antations completely submerged. Brook Swamp, the strategic point for
the Negroes, was inundated; and the country Negroes could not get
into the city, nor could those in the city get out to the place of
rendezvous. The force of more than a thousand dwindled to three hundred,
and these, almost paralyzed by fear and superstition, were dismissed.
Meanwhile a slave who did not wish to see his master killed divulged the
plot, and all Richmond was soon in arms.

A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to the city and arrests
followed quickly. Three hundred dollars was offered by Governor Monroe
for the arrest of Gabriel, and as much more for Jack Bowler. Bowler
surrendered, but it took weeks to find Gabriel. Six men were convicted
and condemned to be executed on September 12, and five more on September
18. Gabriel was finally captured on September 24 at Norfolk on a vessel
that had come from Richmond; he was convicted on October 3 and executed
on October 7. He showed no disposition to dissemble as to his own plan;
at the same time he said not one word that incriminated anybody else.
After him twenty-four more men were executed; then it began to appear
that some "mistakes" had been made and the killing ceased. About the
time of this uprising some Negroes were also assembled for an outbreak
in Suffolk County; there were alarms in Petersburg and in the country
near Edenton, N.C.; and as far away as Charleston the excitement was
intense.

There were at least three other Negro insurrections of importance in the
period 1790-1820. When news came of the uprising of the slaves in Santo
Domingo in 1791, the Negroes in Louisiana planned a similar effort.[1]
They might have succeeded better if they had not disagreed as to the
hour of the outbreak, when one of them informed the commandant. As a
punishment twenty-three of the slaves were hanged along the banks of the
river and their corpses left dangling for days; but three white men who
assisted them and who were really the most guilty of all, were simply
sent out of the colony. In Camden, S. C, on July 4, 1816, some other
Negroes risked all for independence.[2] On various pretexts men from the
country districts were invited to the town on the appointed night, and
different commands were assigned, all except that of commander-in-chief,
which position was to be given to him who first forced the gates of the
arsenal. Again the plot was divulged by "a favorite and confidential
slave," o