As the campaign leading up to the election of intensified, some Virginia supporters of the Republican candidate, Thomas Jefferson, saw the stationing near Richmond of some of the recently raised federal troops as an attempt to intimidate Virginians at the polls. To enslaved men in the area, the undeclared, so-called Quasi-War with France — and the divisive nature of politics as reflected in the political campaigns of may well have made it seem an opportune time to rebel.
This was especially true when, in June, the federal regiment demobilized, an event the conspirators noted. Late in the spring of a group of enslaved men who were held on plantations in the neighborhood of the Brook, north of Richmond, initiated a plot to obtain their freedom.
Sam Byrd Jr. Also in on the plot was Jack Bowler, also known as Jack Ditcher, a large, powerful man who apparently worked in the neighborhood despite being owned by a widow in Caroline County. And of course there was Gabriel, also a large man and a blacksmith owned by Thomas Henry Prosser. Each man used his connections—his friends, acquaintances, and relatives—to find other conspirators and thereby shape the geographical spread of the plot while leaving its core leadership in the neighborhood of the Brook.
But by August a plan had been devised that included a nighttime attack on Richmond. Meanwhile, the main column of men would first attack the white residents of the Brook and then swarm into upper Richmond, overcoming the few guards who watched over state arms on deposit at the Capitol and penitentiary, as well as at the public magazine.
These men also intended to seize Governor Monroe, if not actually kill him. Once fully armed, they would destroy the exhausted firefighters as they struggled home. Because their plan to overrun the guards did not require that most men be equipped with firearms at the outset, blacksmiths like Gabriel, his brother Solomon, and Thornton, who worked at a forge at Hanover Court House, refashioned scythe blades into swords; one witness claimed that twelve dozen such weapons were created.
In addition, Jack Bowler reported that he had made fifty pikes, or spears, by affixing bayonets to the ends of poles.
Bowler, Gabriel, and another plotter gathered gunpowder, and Gabriel and his brother Martin made musket balls. While the men already secretly possessed a handful of firearms, they also planned to seize a small cache of militia muskets stored at a neighborhood tavern. In early August, Gabriel and two other men actually slipped into the Capitol to survey the weapons there. They obtained keys to the building from Robert Cowley, once a slave of the Randolph family but now a free man who served as the keeper of the Capitol and doorman to the Council of State.
A later investigation exonerated Cowley of any complicity in the plot. Although their plan did not require the conspirators to be fully armed when they rushed into Richmond, it did demand a force large enough to overwhelm the guards and hold the town.
Recruiting a sufficient number of men while maintaining secrecy proved to be a major challenge. Trial testimony, which provides much of the evidence about the plot, tends to focus on this aspect of the conspiracy, because in order to condemn a defendant to death the state had to prove only that he had joined the conspiracy—not that he had committed any acts in its furtherance. As a result, witnesses testified about how men were recruited and, in particular, what words had lured them into the conspiracy.
Often they were falsely told that many others had already joined. Too small a group would be suicidal, so recruits needed to be assured that they were part of a substantial force. Another recruiter said the force had reached 5, men, and another witness claimed Gabriel had asserted that 10, had been enlisted.
On the day the attack was to begin, Solomon said he expected 1, men to gather that night, a figure that still would have required a large portion of the able-bodied men in the area. Different scenarios may also have been presented to different recruits. For most, the uprising was portrayed as a war for freedom waged by blacks against white people.
The slaughter would be indiscriminate. Others were told that people friendly to freedom—Quakers, Methodists, and Frenchmen, and even poor white women with no slaves—were to be spared. Like recruiters for any cause or organization, individuals were told what they needed to hear. Some were warned that anyone who did not join would suffer death. Largely excluded from the plot were enslaved women, though recruiters did not explain why.
In the end, the rendezvous scheduled for the night of August 30 never took place. That morning, Pharoah and Tom, slaves owned by members of the Sheppard family, made their way to Richmond and told Mosby Sheppard of the plot. He passed on the warning first to family members and then to Monroe , who ordered patrols to be sent out.
Toward sundown a massive storm of wind and rain made any gathering of conspirators impossible, so the leaders, unaware of the betrayal, postponed the attack for one night. By then, patrols had already begun detaining suspects; the conspiracy collapsed. Gabriel and Jack Bowler, the two most senior men in charge, disappeared.
The warning from Mosby Sheppard sparked patrols from Richmond and sent a warning to Petersburg, where rumors of a revolt had already surfaced early in August. Men from the Brook were soon taken up and placed in the public jail and penitentiary, and more were arrested as the evidence mounted.
The trials immediately opened before the judges who sat as a Court of Oyer and Terminer, which had criminal jurisdiction. The judges, not a jury, decided guilt and innocence and a unanimous verdict was required for conviction.
Different such courts convened in different jurisdictions, depending on where the alleged crime had occurred. Of these seventy-two, twenty-six were found guilty and hanged all but one in Henrico and Richmond , eight were later transported, thirteen were declared guilty but pardoned by the governor, and twenty-five more were acquitted by local judges or magistrates.
Both Gabriel and Jack Bowler were among those captured and tried. Gabriel was tried and convicted on October 6 and hanged in Richmond on October Jack Bowler, meanwhile, surrendered on October 9, was convicted on October 29, and was transported out of state. Three men in particular provided the bulk of the testimony. Woolfolk was found guilty, but in exchange for a pardon he confessed and surrendered many names. Pharoah and Tom, the two men who revealed the plot, were rewarded with their freedom after the General Assembly authorized their purchase and manumission.
Learning from these debates, Gabriel based his actions on conceptions of freedom and liberty that flowed from the revolutionary movements.
At Gabriel's trial, Ben Woolfolk, who had been recruited by Gabriel, testified that Gabriel intended to "purchase a piece of silk for a flag on which they would have written 'death or liberty' "-a clear reference to Patrick Henry's fiery speech of If white Richmonders agreed to free the slaves, according to one conspirator, Gabriel "would dine and drink with the merchants of the City.
The planned rebellion was widely reported in American newspapers, and, during the presidential campaign, the Federalists cited the event as a consequence of the Democratic-Republicans' support of the French Revolution and ultrademocratic ideals.
The intense scrutiny made some of Virginia's leaders uncomfortable with the execution of the revolutionaries. Monroe, a participant himself in a war for liberty, expressed concern about the number of executions. Skip to content Gabriel Prosser. Do you find this information helpful? A small donation would help us keep this accessible to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone!
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