resting from his work on the Prosser plantation in the spring of 1800.

If not for an unprecedented evening storm that deposited torrential rain on central Virginia at the end of August 1800, rendering the dirt roads impassable, a slave conspiracy the likes of which the South had never seen may have succeeded. An elaborate and well-coordinated conspiracy was dashed by the storm, as were the hopes of the hundreds of slaves in central Virginia who were privy to it. The man behind what was perhaps the most extensive plot of slave uprising in the history of the American South was an educated blacksmith named Gabriel, an enslaved black man who was owned by Thomas Prosser. Gabriel, who stood 6 feet 3 inches tall, was an imposing figure, with muscles that developed as a result of his trade.

His plan was also thwarted by two anxious slaves who divulged the entire plot to their master. Arrests were quickly made and trials took place throughout Virginia. Another Prosser slave, Ben Woolfolk, was pardoned on the condition that he testify against the other conspirators. From his account, we learn all the intricate details of the proposed insurrection. Weeks earlier, on a July Sunday, Gabriel was in the country north of Richmond, Virginia when he joined a group of slaves who were relaxing on a bridge that overlooked a brook. Many of them were field hands enjoying the day off.

It was an ideal recreation spot for slaves because they could listen to outdoor preaching while they ate and drank and enjoyed the company of one another. Woolfolk revealed that immediately after the sermon, Gabriel desired “to bring on the business as soon as possible,” thus the plan was discussed then and there. Gabriel claimed to have something on the order of ten thousand men on his side. In quoting The Great Stain by historian Noel Rae:

“he had one thousand in Richmond, about six hundred in Caroline, and nearly five hundred at the coal pits, besides others at different places, and that he expected the poor white people would also join him.”

The plan, according to the witness for the prosecution, was for the core group to assemble at the briery spot near the brook they frequented on Sundays. One hundred men were to remain on the bridge and Gabriel was to lead another hundred toward town to Gregory’s tavern where they were to take up the arms stored there. Another fifty men were to go to a riverside warehouse district in Richmond called Rocketts to set it ablaze. This would act as a distraction to draw a crowd from the upper part of town. While the fire was being put out, Gabriel and his men were to seize the Capitol, along with all the arms from the Virginia State Armory, and put to great slaughter all who were gathered at Rocketts.

A co-conspirator named Sam Bird was to use free papers to make his way to the Catawbas natives and convince them to join the fight against the oppressive whites. Governor James Monroe was to be taken hostage as a bargaining chip that would assure the freedom of Virginia slaves. And the consensus was that all of the whites were to be massacred save for the Quakers, Methodists, and Frenchmen, who were all in favor of black liberation. Poor white women with no slaves were also to be spared. In the end, the treasury was to be drained and its spoils divided among the insurrectionists.

A Richmond, Virginia court trial of an enslaved conspirator, seated left.

But no one accounted for the torrents of rain that poured down as though the heavens had forcefully repudiated the plans of the slaves. The conspirators could not gather because of it. Just before the storm, two Meadow Farm slaves named Tom and Pharaoh had already grown anxious and carried the plot to their master, Mosby Sheppard. Gabriel and many others were apprehended, and trials were held in Richmond, Norfolk, Petersburg, and other surrounding counties. They were tried in courts of oyer and terminer, which were Latin terms for courts of criminal jurisdiction based on a 1692 statute that allowed testimony to be heard by five justices with no jury present. And appeals could only be made to the governor. Noel Rae wrote of the trial:

“seven men were condemned on a Thursday and hanged on Friday. All in all, about thirty-five were condemned to death, and many others banished. Gabriel himself escaped but was soon captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. [Governor] Monroe interviewed him before his execution but got little out of him. ‘He seemed to have made up his mind to die, and to have resolved to say but little on the subject of the conspiracy.’”

The spirit of resistance that empowered Gabriel is the very spirit that fueled other leaders of slave revolts throughout history. The desire for freedom and liberty was a powerful driving force for all those who were ready to risk death to secure both. White colonists exhibited the same spirit in their rebellion against Great Britain during the War of Independence a quarter-century earlier. But it was unfathomable to think that blacks could find it in them to rise against the oppressive powers that kept them chained and shackled both physically and mentally within a system that regarded them as nothing more than chattel.

Presidential candidates Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, who each received 73 electoral votes in 1800. Courtesy of the Granger Collection in New York.

In the wake of the uprising, Virginia law and broader American politics were altered. This was seen most vividly in the new Virginia laws that further restricted slaves and free blacks, as well as the presidential campaign that unfolded that year. But more recently, Gabriel’s plot has been viewed in a better light by Virginia officials. Over two decades ago, a small park in Henrico County was dedicated to Gabriel and two historical markers were erected near the sites where he and his co-conspirators were to gather at the Brook Bridge and where he was made leader of the insurrection. In 2002, a resolution was passed by Richmond officials to mark the 202nd anniversary of Gabriel’s planned uprising. Five years later, Governor Tim Kaine pardoned Gabriel and his co-conspirators, stating: 

“the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality for all people—has prevailed in the light of history.”

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This article appears in 45 People, Places, and Events in Black History You Should Know.

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