part of the State, to the amount of about 900, assembled in different parts, armed with muskets, spears, clubs, and committed several outrages upon the inhabitants.”39 Under the command of a leader known as Celeb, the slaves communicated with slave communities on the Dismal Swamp and Norfolk side of the bay, and secretly made weapons with the help of a blacksmith. Their intent was to cross the bay, join others on the mainland at the border of the swamp, and attack the arsenal at Norfolk, but their plans were discovered and the planters requested extra military supplies from the mainland.40
Conspiracies and underground organizing in the area continued however, as evidenced by one intercepted letter found in Yorktown, Virginia in August 1793:
Dear Friend—The great secret that has been so long in being with our own color has come nearly to a head that some in our Town has told of it but in such a slight manner it is not believed, we have got about five hundred guns aplenty of lead but not much powder.… I am full satisfied we shall be in full possession of the [w]hole country in a few weeks, since I wrote you last I got a letter from our friend in Charleston he tells me he has listed near six thousand men.…
Secret Keeper Richmond to Secret Keeper Norfolk.41
Another letter was found addressed from Portsmouth, also in the Dismal Swamp region. The conspiracies failed to come to fruition, partly due to the intercepted communications and the shipment of arms from the mainland, but were notable for their size and ambition, and for their early attempts to communicate across vast areas. Their letters would have necessitated travel through territory either covered by the Great Dismal Swamp or bordering it.
Even the mist that rose off the surface of the swamp's Lake Drummond invited conflict, with whites fearing demonic spirits while slaves and fugitives found spiritual guidance and power. US Fish and Wildlife Service
In comparison, earlier known efforts at spectacular, collective resistance, like South Carolina’s Stono Rebellion, appeared more as an effort at joint escape and involved hardly more than a hundred participants. Not surprisingly then, word of this significantly larger attempted rebellion sent shockwaves through both slave and planter circles. Despite the insurrection’s failure, fear spread through white communities in the Tidewater region and beyond, and other slaves were encouraged to act. A letter sent one month after the failed conspiracy from Newbern, North Carolina confirms whites’ fears:
The negroes in this town and neighbourhood have stirred a rumour of their having contemplation to rise against their masters and to procure themselves their liberty; the inhabitants have been alarmed and keep a strict watch to prevent their procuring arms.42
The conspiratorial wave seemed to have a rippling effect: several months later, a group of armed maroons murdered an overseer on a plantation in Charles City County, also bordering the swamp.
Gabriel’s Uprising: 1800–1801
The second major insurrectionary attempt of this period was Gabriel’s Uprising. One of the most famous slave rebellions in North American history, the uprising involved an attempted attack on Richmond in 1800, and was coordinated over a huge territory. The conspiracy was led by siblings Gabriel, Nanny, Solomon, and Martin Prosser, among others, and participants were recruited from all over Virginia, including Gloucester, Cumberland, Henrico, Luisa, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Caroline counties. Martin Prosser was the rebellion’s sword maker, and bitterly opposed any delay of the rebellion; according to a fellow conspirator, “before he would any longer bear what he had borne, he would turn out and fight with his stick.” The intention was to march on Richmond, and as one group set fire to the warehouse district as diversion, others would capture arms, the capitol building, and the governor. Frenchmen, Methodists, Quakers, and other whites sympathetic to the cause were to be spared.43
The insurrection involved thousands. Secrecy was maintained for a time, but due to planning delays, word of it eventually reached Virginia’s Governor Monroe, who, on April 22, wrote to Thomas Jefferson of the threat.
No immediate action was taken by the government, however, and the slaves continued to produce bayonets, swords, and ammunition through the spring and summer. Secrecy was mostly kept, though by August 9 word of a planned revolt appears in a letter between two whites of Petersburg and Richmond. The letter was intercepted and passed on, and military authorities were informed. Further word of the rebellion was provided to the governor by a slave-owner named Moseby Shepard, who “had just received advice from two slaves that the negroes in the neighborhood of Thomas H. Prosser intended to rise that night, kill their masters, and proceed to Richmond where they would be joined by the negroes of the city.”44 Monroe finally acted, posting cannons outside of Richmond, informing militia commanders around Virginia, and calling into service 650 local soldiers.
At this exact moment, on the evening of August 30 an enormous rain began to fall, referred to later by whites as a “providential” downpour. The territory between the conspirators’ rendezvous point and Richmond was separated by a torn bridge, and the flash flooding made crossing the waterway impossible. Despite the rain, one thousand slaves met at the agreed location, six miles outside the city, armed with hundreds of homemade weapons. Unfortunately, the attack was made impossible, and they were forced to disband. The following day the entire military apparatus of Virginia was aroused, and scores of conspirators and insurrectionaries across the State were arrested. Gabriel Prosser managed to escape on a ship in Norfolk at the swamp’s border, but was recognized and betrayed by two slaves on board. He was taken to Richmond, and after refusing to give any significant information about the conspiracy, hanged on October 7.
At least thirty-four other conspirators were hanged as well, while one committed suicide and four managed to escape from jail and were never recaptured. Two of these escapes were the result of a mob action by Black maroons besieging the Hanover County courthouse, wherein they released the prisoners, charged the guard, “knocked him down” and “stamped on him,” and ran away. According to one slave-owner, the break was planned throughout the previous week when slaves visited the prisoners, “under the pretence of a preaching.”45 A wave of repression and white paranoia erupted after Gabriel’s Uprising, especially in Virginia but extending well beyond its borders. Arrests and hangings continued throughout the winter of 1800–1801.
Insurrections of 1800–1810
Almost as soon as Gabriel Prosser’s body was in the ground, a third wave of conspiracy and insurrection occurred. Beginning in late 1800 in Petersburg, Virginia, by December unrest had spread to Norfolk on the northeastern border of the Great Dismal. The goal was again a coordinated attack on Norfolk, and word spread from the coast to the interior of the region. Plans were shared throughout the following year, as is demonstrated by a letter dated January 1802, which was intercepted on its way to Powhatan. It stated, “Our friend has got ten thousand in readiness to the night.” Small attacks and gatherings increased; on April 3, “four unknown men made an attack with bricks upon the sentinel at the Capitol, and were fired upon.” Repression spread as well. Hangings and arrests occurred in Halifax, Hanover, and Princess Anne counties as well as in Norfolk. A letter from Richmond mentions that, “convicted slaves confined in the Penitentiary house [had] become so numerous as to render their maintenance burthensome [sic] and their safe keeping inconvenient.”46
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