Gabriel's Rebellion

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. The site of Gabriel's execution was, for several years, believed to have been at the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, historically known as the Burial Ground for Negroes. His execution was advertised as occurring at the usual place; however, in 1800, that may have been a location other than the Burial Ground for Negroes. The location of Gabriel's burial is also unknown.

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."

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.

In 2002, the City of Richmond passed a resolution in honor of Gabriel on the 202nd anniversary of the planned rebellion. In 2007, the Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine gave Gabriel and his followers informal posthumous pardons in recognition that his cause, "the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality for all people—has prevailed in the light of history."