Historiography
The historian Douglas Egerton offered a new perspective on Gabriel in his book Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 & 1802 (1993). He based this on extensive primary research from surviving contemporary documents. Egerton found that Gabriel was a skilled blacksmith who was mostly "hired out" by his owner in Richmond foundries. Hiring out was the way that slaveholders earned money from their slaves, whom they needed less for labor as they had reduced the cultivation of tobacco as a crop. The market for tobacco was depressed, but Virginia planters also had to deal with depleted soils because of the crop. Slaveholders leased skilled slaves for jobs available in Virginia industries. Egerton concluded that Gabriel would have been stimulated and challenged at the foundries by interacting with co-workers of European, African and mixed descent. They hoped Thomas Jefferson's Republicans would liberate them from domination by the wealthy Federalist merchants of the city. In that environment, Gabriel also would have heard about the uprising and struggles of slaves in Saint Domingue.
Egerton believed that Gabriel had two white co-conspirators, at least one of whom was identified as a French national. He found reports that documentary evidence of their identity or involvement was sent to Governor Monroe but never produced in court, and suggests that it was to protect the Republican Party. The internal dynamics of Jefferson's and Monroe's party in the 1800 elections were complex. A significant part of the Republican base were major planters, colleagues of Jefferson and Madison. Egerton believes that any sign that white radicals, and particularly Frenchmen, had supported Gabriel's plan could have cost Jefferson the presidential election of 1800. Slaveholders feared such violent excesses as those related to the French Revolution after 1789 and the rebellion of slaves in Saint-Domingue. Egerton believed that Gabriel planned to take Governor Monroe hostage to negotiate an end to slavery. Then he planned to "drink and dine with the merchants of the city".
Egerton noted that Gabriel did not order his followers to kill all whites except Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen; rather, he instructed them not to kill any people in those three categories. During this period, Methodists and Quakers were active missionaries for manumission, and many slaves had been freed since the end of the Revolution in part due to their work. The French were considered allies as they had abolished slavery in their Caribbean colonies in 1794.
Gabriel initially escaped on a ship owned by a former overseer. Egerton found that he was a recently converted Methodist who repeatedly overlooked information as to Gabriel's true identity. A slave hired out to work on the ship turned in Gabriel, seeking the reward so that he could purchase his own freedom. The state paid him only $50, not the $300 advertised.
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Prosser