American Negro Slavery by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

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[Footnote 48: Daniel Horsmanden, one of the magistrates who sat in these
trials, published in 1744 the _Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection
of the Conspiracy formed by some white people in conjunction with negro and
other slaves for burning the city of New York in America, and murdering
the Inhabitants_; and this, reprinted under the title, _The New York
Conspiracy, or a History of the Negro Plot_ (New York, 1810), is the chief
source of knowledge in the premises. See also the contemporary letters of
Lieutenant-Governor Clarke in E.B. O'Callaghan, ed., _Documents Relative to
the Colonial History of New York_, VI, 186, 197, 198, 201-203.]

[Footnote 49: _Ibid_., pp. 96-100.]

[Footnote 50: _Ibid_., pp. 370-372.]

In New Jersey in 1734 a slave at Raritan when jailed for drunkenness and
insolence professed to reveal a plot for insurrection, whereupon he and
a fellow slave were capitally convicted. One of them escaped before
execution, but the other was hanged.[51] In Pennsylvania as late as 1803 a
negro plot at York was detected after nearly a dozen houses had been burnt
and half as many attempts had been made to cause a general conflagration.
Many negroes were arrested; others outside made preparations to release
them by force; and for several days a reign of terror prevailed. Upon the
restoration of quiet, twenty of the prisoners were punished for arson.[52]

[Footnote 51: MS. transcript in the New York Public Library from the New
York _Gazette_, Mch. 18, 1734.]

[Footnote 52: E.R. Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, pp. 152, 153.]

In the Southern colonies there were no outbreaks in the seventeenth century
and but two discoveries of plots, it seems, both in Virginia. The first
of these, 1663, in which indented white servants and negro slaves in
Gloucester County were said to be jointly involved, was betrayed by one of
the servants. The colonial assembly showed its gratification not only by
freeing the informer and giving him five thousand pounds of tobacco but by
resolving in commemoration of "so transcendant a favour as the preserving
all we have from so utter ruin," "that the 13th. of September be annually
kept holy, being the day those villains intended to put the plot in
execution."[53] The other plot, of slaves alone, in the "Northern Neck" of
the colony in 1687, appears to have been of no more than local concern.[54]
The punishments meted out on either occasion are unknown.

[Footnote 53: Hening, _Virginia Statutes at Large_, II, 204.]

[Footnote 54: J.C. Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Virginia_ (Baltimore,
1902), p. 79.]

The eighteenth century, with its multiplication of slaves, saw somewhat
more frequent plots in its early decades. The discovery of one in Isle of
Wight County, Virginia, in 1709 brought thirty-nine lashes to each of
three slaves and fifty lashes to a free negro found to be cognizant, and
presumably more drastic punishments to two other slaves who were held as
ringleaders to await the governor's order. Still another slave who at
least for the time being escaped the clutches of the law was proclaimed
an outlaw.[55] The discovery of another plot in Gloucester and Middlesex
Counties of the same colony in 1723 prompted the assembly to provide for
the deportation to the West Indies of seven slave participants.[56]

[Footnote 55: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, I, 129, 130.]

[Footnote 56: _Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1712-1726_,
p. 36.]

In South Carolina, although depredations by runaways gave acute uneasiness
in 1711 and thereabouts, no conspiracy was discovered until 1720 when some
of the participants were burnt, some hanged and some banished.[57] Matters
were then quiet again until 1739 when on a September Sunday a score of
Angola blacks with one Jonny as their leader broke open a store, supplied
themselves with arms, and laid their course at once for Florida where they
had been told by Spanish emissaries welcome and liberty awaited them.
Marching to the beat of drums, slaughtering with ease the whites they came
upon, and drawing black recruits to several times their initial number, on
the Pon Pon road that day the rebels covered ten prosperous miles. But
when at evening they halted to celebrate their exploits with dancing and
plundered rum they were set upon by the whites whom couriers had collected.
Several were killed in the onslaught, and a few more were captured on the
spot. Most of the rest fled back to their cabins, but a squad of ten made
their way thirty miles farther on the route to Florida and sold their
lives in battle when overtaken. Of those captured on the field or in their
quarters some were shot but none were tortured. The toll of lives lost
numbered twenty-one whites and forty-four[58] blacks.

[Footnote 57: Letter of June 24, 1720, among the MS. transcripts in the
state capitol at Columbia of documents in the British Public Record
Office.]

[Footnote 58: _Gentleman's Magazine_, X, 127; South Carolina Historical
Society _Collections_, II, 270; Alexander Hewatt, _Historical Account of
South Carolina and Georgia_ (London, 1779), II, 72, 73. Joshua Coffin in
his _Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections_ (New York, 1860)
listed a revolt at Savannah, Ga., in 1728. But Savannah was not founded
until 1733, and it contained virtually no negroes prior to 1750.]

Following this and the New York panic of two years later, there was
remarkable quiet in race relations in general for a full half century. It
was not indeed until the spread of the amazing news from San Domingo and
the influx thence of white refugees and their slaves that a new series of
disturbances began on the continent. At Norfolk in 1792 some negroes were
arrested on suspicion of conspiracy but were promptly discharged for lack
of evidence;[59] and close by at Portsmouth in the next year there were
such savage clashes between the newly come French blacks and those of the
Virginia stock that citizens were alarmed for their own safety.[60] In
Louisiana an uprising on the plantation of Julien Poydras in Pointe
Coupee Parish in 1796 brought the execution of a dozen or two negroes and
sentences to prison of several whites convicted as their accomplices;[61]
and as late as 1811 an outbreak in St. Charles and St. James Parishes was
traced in part to San Domingo slaves.[62]

[Footnote 59: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, V, 540, 541, 546.]

[Footnote 60: _Ibid_., VI, 490, letter of a citizen who had just found four
strange negroes hanging from the branches of a tree near his door.]

[Footnote 61: C.C. Robin, _Voyages_ (Paris, 1806), II, 244 ff.; E.P.
Puckett, "Free Negroes in Louisiana" (MS.).]

[Footnote 62: M Puckett, _op. cit. Le Moniteur de la Louisiane_ (New
Orleans), Feb. 11, 1811, has mention of the manumission of a mulatto slave
at this time on the ground of his recent valiant defence of his master's
house against attacking insurgents.]

Gabriel's rising in the vicinity of Richmond, however, eclipsed all other
such events on the continent in this period. Although this affair was
of prodigious current interest its details were largely obscured by the
secrecy maintained by the court and the legislature in their dealings with
it. Reports in the newspapers of the time were copious enough but were
vague except as to the capture of the leading participants; and the
reminiscent journalism of after years was romantic to the point of
absurdity. It is fairly clear, however, that Gabriel and other slaves
on Thomas H. Prosser's plantation, which lay several miles distant from
Richmond, began to brew the conspiracy as early as June, 1800, and enlisted
some hundreds of confederates, perhaps more than a thousand, before
September 1, the date fixed for its maturity. Many of these were doubtless
residents of Richmond, and some it was said lived as far away as Norfolk.
The few muskets procured were supplemented by cutlasses made from scythe
blades and by plantation implements of other sorts; but the plan of
onslaught contemplated a speedy increase of this armament. From a
rendezvous six miles from Richmond eleven hundred men in three columns
under designated officers were to march upon the city simultaneously, one
to seize the penitentiary which then served also as the state arsenal,
another to take the powder magazine in another quarter of the town, and the
third to begin a general slaughter with such weapons as were already at
hand.

Things progressed with very little hitch until the very eve of the day
set. But then two things occurred, either of which happening alone would
probably have foiled the project. On the one hand a slave on Moseley
Sheppard's plantation informed his master of the plot; on the other hand
there fell such a deluge of rain that the swelling of the streams kept most
of the conspirators from reaching the rendezvous. Meanwhile couriers had
roused the city, and the rebels assembled could only disperse. Scores of
them were taken, including eventually Gabriel himself who eluded pursuit
for several weeks and sailed to Norfolk as a stowaway. The magistrates, of
course, had busy sessions, but the number of death sentences was less than
might have been expected. Those executed comprised Gabriel and five other
Prosser slaves along with nineteen more belonging to other masters; and
ten others, in scattered ownership, were deported. To provide for a more
general riddance of suspected negroes the legislature made secret overtures
to the federal government looking to the creation of a territorial
reservation to receive such colonists; but for the time being this came
to naught. The legislature furthermore created a permanent guard for the
capitol, and it liberated at the state's expense Tom and Pharaoh, slaves of
the Sheppard family, as reward for their services in helping to foil the
plot.[63]

[Footnote 63: T.W. Higginson, "Gabriel's Defeat," in the _Atlantic
Monthly_, X, 337-345, reprinted in the same author's _Travellers and
Outlaws_ (Boston, 1889), pp. 185-214; J.C. Ballagh, _History of Slavery in
Virginia_, p. 92; J.H. Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, p. 65; MS.
vouchers in the Virginia State Library recording public payments for
convicted slaves.]

Set on edge by Gabriel's exploit, citizens far and wide were abnormally
alert for some time thereafter; and perhaps the slaves here and there were
unusually restive. Whether the one or the other of these conditions
was most responsible, revelations and rumors were for several years
conspicuously numerous. In 1802 there were capital convictions of fourteen
insurgent or conspiring slaves in six scattered counties of Virginia;[64]
and panicky reports of uprisings were sent out from Hartford and Bertie
Counties, North Carolina.[65] In July, 1804, the mayor of Savannah received
from Augusta "information highly important to the safety, peace and
security" of his town, and issued appropriate orders to the local
militia.[66] Among rumors flying about South Carolina in this period, one
on a December day in 1805 telling of risings above and below Columbia
led to the planting of cannon before the state house there and to the
instruction of the night patrols to seize every negro found at large. An
over-zealous patrolman thereupon shot a slave who was peacefully following
his own master, and was indicted next day for murder. The peaceful passing
of the night brought a subsidence of the panic with the coming of day.[67]

[Footnote 64: Vouchers as above.]

[Footnote 65: Augusta, Ga., _Chronicle_, June 26, 1802.]

[Footnote 66: Thomas Gamble, Jr., _History of the City Government of
Savannah_ [Savannah, 1900], p. 68.]

[Footnote 67: "Diary of Edward Hooker," in the American Historical
Association _Report_ for 1896, pp. 881, 882.]

In Virginia, again, there were disturbing rumors at one place or another
every year or two from 1809 to 1814,[68] but no occurrence of tangible
character until the Boxley plot of 1816 in Spottsylvania and Louisa
Counties. George Boxley, the white proprietor of a country store, was a
visionary somewhat of John Brown's type. Participating in the religious
gatherings of the negroes and telling them that a little white bird had
brought him a holy message to deliver his fellowmen from bondage, he
enlisted many blacks in his project for insurrection. But before the
plot was ripe it was betrayed by a slave woman, and several negroes were
arrested. Boxley thereupon marched with a dozen followers on a Quixotic
errand of release, but on the road the blacks fell away, and he, after some
time in hiding, surrendered himself. Six of the negroes after conviction
were hanged and a like number transported; but Boxley himself broke jail
and escaped.[69]

[Footnote 68: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, X, 62, 63, 97, 368.]

[Footnote 69: _Ibid_., X, 433-436; _Louisiana Gazette_ (New Orleans), Apr.
18 and 24 (Reprinting a report from the _Virginia Herald_ of Mch. 9), and
July 12, 1816; MS. Vouchers in the Virginia State Library recording public
payments for convicted slaves.]

In the lower South a plot at Camden, South Carolina, in 1816[70] and
another at Augusta, Georgia,[71] three years afterward had like plans of
setting houses afire at night and then attacking other quarters of the
respective towns when the white men had left their homes defenceless. Both
plots were betrayed, and several participants in each were executed.
These conspiracies were eclipsed in turn by the elaborate Vesey plot at
Charleston in 1822, which, for the variety of the negro types involved, the
methods of persuasion used by the leading spirits and the sobriety of the
whites on the occasion is one of the most notable of such episodes on
record.

[Footnote 70: [Edwin C. Holland], _A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated
against the Southern and Western States, with historical notes of
insurrections_ (Charleston, 1822), pp. 75-77; H.T. Cook, _Life and Legacy
of David R. Williams_, p. 131; H.M. Henry, _Police Control of the Slave in
South Carolina_, pp. 151, 152.]

[Footnote 71: News item from Augusta in the _Louisiana Courier_ (New
Orleans), June 15, 1819.]

Denmark Vesey, brought from Africa in his youth, had bought his freedom
with part of a $1500 prize drawn by him in a lottery, and was in this
period an independent artisan. Harboring a deep resentment against the
whites, however, he began to plan his plot some four years before its
maturity. He familiarized himself with the Bible account of the deliverance
of the children of Israel, and collected pamphlet and newspaper material on
anti-slavery sentiment in England and the North and on occurrences in San
Domingo, with all of which on fit occasions he regaled the blacks with whom
he came into touch. Arguments based on such data brought concurrence of
negroes of the more intelligent sort, prominent among whom were certain
functionaries of the African Church who were already nursing grievances
on the score of the suppression of their ecclesiastical project by the
Charleston authorities.[72] The chief minister of that church, Morris
Brown, however, was carefully left out of the conspiracy. In appealing
to the more ignorant and superstitious element, on the other hand, the
services of Gullah Jack, so called because of his Angola origin, were
enlisted, for as a recognized conjuror he could bewitch the recalcitrant
and bestow charmed crabs' claws upon those joining the plot to make them
invulnerable. In the spring of 1822 things were put in train for the
outbreak. The Angolas, the Eboes and the Carolina-born were separately
organized under appropriate commanders; arrangements were made looking to
the support of the plantation slaves within marching distance of the city;
and letters were even sent by the negro cook on a vessel bound for San
Domingo with view apparently both to getting assistance from that island
and to securing a haven there in case the revolt should prove only
successful enough to permit the seizure of the ships in Charleston harbor.
Meanwhile the coachmen and draymen in the plot were told off to mobilize
the horses in their charge, pikes were manufactured, the hardware stores
and other shops containing arms were listed for special attention, and
plans were laid for the capture of the city's two arsenals as the first
stroke in the revolt. This was scheduled for midnight on Sunday, June 16.

[Footnote 72: See above, p. 421.]

On May 30 George, the body-servant of Mr. Wilson, told his master that Mr.
Paul's William had invited him to join a society which was to make a stroke
for freedom. William upon being seized and questioned by the city council
made something of a confession incriminating two other slaves, Mingo Harth
and Peter Poyas; but these were so staunch in their denials that they were
discharged, with confidential slaves appointed to watch them. William was
held for a week of solitary confinement, at the end of which he revealed
the extensive character of the plot and the date set for its maturity. The
city guard was thereupon strengthened; but the lapse of several days in
quiet was about to make the authorities incredulous, when another citizen
brought them word from another slave of information precisely like that
which had first set them on the _qui vive_. This caused the local militia
to be called out to stiffen the patrol. Then as soon as the appointed
Sunday night had passed, which brought no outbreak, the city council
created a special court as by law provided, comprising two magistrates
together with five citizens carefully selected for their substantial
character and distinguished position. These were William Drayton, Nathaniel
Heyward, James R. Pringle, James Legare and Robert J. Turnbull. More
sagacious and responsible men could certainly not have been found. A
committee of vigilance was also appointed to assist the court.

This court having first made its own rules that no negro was to be tried
except in the presence of his master or attorney, that everyone on trial
should be heard in his own defense, and that no one should be capitally
sentenced on the bare testimony of a single witness, proceeded to the trial
of Peter Poyas, Denmark Vesey and others against whom charges had then been
lodged. By eavesdropping those who were now convicted and confronting them
with their own words, confessions were procured implicating many others who
in turn were put on trial, including Gullah Jack whose necromancy could not
save him. In all 130 negroes were arrested, including nine colored freemen.
Of the whole number, twenty-five were discharged by the committee of
vigilance and 27 others by the court. Nine more were acquitted with
recommendations with which their masters readily complied, that they be
transported. Of those convicted, 34 were deported by public authority
and 35 were hanged. In addition four white men indicted for
complicity, comprising a German peddler, a Scotchman, a Spaniard and a
Charlestonian,[73] were tried by a regular court having jurisdiction over
whites and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to twelve months.

[Footnote 73: _An Account of the late intended Insurrection among a portion
of the Blacks of this City. Published by the Authority of the Corporation
of Charleston_ (Charleston, 1822); Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker (the
presiding magistrates of the special court), _An Official Report of the
Trials of sundry Negroes charged with an attempt to raise an insurrection,
with a report of the trials of four white persons on indictments for
attempting to excite the slaves to insurrection_ (Charleston, 1822); T.D.
Jervey, _Robert Y. Hayne and His Times_ (New York, 1909), pp. 130-136.]

A number of Charleston citizens promptly memorialized the state assembly
recommending that all free negroes be expelled, that the penalties
applicable to whites conspiring with negroes be made more severe, and that
the control over the blacks be generally stiffened.[74] The legislature
complied except as to the proposal for expulsion. Charlestonians also
organized an association for the prevention of negro disturbances; but by
1825 the public seems to have begun to lose its ardor in the premises.[75]

[Footnote 74: _Memorial of the Citizens of Charleston to the Senate and
House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina_ (Charleston,
1822), reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 103-116.]

[Footnote 75: Address of the association, in the Charleston _City Gazette_,
Aug. 5, 1825.]

The next salient occurrence in the series was the outbreak which brought
fame to Nat Turner and the devoted Virginia county of Southampton. Nat,
a slave who by the custom of the country had acquired the surname of his
first master, was the foreman of a small plantation, a Baptist exhorter
capable of reading the Bible, and a pronounced mystic. For some years, as
he told afterward when in custody, he had heard voices from the heavens
commanding him to carry on the work of Christ to make the last to be first
and the first last; and he took the sun's eclipse in February, 1831, as a
sign that the time was come. He then enlisted a few of his fellows in his
project, but proceeded to spend his leisure for several months in prayer
and brooding instead of in mundane preparation. When at length on Sunday
night, August 21, he began his revolt he had but a petty squad of
companions, with merely a hatchet and a broad-axe as weapons, and no
definite plan of campaign. First murdering his master's household and
seizing some additional equipment, he took the road and repeated the
process at whatever farmhouses he came upon. Several more negroes joined
the squad as it proceeded, though in at least one instance a slave resisted
them in defense of his master's family at the cost of his own life. The
absence of many whites from the neighborhood by reason of their attendance
at a camp-meeting across the nearby North Carolina line reduced the number
of victims, and on the other hand made the rally of the citizens less
expeditious and formidable when the alarm had been spread. By sunrise
the rebels numbered fifteen, part of whom were mounted, and their outfit
comprised a few firearms. Throughout the morning they continued their
somewhat aimless roving, slaughtering such white households as they
reached, enlisting recruits by persuasion or coercion, and heightening
their courage by draughts upon the apple-brandy in which the county, by
virtue of its many orchards and stills, abounded. By noon there were some
sixty in the straggling ranks, but when shortly afterward they met a squad
of eighteen rallying whites, armed like themselves mainly with fowling
pieces with birdshot ammunition, they fled at the first fire, and all but a
score dispersed. The courage of these whites, however, was so outweighed
by their caution that Nat and his fellows were able to continue their
marauding course in a new direction, gradually swelling their numbers to
forty again. That night, however, a false alarm stampeded their bivouac and
again dispersed all the faint-hearted. Nat with his remaining squad then
attacked a homestead just before daybreak on Tuesday, but upon repulse
by the five white men and boys with several slave auxiliaries who were
guarding it they retreated only to meet a militia force which completed
the dispersal. All were promptly killed or taken except Nat who secreted
himself near his late master's home until his capture was accomplished six
weeks afterward. The whites slain by the rebels numbered ten men, fourteen
women and thirty-one children.

The militia in scouring the countryside were prompted by the panic and its
vindictive reaction to shoot down a certain number of innocent blacks along
with the guilty and to make display of some of their severed heads. The
magistrates were less impulsive. They promptly organized a court comprising
all the justices of the peace in the county and assigned attorneys for
the defense of the prisoners while the public prosecutor performed his
appointed task. Forty-seven negroes all told were brought before the court.
As to the five free blacks included in this number the magistrates, who had
only preliminary jurisdiction in their cases, discharged one and remanded
four for trial by a higher court. Of the slaves four, and perhaps a fifth
regarding whom the record is blank, were discharged without trial, and
thirteen more were acquitted. Of those convicted seven were sentenced to
deportation, and seventeen with the ringleader among them, to death by
hanging. In addition there were several slaves convicted of complicity in
neighboring counties.[76]

[Footnote 76: W.S. Drewry, _Slave Insurrections in Virginia, 1830-1865_
(Washington, 1900), recounts this revolt in great detail, and gives a
bibliography. The vouchers in the Virginia archives record only eleven
executions and four deportations of Southampton slaves in this period. It
may be that the rest of those convicted were pardoned.]

This extraordinary event, occurring as it did after a century's lapse since
last an appreciable number of whites on the continent had lost their lives
in such an outbreak, set nerves on edge throughout the South, and promptly
brought an unusually bountiful crop of local rumors. In North Carolina
early in September it was reported at Raleigh that the blacks of Wilmington
had burnt the town and slaughtered the whites, and that several thousand
of them were marching upon Raleigh itself.[77] This and similarly alarming
rumors from Edenton were followed at once by authentic news telling merely
that conspiracies had been discovered in Duplin and Sampson Counties and
also in the neighborhood of Edenton, with several convictions resulting in
each locality.[78]