accessible, can supply any authentic or trustworthy evidence as to the
real extent of the earlier plot. It certainly was not confined to the
mere environs of Richmond. The Norfolk _Epitome_ of Oct. 6 states that on
the 6th and 7th of the previous month one hundred and fifty blacks,
including twenty from Norfolk, were assembled near Whitlock's Mills in
Suffolk County, and remained in the neighborhood till the failure of the
Richmond plan became known. Petersburg newspapers also had letters
containing similar tales. Then the alarm spread more widely. Near
Edenton, N.C., there was undoubtedly a real insurrection, though promptly
suppressed; and many families ultimately removed from that vicinity in
consequence. In Charleston, S.C., there was still greater excitement, if
the contemporary press may be trusted; it was reported that the
freeholders had been summoned to appear in arms, on penalty of a fine of
fifteen pounds, which many preferred to pay rather than risk taking the
fever which then prevailed. These reports were, however, zealously
contradicted in letters from Charleston, dated Oct. 8; and the Charleston
newspapers up to Sept. 17 had certainly contained no reference to any
especial excitement. This alone might not settle the fact, for reasons
already given. But the omission of any such affair from the valuable
pamphlet published in 1822 by Edwin C. Holland, containing reminiscences
of insurrections in South Carolina, is presumptive evidence that no very
extended agitation occurred.
But wherever there was a black population, slave or emancipated, men's
startled consciences made cowards of them all, and recognized the negro
as a dangerous man, because an injured one. In Philadelphia it was
seriously proposed to prohibit the use of sky-rockets for a time, because
they had been employed as signals in San Domingo. "Even in Boston," said
the New-York _Daily Advertiser_ of Sept. 20, "fears are expressed, and
measures of prevention adopted." This probably refers to a singular
advertisement which appeared in some of the Boston newspapers on Sept.
16, and runs as follows:--
"NOTICE TO BLACKS.
"The officers of the police having made returns to the subscriber
of the names of the following persons who are Africans or
negroes, not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of
any of the United States, the same are hereby warned and directed
to depart out of this Commonwealth before the tenth day of
October next, as they would avoid the pains and penalties of the
law in that case provided, which was passed by the Legislature
March 26, 1788.
"CHARLES BULFINCH, Superintendent.
"By order and direction of the Selectmen."
The names annexed are about three hundred, with the places of their
supposed origin, and they occupy a column of the paper. So at least
asserts the _United-States Gazette_ of Sept. 23. "It seems probable,"
adds the editor, "from the nature of the notice, that some suspicion of
the design of the negroes is entertained; and we regret to say there is
too much cause." The law of 1788 above mentioned was "An Act for
suppressing rogues, vagabonds, and the like," which forbade all persons
of African descent, unless citizens of some one of the United States or
subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, from remaining more than two months
within the Commonwealth, on penalty of imprisonment and hard labor. This
singular statute remained unrepealed until 1834.
Amid the general harmony in the contemporary narratives of Gabriel's
insurrection, it would be improper to pass by one exceptional legend,
which by some singular fatality has obtained more circulation than all
the true accounts put together. I can trace it no farther back than Nat
Turner's time, when it was published in the Albany _Evening Journal_;
thence transferred to the _Liberator_ of Sept. 17, 1831, and many other
newspapers; then refuted in detail by the _Richmond Enquirer_ of Oct. 21;
then resuscitated in the John-Brown epoch by the Philadelphia _Press_,
and extensively copied. It is fresh, spirited, and full of graphic and
interesting details, nearly every one of which is altogether false.
Gabriel in this narrative becomes a rather mythical being, of vast
abilities and life-long preparations. He bought his freedom, it is
stated, at the age of twenty-one, and then travelled all over the
Southern States, enlisting confederates and forming stores of arms. At
length his plot was discovered, in consequence of three negroes having
been seen riding out of a stable-yard together; and the Governor offered
a reward of ten thousand dollars for further information, to which a
Richmond gentleman added as much more. Gabriel concealed himself on board
the "Sally Ann," a vessel just sailing for San Domingo, and was revealed
by his little nephew, whom he had sent for a jug of rum. Finally, the
narrative puts an eloquent dying speech into Gabriel's mouth, and, to
give a properly tragic consummation, causes him to be torn to death by
four wild horses. The last item is, however, omitted in the more recent
reprints of the story.
Every one of these statements appears to be absolutely erroneous. Gabriel
lived and died a slave, and was probably never out of Virginia. His plot
was voluntarily revealed by accomplices. The rewards offered for his
arrest amounted to three hundred dollars only. He concealed himself on
board the schooner "Mary," bound to Norfolk, and was discovered by the
police. He died on the gallows, with ten associates, having made no
address to the court or the people. All the errors of the statement were
contradicted when it was first made public, but they have proved very
hard to kill.
Some of these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with
this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both
being composed by a colored man. Several witnesses have assured me of
having heard this sung in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of
the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It is surely one
of history's strange parallelisms, that this fatal enterprise, like that
of John Brown afterwards, should thus have embalmed itself in music. And
twenty-two years after these events, their impression still remained
vivid enough for Benjamin Lundy, in Tennessee, to write: "So well had
they matured their plot, and so completely had they organized their
system of operations, that nothing but a seemingly miraculous
intervention of the arm of Providence was supposed to have been capable
of saving the city from pillage and flames, and the inhabitants thereof
from butchery. So dreadful was the alarm and so great the consternation
produced on this occasion, that a member of Congress from that State was
some time after heard to express himself in his place as follows: 'The
night-bell is never heard to toll in the city of Richmond, but the
anxious mother presses her infant more closely to her bosom.'" The
Congressman was John Randolph of Roanoke, and it was Gabriel who had
taught him the lesson.
And longer than the melancholy life of that wayward statesman,--down even
to the beginning of the American civil war,--there lingered in Richmond a
memorial of those days, most peculiar and most instructive. Before the
days of secession, when the Northern traveller in Virginia, after
traversing for weary leagues its miry ways, its desolate fields, and its
flowery forests, rode at last into its metropolis, he was sure to be
guided ere long to visit its stately Capitol, modelled by Jefferson, when
French minister, from the Maison Carrée. Standing before it, he might
admire undisturbed the Grecian outline of its exterior; but he found
himself forbidden to enter, save by passing an armed and uniformed
sentinel at the doorway. No other State of the Union then found it
necessary to protect its State House by a permanent cordon of bayonets.
Yet there for half a century stood sentinel the "Public Guard" of
Virginia; and when the traveller asked the origin of the precaution, he
was told that it was the lasting memorial of Gabriel's Defeat.
DENMARK VESEY
On Saturday afternoon, May 25, 1822, a slave named Devany, belonging to
Col. Prioleau of Charleston, S.C., was sent to market by his
mistress,--the colonel being absent in the country. After doing his
errands, he strolled down upon the wharves in the enjoyment of that
magnificent wealth of leisure which usually characterized the former
"house-servant" of the South, when beyond hail of the street-door. He
presently noticed a small vessel lying in the stream, with a peculiar
flag flying; and while looking at it, he was accosted by a slave named
William, belonging to Mr. John Paul, who remarked to him, "I have often
seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number 96 upon it
before." After some further conversation on this trifling point, William
suddenly inquired, "Do you know that something serious is about to take
place?" Devany disclaiming the knowledge of any graver impending crisis
than the family dinner, the other went on to inform him that many of the
slaves were "determined to right themselves." "We are determined," he
added, "to shake off our bondage, and for that purpose we stand on a good
foundation; many have joined, and if you will go with me, I will show you
the man who has the list of names, and who will take yours down."
This startling disclosure was quite too much for Devany: he was made of
the wrong material for so daring a project; his genius was culinary, not
revolutionary. Giving some excuse for breaking off the conversation, he
went forthwith to consult a free colored man, named Pensil or Pencell,
who advised him to warn his master instantly. So he lost no time in
telling the secret to his mistress and her young son; and on the return
of Col. Prioleau from the country, five days afterward, it was at once
revealed to him. Within an hour or two he stated the facts to Mr.
Hamilton, the intendant, or, as he would now be called, mayor; Mr.
Hamilton at once summoned the corporation, and by five o'clock Devany and
William were under examination.
This was the first warning of a plot which ultimately filled Charleston
with terror. And yet so thorough and so secret was the organization of
the negroes, that a fortnight passed without yielding the slightest
information beyond the very little which was obtained from these two.
William Paul was, indeed, put in confinement, and soon gave evidence
inculpating two slaves as his employers,--Mingo Harth and Peter Poyas.
But these men, when arrested, behaved with such perfect coolness, and
treated the charge with such entire levity;--their trunks and premises,
when searched, were so innocent of all alarming contents;--that they were
soon discharged by the wardens. William Paul at length became alarmed for
his own safety, and began to let out further facts piecemeal, and to
inculpate other men. But some of those very men came voluntarily to the
intendant, on hearing that they were suspected, and indignantly offered
themselves for examination. Puzzled and bewildered, the municipal
government kept the thing as secret as possible, placed the city guard in
an efficient condition, provided sixteen hundred rounds of ball
cartridges, and ordered the sentinels and patrols to be armed with loaded
muskets. "Such had been our fancied security, that the guard had
previously gone on duty without muskets, and with only sheathed bayonets
and bludgeons."
It has since been asserted, though perhaps on questionable authority,
that the Secretary of War was informed of the plot, even including some
details of the plan and the leader's name, before it was known in
Charleston. If so, he utterly disregarded it; and, indeed, so well did
the negroes play their part, that the whole report was eventually
disbelieved, while--as was afterwards proved--they went on to complete
their secret organization, and hastened by a fortnight the appointed day
of attack. Unfortunately for their plans, however, another betrayal took
place at the very last moment, from a different direction. A class-leader
in a Methodist church had been persuaded or bribed by his master to
procure further disclosures. He at length came and stated, that, about
three months before, a man named Rolla, slave of Gov. Bennett, had
communicated to a friend of his the fact of an intended insurrection, and
had said that the time fixed for the outbreak was the following Sunday
night, June 16. As this conversation took place on Friday, it gave but a
very short time for the city authorities to act, especially as they
wished neither to endanger the city nor to alarm it.
Yet so cautiously was the game played on both sides that the whole thing
was still kept a secret from the Charleston public; and some members of
the city government did not fully appreciate their danger till they had
passed it. "The whole was concealed," wrote the governor afterwards,
"until the time came; but secret preparations were made. Saturday night
and Sunday morning passed without demonstrations; doubts were excited,
and counter orders issued for diminishing the guard." It afterwards
proved that these preparations showed to the slaves that their plot was
betrayed, and so saved the city without public alarm. Newspaper
correspondence soon was full of the story, each informant of course
hinting plainly that he had been behind the scenes all along, and had
withheld it only to gratify the authorities in their policy of silence.
It was "now no longer a secret," they wrote; adding, that, for five or
six weeks, but little attention had been paid by the community to these
rumors, the city council having kept it carefully to themselves until a
number of suspicious slaves had been arrested. This refers to ten
prisoners who were seized on June 18, an arrest which killed the plot,
and left only the terrors of what might have been. The investigation,
thus publicly commenced, soon revealed a free colored man named Denmark
Vesey as the leader of the enterprise,--among his chief coadjutors being
that innocent Peter and that unsuspecting Mingo who had been examined and
discharged nearly three weeks before.
It is matter of demonstration, that, but for the military preparations on
the appointed Sunday night, the attempt would have been made. The
ringleaders had actually met for their final arrangements, when, by
comparing notes, they found themselves foiled; and within another week
they were prisoners on trial. Nevertheless, the plot which they had laid
was the most elaborate insurrectionary project ever formed by American
slaves, and came the nearest to a terrible success. In boldness of
conception and thoroughness of organization there has been nothing to
compare with it; and it is worth while to dwell somewhat upon its
details, first introducing the _dramatis personae_.
Denmark Vesey had come very near figuring as a revolutionist in Hayti,
instead of South Carolina. Capt. Vesey, an old resident of Charleston,
commanded a ship that traded between St. Thomas and Cape Français, during
our Revolutionary War, in the slave-transportation line. In the year 1781
he took on board a cargo of three hundred and ninety slaves, and sailed
for the Cape. On the passage, he and his officers were much attracted by
the beauty and intelligence of a boy of fourteen, whom they unanimously
adopted into the cabin as a pet. They gave him new clothes, and a new
name, Télémaque, which was afterwards gradually corrupted into Telmak and
Denmark. They amused themselves with him until their arrival at Cape
Français, and then, "having no use for the boy," sold their pet as if he
had been a macaw or a monkey. Capt. Vesey sailed for St. Thomas; and,
presently making another trip to Cape Français, was surprised to hear
from his consignee that Télémaque would be returned on his hands as being
"unsound,"--not in theology nor in morals, but in body,--subject to
epileptic fits, in fact. According to the custom of that place, the boy
was examined by the city physician, who required Capt. Vesey to take him
back; and Denmark served him faithfully, with no trouble from epilepsy,
for twenty years, travelling all over the world with him, and learning to
speak various languages. In 1800 he drew a prize of fifteen hundred
dollars in the East Bay-street Lottery, with which he bought his freedom
from his master for six hundred dollars,--much less than his market
value. From that time, the official report says, he worked as a carpenter
in Charleston, distinguished for physical strength and energy. "Among
those of his color he was looked up to with awe and respect. His temper
was impetuous and domineering in the extreme, qualifying him for the
despotic rule of which he was ambitious. All his passions were
ungovernable and savage; and to his numerous wives and children he
displayed the haughty and capricious cruelty of an Eastern bashaw."
"For several years before he disclosed his intentions to any one, he
appears to have been constantly and assiduously engaged in endeavoring to
imbitter the minds of the colored population against the white. He
rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of the
Scriptures which he thought he could pervert to his purpose, and would
readily quote them to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God;
that slaves were bound to attempt their emancipation, however shocking
and bloody might be the consequences; and that such efforts would not
only be pleasing to the Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined, and their
success predicted, in the Scriptures. His favorite texts when he
addressed those of his own color were Zech. xiv. 1-3, and Josh. vi. 21;
and in all his conversations he identified their situation with that of
the Israelites. The number of inflammatory pamphlets on slavery brought
into Charleston from some of our sister States within the last four years
(and once from Sierra Leone), and distributed amongst the colored
population of the city, for which there was a great facility, in
consequence of the unrestricted intercourse allowed to persons of color
between the different States in the Union, and the speeches in Congress
of those opposed to the admission of Missouri into the Union, perhaps
garbled and misrepresented, furnished him with ample means for inflaming
the minds of the colored population of the State; and by distorting
certain parts of those speeches, or selecting from them particular
passages, he persuaded but too many that Congress had actually declared
them free, and that they were held in bondage contrary to the laws of the
land. Even whilst walking through the streets in company with another, he
was not idle; for if his companion bowed to a white person, he would
rebuke him, and observe that all men were born equal, and that he was
surprised that any one would degrade himself by such conduct; that he
would never cringe to the whites, nor ought any one who had the feelings
of a man. When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would sarcastically and
indignantly reply, 'You deserve to remain slaves;' and if he were further
asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, 'Go and buy a spelling-book,
and read the fable of Hercules and the Wagoner,' which he would then
repeat, and apply it to their situation. He also sought every opportunity
of entering into conversation with white persons, when they could be
overheard by negroes near by, especially in grog-shops,--during which
conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on slavery; and
sometimes, when, from the character he was conversing with, he found he
might still be bolder, he would go so far, that, had not his declarations
in such situations been clearly proved, they would scarcely have been
credited. He continued this course until some time after the commencement
of the last winter; by which time he had not only obtained incredible
influence amongst persons of color, but many feared him more than their
owners, and, one of them declared, even more than his God."
It was proved against him, that his house had been the principal place of
meeting for the conspirators, that all the others habitually referred to
him as the leader, and that he had shown great address in dealing with
different temperaments and overcoming a variety of scruples. One witness
testified that Vesey had read to him from the Bible about the deliverance
of the children of Israel; another, that he had read to him a speech
which had been delivered "in Congress by a Mr. King" on the subject of
slavery, and Vesey had said that "this Mr. King was the black man's
friend; that he, Mr. King, had declared he would continue to speak,
write, and publish pamphlets against slavery the longest day he lived,
until the Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves, for that
slavery was a great disgrace to the country." But among all the reports
there are only two sentences which really reveal the secret soul of
Denmark Vesey, and show his impulses and motives. "He said he did not go
with Creighton to Africa, because he had not a will; he wanted to stay
and see what he could do for his fellow-creatures." The other takes us
still nearer home. Monday Gell stated in his confession, that Vesey, on
first broaching the plan to him, said "he was satisfied with his own
condition, being free; but, as all his children were slaves, he wished to
see what could be done for them."
It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent
preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a
condition of freedom, to the _naïve_ astonishment of his judges. "It is
difficult to imagine," says the sentence finally passed on Denmark Vesey,
"what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprise so
wild and visionary. You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and
enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation. You had, therefore,
much to risk and little to gain." Yet one witness testified: "Vesey said
the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise. I
said, I was living well; he said, though I was, others were not, and that
'twas such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and
that after all things were well he would mark me." "His general
conversation," said another witness, a white boy, "was about religion,
which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the
creation of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights,
blacks as well as whites, etc.; all his religious remarks were mingled
with slavery." And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even
after the betrayal of his cherished plans. "After the plot was
discovered," said Monday Gell, in his confession, "Vesey said it was all
over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned,
by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying
together."
The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter
Poyas. Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the
organizing mind. He kept the register of "candidates," and decided who
should or should not be enrolled. "We can't live so," he often reminded
his confederates; "we must break the yoke." "God has a hand in it; we
have been meeting for four years, and are not yet betrayed." Peter was a
ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value. He was to be the military
leader. His plans showed some natural generalship: he arranged the
night-attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the
streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition
were kept for sale. He voluntarily undertook the management of the most
difficult part of the enterprise,--the capture of the main
guard-house,--and had pledged himself to advance alone and surprise the
sentinel. He was said to have a magnetism in his eyes, of which his
confederates stood in great awe; if he once got his eye upon a man, there
was no resisting it. A white witness has since narrated, that, after his
arrest, he was chained to the floor in a cell, with another of the
conspirators. Men in authority came, and sought by promises, threats, and
even tortures, to ascertain the names of other accomplices. His
companion, wearied out with pain and suffering, and stimulated by the
hope of saving his own life, at last began to yield. Peter raised
himself, leaned upon his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying
quietly, "Die like a man," and instantly lay down again. It was enough;
not another word was extorted.