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CW Journal
: Winter 2005-2006 : Slave Conspiracies in Colonial Virginia
by Mary Miley Theobald
There was in colonial Virginia a relentless fear of slave uprisings. Rumors and
reports fed the anxieties of a slaveholding society, and some of them were
founded in fact. But there was no organized slave uprising in Virginia until
well into the nineteenth century. All the plots were uncovered or betrayed
before they could be carried out. Luck—bad for the slaves, good for the
masters—played a role, but there were other factors.
One was the number of slaves in the colony and the ability of those
slaves to communicate with one another. Until the early years of the eighteenth
century, there were too few slaves in Virginia to form a critical mass.
Illiteracy and the lack of a common language among transported Africans
scattered across unfamiliar territory hindered communication. So did distances
between plantations. As conditions changed, Virginia slave conspiracies became
more frequent. But not until the antebellum period did one become an insurrection.
As every Virginia fourth grader
learns, the first Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619. Labor was scarce
and these few people were quickly purchased on the same terms as English
indentured servants: after seven years of labor, they were free. Masters were
buying labor, not people, although the distinction was lost on many. By 1625,
there were said to be twenty-three Africans serving in Virginia; twenty-five
years later, there were 300, or 2 percent of the population.
Rebellious indentured servants, black and white, posed a threat.
Records from 1644 mention, for example, Africans belonging to a Mrs. Wormley
who engaged in "riotous & rebellious conduct." But bad behavior and running
away do not constitute a conspiracy.
Fear of rebellion, among
other things, led to the slave patrols that hunted runaways and people
"rambling Abroad" without passes. The penalties for such infractions grew
increasingly harsh. Rashad Brown is the object of Lee Peters, left, and Richard
Nicholl's horseback chase.
Click image to enlarge
View additional images of the chase, Richard Nicholl's gun, Lee Peter's gun, and Rashad Brown |
By the 1660s, the status of African servants had hardened into
permanent servitude based on skin color. Now there were slaves in Virginia and
labor-starved tobacco planters wanted more.
The plot exposed during this decade was a conspiracy of slaves and
indentured servants who planned "to destroy their masters and afterwards to set
up for themselves." According to colonist Robert Beverley, writing forty years
after the fact, the uprising was led by mutinous and rebellious followers of
Oliver Cromwell, "soldiers that were sent thither as servants" when King
Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. Little is known about the scheme
beyond its date and location—Gloucester County in 1663. As would happen
again and again, the plot was betrayed from the inside. The informant, an
indentured servant named Berkenhead, received a reward of five thousand pounds
of tobacco plus his freedom. Several bloody heads dangled from local chimney
tops as a gruesome warning to others.
In 1681 about 3,000 slaves worked alongside 15,000 white indentured servants—about
4 percent of the population, but a number that was rising. During this decade
were Virginia's first significant slave conspiracies discovered.
A widespread conspiracy in the Northern Neck was crushed in 1687. Its
leaders were executed. When authorities learned that the plotting was done
under the cover of gatherings for slave funerals, they prohibited slave
funerals. The next year, the Northern Neck was the site of another attempted
uprising, this one led by "Sam, a Negro Servt to Richard Metcalfe." A repeat
offender, he had "several times endeavoured to promote a Negro Insurreccon in
this Colony."
"To deter him & others from the like evil practice for time to
come," the court ordered the sheriff of James City County to whip him severely,
and return him to the Westmoreland County sheriff to be whipped again. Sam
would forever wear "a strong Iron collar affixed about his neck with four
sprigs." Should he leave his master's plantation or remove the collar, he would
be hanged.
The militia patrols,
often comprised of poor whites who were not slave owners, were forced to leave
their farms to look for suspicious slaves, almost none of whom were guilty of
anything. Richard Josey is run to ground by, from left, Ryan Remis, Doug
Horota, and Bob Albergotti.
Click image to enlarge
View additional images of the escape, Richard Josey running, a man in pursuit, and Richard Josey. |
During the early years of the eighteenth century, Virginia slave
conspiracies became more frequent and ambitious. In 1709 a plot involving
enslaved Indians as well as Africans spread through at least three
counties—James City, Surry, and Isle of Wight. Of the four ringleaders,
Scipio, Salvadore, Tom Shaw, and Peter, all but Peter were quickly jailed.
Their fate is not known. Peter escaped and remained at large for at least a
year—a reward of £10 was still being offered in 1710 for his capture
alive; £5 if dead.
Another conspiracy in the same area—perhaps inspired by Peter and
involving only African American slaves—was to have begun on Easter, 1710.
A slave named Will, however, betrayed it to authorities. Will got his freedom
and his owner Robert Ruffin was reimbursed for his value with £40 of public
money. Two of the plot's leaders were tried by the General Court, convicted,
and executed. Wrote Governor Edmund Jenings in his report to the London Lords
of Trade, "I hope their fate will strike such terror in the other negroes as will
keep them from forming such designs for the future, without being obliged to
make an example of any more of them."
When Hugh Drysdale
arrived in Williamsburg in 1722 to
begin his term as Virginia's governor, he found the jail full of mutinous
slaves awaiting trial. Three of the leaders were convicted of "Conspiring among
themselves and with the said other Slaves to kill murder & destroy very
many" of His Majesty's subjects and sentenced to be sold out of the colony.
According to Drysdale, their design
was to cutt off
their masters, and possess themselves of the country; but as this would have
been as impracticable in the attempt as it was foolish in the contrivance, I
can foresee no other consequence of this conspiracy than the stirring upp the
next Assembly to make more severe laws for keeping their slaves in greater
subjection etc.
Every slave rebellion or rumor of plotting resulted in laws increasing
the severity of punishment, curtailing slaves' movements, and restricting their
ability to assemble, attend funerals or religious services, or possess weapons.
Bakari, Watson, Gordon,
James, and Martin as the jailed ringleaders of the 1731 Norfolk conspiracy
after the chance discovery of their plot. Several were hanged.
Click image to enlarge |
After the 1722 conspiracy came another, perhaps related to Middlesex
and Gloucester counties. It involved free blacks as well as slaves and
mulattos. There was not, however, enough evidence to convict the free blacks.
Seven slaves were sentenced to be sold and transported out of the
colony—a decision explained by the high cost to the public treasury of
reimbursing masters for executed slaves. Drysdale told the General Assembly
that the laws were
very deficient in
the due punishing any intended Insurrection of your Slaves, you have had a Late
Experience of the Lameness of them; I am persuaded you are too well acquainted
with the Cruel dispositions of those Creatures, when they have it in their power
to destroy or distress, to let Slipp this faire opportunity of making more
proper Laws against them.
The legislature agreed and passed additional regulations, including
several aimed squarely at free blacks. Their right to vote was expressly
denied, as was their ability to possess firearms.
By 1730, Indian slavery was over and the number of white indentured
servants was dwindling, but black slaves had risen to about a quarter of
Virginia's population. White Virginians' anxiety increased proportionately.
In the fall of that year, Governor William Gooch reported to the Board
of Trade that another slave uprising had been scotched. The spark was a false
rumor that "His Majesty had sent Orders for setting of them free as soon as they were Christians, and that these
Orders were Suppressed." Gooch tried to learn the source of this falsehood and
called out the militia to take up any slave found off his master's plantation.
"A great many" were made prisoner and were whipped for "rambling Abroad," and
by this method Gooch hoped "to Convince them that their best way is to rest
contented with their Condition."
Six months later, in the middle of winter, Phase Two of the
insurrection began:
Negros, in the
Countys of Norfolk & Princess Anne, had the boldness to Assemble on a
Sunday while the People were at Church, and to Chuse from amongst themselves
Officers to Comand them in their intended Insurrection, which was to have been
put in Execution very soon after: But this Meeting being happily discovered and
many of them taken up and examined, the whole Plot was detected.
After a trial, four ringleaders were executed and
the rest harshly punished.
News of the Nat Turner rebellion of 1831 in Southampton
County, Virginia, was broadcast to the nation in bloody tales of merciless
murder. Twenty slaves hanged, and about 100 more, many innocent, lost their
lives in the tide of revenge that followed.
Click image to enlarge |
The insurrection had spread to as many as five other counties, Gooch
informed the Board of Trade, though the plot had not advanced as far in them as
it had in Norfolk County. He ordered the militia to patrol two or three times a
week to prevent night meetings, and had every man bring his guns to church on
Sundays so that they would not "be Seized by the Slaves in their Absence, if the
same mutinous Spirit should be Revived amongst them." Gooch told the Bishop of
London that some of the blame for slave unrest fell on cruel masters who "use
their Negroes no better than their Cattle."
Word of the aborted uprising blew like the wind to other Atlantic
colonies. In Philadelphia, Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette reported that the insurrection was:
Occasioned by a Report at Col. Spottswood's Arrival, that he had
Direction from his Majesty to free all baptiz'd Negroes; many Masters and Mistresses
having baptized their Slaves in Order to instruct them in the Christian Faith:
The Negroes have improve'd this Notion to a great Height: It is said some of
the Ringleaders are taken: Five Counties are in Arms pursuing others, with
Order to kill them if they do not Submit.
The Gazette story
attempted to reassure its readers with a patronizing bit of humor reported by
Captain Willis of the Amity,
who had just arrived in Philadelphia from Virginia. During the voyage, a black
stowaway was discovered on board. The man said that he was heading to England
on behalf of the slaves to petition the king for their freedom. "He was going
Embassador from the Negroes to his Majesty King George. However, his Excellency
was turned ashore, and whip't thro' every County to the Place from whence he
came."
The Norfolk conspiracy led
to further crackdowns on the slave population and stringent demands on
Virginia's militia. The militia was made up not of paid professional military
men but of farmers and planters, many of whom did not own slaves. Armed and
mounted, the militia's job was to patrol the countryside in search of
suspicious gatherings, a dangerous process so time-consuming that it "has
occasioned a good deal of Fatigue to the Militia, and some loss in their Crops,
as happening at a time their Labour & Industry were much wanted in their
Grounds." This expensive system of policing brought grumbles from the poor
whites who owned no slaves themselves and were unable to pay fines for failure
to perform the required militia duty. They recognized that the system favored
the slave-owning minority who were compensated with tax money for slaves that
were executed and who could buy their way out of participating in the patrols.
The resentment of poor whites would reach its peak during the Civil War when
similar exemptions excused slave owners from the fighting.
For the next one hundred years, Virginia's enslaved and free blacks continued to plot uprisings, but, like Gabriel
Prosser's 1800 rebellion near Richmond, all were discovered or abandoned before
they could be put into motion. In other colonies from South Carolina to New
York, however, major uprisings shook the white population.
One hundred years after the discovery of the Norfolk conspiracy, the
worst fears of Virginia's whites were realized. In 1831 in Southampton County,
Nat Turner led the first successful slave revolt in Virginia, the largest and
most consequential in United States history. Inspired by the success of a
Haitian revolution in 1790 that freed the island's slaves and threw off French
rule, Turner aimed for no less. The immediate result was about sixty white
farmers killed and about twenty captured slaves tried and hanged. But the
backlash resulted in the deaths of as many as a hundred more slaves, many who
had nothing to do with the rebellion, and laws that made the "peculiar
institution" even harsher than it had been.
What made Turner's rebellion succeed when all previous attempts had
failed? This time the uprising was not betrayed, but it was demographics that
made the difference.
Virginia's African American population had grown to nearly half a
million, or 40 percent of the total. No Africans had been brought to America
legally since the end of the slave trade in 1808, so most of Virginia's slaves
were "country born" rather than "outlandish," meaning born in lands out of the
country, or Africa. They communicated easily amongst themselves in English and
were familiar with the countryside and with white customs and habits. The
leaders of the most elaborate slave insurrections—men like Gabriel
Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner—were literate. They were preachers
or possessed specific skills such as blacksmithing or carpentry that enabled
them to move about with greater freedom than the average field hand.
Ironically, the more valuable certain slaves became in terms of skills and
abilities, the more adept they were in resisting slavery. They had acculturated
and, having done so, had greater talent for coordinating rebellion.
For further reading:
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Historic Triangle
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