Gabriel's Rebellion

Gabriel's Rebellion
Part of the Slave Revolts in North America
DateAugust 30, 1800 (1800-08-30)
Location
GoalsEmancipation
Resulted inDiscovered, suppressed
Parties
Enslaved African-Americans
Lead figures

Gabriel Prosser  Executed

Number
Likely hundreds
Casualties and losses
70 arrested, 26 hanged
None

Gabriel's Rebellion was a planned slave rebellion in the Richmond, Virginia, area in the summer of 1800. Information regarding the revolt was leaked before its execution, and Gabriel, an enslaved blacksmith who planned the event, and twenty-five of his followers were hanged.

Gabriel's planned uprising was notable not because of its results—the rebellion was quelled before it could begin—but because of its potential for mass chaos and widespread violence. There were other slave rebellions, but this one "most directly confronted" the Founding Fathers "with the chasm between the ideal of liberty and their messy accommodations to slavery."[1]

Afterward, Virginia and other state legislatures passed restrictions on free blacks, as well as prohibiting the education, assembly, and hiring of enslaved people, to restrict their ability and chances to plan similar rebellions.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference DeFord was invoked but never defined (see the help page).