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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Rebellion, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Rebellion
+       Five Slave Revolts
+
+Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8432]
+This file was first posted on July 9, 2003
+Last updated: April 29, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK REBELLION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, Thomas Berger, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACK REBELLION: FIVE SLAVE REVOLTS
+
+From Travellers and Outlaws
+
+Episodes In American History
+
+
+By Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+With An Appendix Of Authorities
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: This text contains five chapters of T.W. Higgison's
+'Travellers and Outlaws'. This collection is commonly referred to as
+'Black Rebellion: five slave revolts'.]
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE:
+
+The author would express his thanks to the proprietors and editors of the
+_Atlantic Monthly_, _Harper's Magazine_, and the _Century_, for their
+permission to reprint such portions of this volume as were originally
+published in those periodicals.
+
+CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+
+The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the
+skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica when some fresh foray of those
+unconquered guerrillas swept down from the outlying plantations, startled
+the Assembly from its order, Gen. Williamson from his billiards, and Lord
+Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,--endangering, according to the
+official statement, "public credit," "civil rights," and "the prosperity,
+if not the very existence, of the country," until they were "persuaded to
+make peace" at last. They were the Circassians of the New World, but they
+were black, instead of white; and as the Circassians refused to be
+transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so the Maroons refused to be
+transferred from Spanish dominion to English, and thus their revolt
+began. The difference is, that while the white mountaineers numbered four
+hundred thousand, and only defied Nicholas, the black mountaineers
+numbered less than two thousand, and defied Cromwell; and while the
+Circassians, after years of revolt, were at last subdued, the Maroons, on
+the other hand, who rebelled in 1655, were never conquered, but only made
+a compromise of allegiance, and exist as a separate race to-day.
+
+When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was not
+a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had found
+there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only by
+those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of human
+skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign races,--an
+effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen hundred, with a
+black slave population quite as large and infinitely more hardy and
+energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the English: the negroes
+remained unsubdued. The slaveholders were banished from the island: the
+slaves only exiled themselves to the mountains; thence the English could
+not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers whom the English employed. And when
+Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and peace was made with Spain,
+and the children of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were beginning to grow
+rich by importing slaves for Roman-Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still
+held their own wild empire in the mountains, and, being sturdy heathens
+every one, practised Obeah rites in approved pagan fashion.
+
+The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the Spanish
+word _Marrano_, a wild boar,--these fugitives being all boar-hunters;
+according to another, from _Marony_, a river separating French and Dutch
+Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells; and by another
+still, from _Cimarron_, a word meaning untamable, and used alike for apes
+and runaway slaves. But whether these rebel marauders were regarded as
+monkeys or men, they made themselves equally formidable. As early as
+1663, the Governor and Council of Jamaica offered to each Maroon, who
+should surrender, his freedom and twenty acres of land; but not one
+accepted the terms. During forty years, forty-four Acts of Assembly were
+passed in respect to them, and at least a quarter of a million pounds
+sterling were expended in the warfare against them. In 1733, the force
+employed in this service consisted of two regiments of regular troops,
+and the whole militia of the island; but the Assembly said that "the
+Maroons had within a few years greatly increased, notwithstanding all the
+measures that had been concerted for their suppression," "to the great
+terror of his Majesty's subjects," and "to the manifest weakening and
+preventing the further increase of strength and inhabitants of the
+island."
+
+The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was
+called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and
+blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn
+Dallas's History of the Maroons; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as
+Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were
+consolidated into one force, and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like
+Schamyl, was religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah
+influence he established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and
+insurgents; no party could be sent forth, by the government, but he knew
+it in time to lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region
+left unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition;
+and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot, and never
+risked a battle, his forces naturally increased, while those of his
+opponents were decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a
+prisoner; it was impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing
+with them, as Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by
+victory;" and the only men who could obtain the slightest advantage
+against them were the imported Mosquito Indians, or the "Black Shot," a
+company of Government negroes. For nine full years this particular war
+continued unchecked, Gen. Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by
+night.
+
+The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession of
+the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as by
+an earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the
+California cañons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the
+Atlantic States, known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or
+symbolically as purgatories. These Jamaica chasms vary from two hundred
+yards to a mile in length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet
+high, and often absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end
+admit but one man at a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can
+grow; water flows within them; and they often communicate with one
+another, forming a series of traps for an invading force. Tired and
+thirsty with climbing, the weary soldiers toil on, in single file,
+without seeing or hearing an enemy, up the steep and winding path they
+traverse one "cockpit," then enter another. Suddenly a shot is fired from
+the dense and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each
+dropping its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction,
+when a more murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights
+above flash with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came
+seems to close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in
+some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and
+their agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again,
+farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is
+usually sufficient; disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with
+them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and
+carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, and the Government
+House.
+
+It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period,
+should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more
+difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover,
+these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of
+warfare seemed to them unjustifiable; and the description given by
+Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,--"the grandest
+of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of
+a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a
+provision-ground, or cut them off from water. But there was little
+satisfaction in this: the wild-pine leaves and the grapevine-withes
+supplied the rebels with water; and their plantation-grounds were the
+wild pineapple and the plantain-groves, and the forests, where the wild
+boars harbored, and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were
+militiamen. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought
+about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting
+parties, Cudjoe and Gen. Williamson.
+
+But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and
+respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations
+without the medium of a preliminary bullet, required some ingenuity of
+manoeuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious: he would
+not come halfway to meet any one; nothing would content him but an
+interview in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most
+difficult passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties, to
+signal with their horns, one by one, the approach of the
+plenipotentiaries, and then to retire on the main body. Through this line
+of dangerous sentinels, therefore, Col. Guthrie and his handful of men
+bravely advanced; horn after horn they heard sounded, but there was no
+other human noise in the woods, and they had advanced till they saw the
+smoke of the Maroon huts before they caught a glimpse of a human form.
+
+A conversation was at last opened with the invisible rebels. On their
+promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them; then
+several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable
+chief was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat,
+humpbacked, dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves,
+and an old felt hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental
+scarlet, he could not have been treated with more distinguished
+consideration; indeed, in that case, "the exchange of hats" with which
+Dr. Russell finally volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify
+negotiations, might have been a less severe test of good fellowship. This
+fine stroke of diplomacy had its effect, however; the rebel captains
+agreed to a formal interview with Col. Guthrie and Capt. Sadler, and a
+treaty was at last executed with all due solemnity, under a large
+cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. This treaty recognized
+the military rank of "Capt. Cudjoe," "Capt. Accompong," and the rest;
+gave assurance that the Maroons should be "forever hereafter in a perfect
+state of freedom and liberty;" ceded to them fifteen hundred acres of
+land; and stipulated only that they should keep the peace, should harbor
+no fugitive from justice or from slavery, and should allow two white
+commissioners to remain among them, simply to represent the British
+Government.
+
+During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large
+body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected,
+however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the
+mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,--a few fires
+left burning with old women to watch them,--a few provision-grounds
+exposed by clearing away the bushes,--they lured the troops far up among
+the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all
+fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream, where
+they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until finally they
+forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss. Three months after
+this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable interview, exchanging
+hostages first. The position of the white hostage, at least, was not the
+most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by the women and children
+with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while the little boys pointed
+their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and that with evident relish.
+However, Capt. Quao, like Capt. Cudjoe, made a treaty at last; and hats
+were interchanged, instead of hostages.
+
+Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of
+hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the
+Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the
+situation of their chief town, that the English Government has erected
+barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on
+the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by
+the white population below; and they lived on a daintier diet, so that
+the English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The
+mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of
+millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to
+mountain again. They hunted the wild boars, and prepared the flesh by
+salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious
+"jerked hog" of buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry,
+cultivated corn and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas, and papaws and
+mameys, and avocados, and all luxurious West-Indian fruits; the very
+weeds of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in
+their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked
+across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and
+over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter
+ocean-horizon, and the illimitable sky.
+
+They had senses like those of American Indians; tracked each other by the
+smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called to each other by
+horns, using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and
+distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke
+English diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah rites
+quite undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated largely with
+the slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty stipulations;
+sometimes brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed them; left their
+towns and settled on the planters lands when they preferred them: but
+were quite orderly and luxuriously happy. During the formidable
+insurrection of the Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a dubious
+part. When left to go on their own way, they did something towards
+suppressing it; but when placed under the guns of the troops, and ordered
+to fire on those of their own color, they threw themselves on the ground
+without discharging a shot. Nevertheless, they gradually came up into
+reputable standing; they grew more and more industrious and steady; and
+after they had joined very heartily in resisting D'Estaing's threatened
+invasion of the island in 1779, it became the fashion to speak of "our
+faithful and affectionate Maroons."
+
+In 1795, their position was as follows: Their numbers had not materially
+increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the outskirts of
+plantations; nor materially diminished, for many runaway slaves had
+joined them; while there were also separate settlements of fugitives, who
+had maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white superintendents
+had lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without the slightest
+official authority, but with a great deal of actual influence. But there
+was an "irrepressible conflict" behind all this apparent peace, and the
+slightest occasion might, at any moment, revive all the old terror. That
+occasion was close at hand.
+
+Capt. Cudjoe and Capt. Accompong, and the other founders of Maroon
+independence, had passed away; and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead,
+in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of
+Maroon majesty: he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with gold lace
+and plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he was helped
+first at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he presided at
+councils as magnificently as at table, though with less appetite; and
+possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human
+being. The real power lay entirely with Major James, the white
+superintendent, who had been brought up among the Maroons by his father
+(and predecessor), and who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil
+hour, the Government removed him, and put a certain unpopular Capt.
+Craskell in his place; and as there happened to be, about the same time,
+a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons, who had
+been seized and publicly whipped on a charge of hog-stealing, their
+kindred refused to allow the new superintendent to remain in the town. A
+few attempts at negotiation only brought them to a higher pitch of wrath,
+which ended in their despatching the following peculiar diplomatic note
+to the Earl of Balcarres: "The Maroons wishes nothing else from the
+country but battle, and they desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at
+all. So they are waiting every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David
+Schaw will see you on Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till
+Monday, nine o'clock, and if they don't come up, they will come down
+themselves." Signed, "Col. Montagu and all the rest."
+
+It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were
+concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect.
+Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so favorably
+impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of money for
+their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Col. Gallimore," a Jamaica
+Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing some bullets into the
+contribution-box. And it was probably in accordance with his view of the
+subject, that, when the Maroons sent ambassadors in return, they were at
+once imprisoned, most injudiciously and unjustly; and when Old Montagu
+himself and thirty-seven others, following, were seized and imprisoned
+also, it is not strange that the Maroons, joined by many slaves, were
+soon in open insurrection.
+
+Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The fighting
+men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five hundred;
+against whom the Government could bring nearly fifteen hundred regular
+troops and several thousand militiamen. Lord Balcarres himself took the
+command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a large force
+up to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as expeditiously
+as possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably defeated, and had
+to fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the troops, in which some
+forty or fifty were killed,--including Col. Sandford, commanding the
+regulars, and the bullet-loving Col. Gallimore, in command of the
+militia,--while not a single Maroon was even wounded, so far as could be
+ascertained.
+
+After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually
+got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had
+been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season; and,
+between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous.
+Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all
+their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their
+lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations far below. The
+only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the
+superintendent just removed by Government; and his services were not
+employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a
+volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants had
+yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the smell
+of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march, including a
+climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought
+them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he,
+pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can
+enter here; no white man except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon
+establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I
+have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far
+as that. There are two other ways of getting into the defile, practicable
+for the Maroons, but not for any one of you. In neither of them can I
+ascend or descend with my arms, which must be handed to me, step by step,
+as practised by the Maroons themselves. One of the ways lies to the
+eastward, and the other to the westward; and they will take care to have
+both guarded, if they suspect that I am with you; which, from the route
+you have come to-day, they will. They now see you, and if you advance
+fifty paces more, they will convince you of it." At this moment a Maroon
+horn sounded the notes indicating his name; and, as he made no answer, a
+voice was heard, inquiring if he were among them. "If he is," said the
+voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to hurt him, but as for the rest
+of you, come on and try battle if you choose." But the gentlemen did not
+choose.
+
+In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and
+worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the
+whole force of the island, and they were defending their liberty by
+precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half
+a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the
+enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from
+their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an
+eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at
+large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a
+country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and
+prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers
+had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen;
+while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them
+was known to have been killed. Capt. Craskell, the banished
+superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole
+slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and
+would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of
+French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained
+away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the lieutenant-governor
+announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the
+French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner, named
+Murenson, had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet)
+had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and
+threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it
+all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three
+hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred
+and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined
+them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong
+tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and
+various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different
+parishes, with the same object of self-protection.
+
+The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Col. Walpole was promoted
+in his stead, and brevetted as general, by way of incentive. He found a
+people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury not
+empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the
+Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his
+opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his
+efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water, and, most effectual
+move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a
+howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a
+visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint
+compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little
+buckra!" they said, "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new
+fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top,
+de damn sunting [something] fire arter you again." With which Parthian
+arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.
+
+But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the
+way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was
+deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the
+purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as
+yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought
+best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Col.
+Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men,
+however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a
+Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in
+some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had
+always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down
+the natives of that very soil with hounds; and should England now follow
+the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly
+quoted all known instances of zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations,
+for instance, used elephants in war, and, no doubt, would gladly use
+lions and tigers also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their
+painful indifference to the distinction between friend and foe; why not,
+then, use these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any
+rate, "something must be done;" the final argument always used, when a
+bad or desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last
+to send to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying
+chasseurs; and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till
+the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Col. Quarrell
+finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples
+of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of
+popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice they were
+armed who knew their Quarrell just.
+
+But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the
+commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He
+sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who
+insisted on fighting every thing that came in their way,--first a Spanish
+schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the
+mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy
+Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and
+chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas,
+who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court
+against admitting foreigners within his government; "the only accustomed
+exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of
+foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner
+had not brought any of these commodities; but then he had come to obtain
+the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular
+practitioner of the privileged profession.
+
+Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no
+difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs
+as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of
+taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,--this being,
+after all, the essential part of his expedition,--Don Luis de las Casas
+put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the
+entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service.
+Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs.
+Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he
+got them safe to Batabano; but at the last moment, learning the state of
+affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he
+had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed
+objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and
+silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don
+Guillermo sent a messenger after him, and bribed him too; and thus at
+length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last
+evening at a puppet-show in which the principal figure was a burlesque on
+his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of
+renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four
+muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.
+
+These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the
+pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall,
+meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and
+drawers, with broad straw hat, and moccasins of raw-hide; his belt
+sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or _machete_, like an iron bar
+sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes
+for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a fierce
+breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for attack,
+and accompanied by smaller dogs called _finders_. It is no wonder, when
+these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay, that terror
+ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed, and windows crowded;
+not a negro dared to stir; and the muzzled dogs, infuriated by
+confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with their noisy
+barking and the rattling of their chains.
+
+How much would have come of all this in actual conflict, does not appear.
+The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain
+conditions and guaranties,--a decision probably accelerated by the
+terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was
+the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of Gen. Walpole,
+that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the
+island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender."
+Nevertheless, a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention
+of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to
+treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets
+interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed
+Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part
+of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the
+suspicious Maroons. Gen. Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that
+no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the
+hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons; nor should any
+attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add,
+that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial Government,
+to the lasting grief of Gen. Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had
+violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its
+terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken
+refuge among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were
+at once placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to
+Halifax, to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the
+credit of English honor, we rejoice to know that Gen. Walpole not merely
+protested against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined
+the sword of honor which the Assembly had voted him, in its gratitude,
+and then retired from military service forever.
+
+The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They
+were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax, then welcomed when
+seen, and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of
+reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,--their only
+visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the
+redoubtable Col. Quarrell; and twenty-five thousand pounds were
+appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper;
+pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of
+industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it
+seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,--for theirs was
+such that two previous colonies had deserted it,--and in a climate where
+winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he
+was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of
+civilization, utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake
+polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal
+discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked
+their pipes during service time, and left Old Montagu, who still
+survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon. One discourse he
+briefly reported as follows, very much to the point: "Massa parson say no
+mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus quarrel, mus set down
+softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme
+unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race,--at
+least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,--they soon
+grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious
+of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by
+the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they
+finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the
+authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly
+responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a
+century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were
+reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers,
+shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate
+lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra
+Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds; since which they disappear from
+history.
+
+It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which
+had kept aloof from the late outbreak, at the Accompong settlement, and
+elsewhere. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and
+retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in
+Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at
+Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten
+families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two
+hundred and seventy families in all,--each station being, as of old,
+under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt,
+that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling
+with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.
+
+The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in
+its time: the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by
+Sheridan, and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds
+against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the
+Colonial Government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards.
+This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in
+Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be
+cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia,
+they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not
+venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his
+injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the
+indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards,
+the public indignation ran quite high in England, against the bloodhounds
+and their employers, so that the home ministry found it necessary to send
+a severe reproof to the Colonial Government. For a few years the tales of
+the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals, and found their way
+into annual registers and parliamentary debates; but they have long since
+vanished from popular memory. Their record still retains its interest,
+however, as that of one of the heroic races of the world; and all the
+more, because it is with their kindred that the American nation has to
+deal, in solving one of the most momentous problems of its future career.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM.
+
+
+When that eccentric individual, Capt. John Gabriel Stedman, resigned his
+commission in the English Navy, took the oath of abjuration, and was
+appointed ensign in the Scots brigade employed for two centuries by
+Holland, he little knew that "their High Mightinesses the States of the
+United Provinces" would send him out, within a year, to the forests of
+Guiana, to subdue rebel negroes. He never imagined that the year 1773
+would behold him beneath the rainy season in a tropical country, wading
+through marshes and splashing through lakes, exploring with his feet for
+submerged paths, commanding impracticable troops, and commanded by an
+insufferable colonel, feeding on greegree worms and fed upon by
+mosquitos, howled at by jaguars, hissed at by serpents, and shot at by
+those exceedingly unattainable gentlemen, "still longed for, never seen,"
+the Maroons of Surinam.
+
+Yet, as our young ensign sailed up the Surinam River, the world of tropic
+beauty came upon him with enchantment. Dark, moist verdure was close
+around him, rippling waters below; the tall trees of the jungle and the
+low mangroves beneath were all hung with long vines and lianas, a maze of
+cordage, like a fleet at anchor; lithe monkeys travelled ceaselessly up
+and down these airy paths, in armies, bearing their young, like
+knapsacks, on their backs; macaws and humming-birds, winged jewels, flew
+from tree to tree. As they neared Paramaribo, the river became a smooth
+canal among luxuriant plantations; the air was perfumed music, redolent
+of orange-blossoms and echoing with the songs of birds and the sweet
+plash of oars; gay barges came forth to meet them; "while groups of naked
+boys and girls were promiscuously playing and flouncing, like so many
+tritons and mermaids, in the water." And when the troops
+disembarked,--five hundred fine young men, the oldest not thirty, all
+arrayed in new uniforms and bearing orange-flowers in their caps, a
+bridal wreath for beautiful Guiana,--it is no wonder that the Creole
+ladies were in ecstasy; and the boyish recruits little foresaw the day,
+when, reduced to a few dozens, barefooted and ragged as filibusters,
+their last survivors would gladly re-embark from a country beside which
+even Holland looked dry and even Scotland comfortable.
+
+For over all that earthly paradise there brooded not alone its terrible
+malaria, its days of fever and its nights of deadly chill, but the worse
+shadows of oppression and of sin, which neither day nor night could
+banish. The first object which met Stedman's eye, as he stepped on shore,
+was the figure of a young girl stripped to receive two hundred lashes,
+and chained to a hundred-pound weight. And the few first days gave a
+glimpse into a state of society worthy of this exhibition,--men without
+mercy, women without modesty, the black man a slave to the white man's
+passions, and the white man a slave to his own. The later West-Indian
+society in its worst forms is probably a mere dilution of the utter
+profligacy of those early days. Greek or Roman decline produced nothing
+more debilitating or destructive than the ordinary life of a Surinam
+planter, and his one virtue of hospitality only led to more unbridled
+excesses and completed the work of vice. No wonder that Stedman himself,
+who, with all his peculiarities, was essentially simple and manly, soon
+became disgusted, and made haste to get into the woods and cultivate the
+society of the Maroons.
+
+The rebels against whom this expedition was sent were not the original
+Maroons of Surinam, but a later generation. The originals had long since
+established their independence, and their leaders were flourishing their
+honorary silver-mounted canes in the streets of Paramaribo. Fugitive
+negroes had begun to establish themselves in the woods from the time when
+the colony was finally ceded by the English to the Dutch, in 1674. The
+first open outbreak occurred in 1726, when the plantations on the
+Seramica River revolted; it was found impossible to subdue them, and the
+government very imprudently resolved to make an example of eleven
+captives, and thus terrify the rest of the rebels. They were tortured to
+death, eight of the eleven being women: this drove the others to madness,
+and plantation after plantation was visited with fire and sword. After a
+long conflict, their chief, Adoe, was induced to make a treaty, in 1749.
+The rebels promised to keep the peace, and in turn were promised freedom,
+money, tools, clothes, and, finally, arms and ammunition.
+
+But no permanent peace was ever made upon a barrel of gunpowder as a
+basis; and, of course, an explosion followed this one. The colonists
+naturally evaded the last item of the bargain; and the rebels, receiving
+the gifts, and remarking the omission of the part of Hamlet, asked
+contemptuously if the Europeans expected negroes to subsist on combs and
+looking-glasses? New hostilities at once began; a new body of slaves on
+the Ouca River revolted; the colonial government was changed in
+consequence, and fresh troops shipped from Holland; and after four
+different embassies had been sent into the woods, the rebels began to
+listen to reason. The black generals, Capt. Araby and Capt. Boston,
+agreed upon a truce for a year, during which the colonial government
+might decide for peace or war, the Maroons declaring themselves
+indifferent. Finally the government chose peace, delivered ammunition,
+and made a treaty, in 1761; the white and black plenipotentiaries
+exchanged English oaths and then negro oaths, each tasting a drop of the
+other's blood during the latter ceremony, amid a volley of remarkable
+incantations from the black _gadoman_ or priest. After some final
+skirmishes, in which the rebels almost always triumphed, the treaty was
+at length accepted by all the various villages of Maroons. Had they known
+that at this very time five thousand slaves in Berbice were just rising
+against their masters, and were looking to them for assistance, the
+result might have been different; but this fact had not reached them, nor
+had the rumors of insurrection in Brazil among negro and Indian slaves.
+They consented, therefore, to the peace. "They write from Surinam," says
+the "Annual Register" for Jan. 23, 1761, "that the Dutch governor,
+finding himself unable to subdue the rebel negroes of that country by
+force, hath wisely followed the example of Gov. Trelawney at Jamaica, and
+concluded an amicable treaty with them; in consequence of which, all the
+negroes of the woods are acknowledged to be free, and all that is passed
+is buried in oblivion." So ended a war of thirty-six years; and in
+Stedman's day the original three thousand Ouca and Seramica Maroons had
+multiplied, almost incredibly, to fifteen thousand.
+
+But for those slaves not sharing in this revolt it was not so easy to
+"bury the whole past in oblivion." The Maroons had told some very plain
+truths to the white ambassadors, and had frankly advised them, if they
+wished for peace, to mend their own manners and treat their chattels
+humanely. But the planters learned nothing by experience,--and, indeed,
+the terrible narrations of Stedman were confirmed by those of Alexander,
+so lately as 1831. Of course, therefore, in a colony comprising eighty
+thousand blacks to four thousand whites, other revolts were stimulated by
+the success of this one. They reached their highest point in 1772, when
+an insurrection on the Cottica River, led by a negro named Baron, almost
+gave the finishing blow to the colony; the only adequate protection being
+found in a body of slaves liberated expressly for that purpose,--a
+dangerous and humiliating precedent. "We have been obliged to set three
+or four hundred of our stoutest negroes free to defend us," says an
+honest letter from Surinam, in the "Annual Register" for Sept. 5, 1772.
+Fortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron presumed too much upon
+his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too near the seacoast, in a
+marshy fastness, from which he was finally ejected by twelve hundred
+Dutch troops, though the chief work was done, Stedman thinks, by the
+"black rangers" or liberated slaves. Checked by this defeat, he again
+drew back into the forests, resuming his guerrilla warfare against the
+plantations. Nothing could dislodge him; blood-hounds were proposed, but
+the moisture of the country made them useless: and thus matters stood
+when Stedman came sailing, amid orange-blossoms and music, up the winding
+Surinam.
+
+Our young officer went into the woods in the condition of Falstaff,
+"heinously unprovided." Coming from the unbounded luxury of the
+plantations, he found himself entering "the most horrid and impenetrable
+forests, where no kind of refreshment was to be had,"--he being
+provisioned only with salt pork and pease. After a wail of sorrow for
+this inhuman neglect, he bursts into a gush of gratitude for the private
+generosity which relieved his wants at the last moment by the following
+list of supplies: "24 bottles best claret, 12 ditto Madeira, 12 ditto
+porter, 12 ditto cider, 12 ditto rum, 2 large loaves white sugar, 2
+gallons brandy, 6 bottles muscadel, 2 gallons lemon-juice, 2 gallons
+ground coffee, 2 large Westphalia hams, 2 salted bullocks' tongues, 1
+bottle Durham mustard, 6 dozen spermaceti candles." The hams and tongues
+seem, indeed, rather a poor halfpennyworth to this intolerable deal of
+sack; but this instance of Surinam privation in those days may open some
+glimpse at the colonial standards of comfort. "From this specimen,"
+moralizes our hero, "the reader will easily perceive, that, if some of
+the inhabitants of Surinam show themselves the disgrace of the creation
+by their cruelties and brutality, others, by their social feelings,
+approve themselves an ornament to the human species. With this instance
+of virtue and generosity I therefore conclude this chapter."
+
+But the troops soon had to undergo worse troubles than those of the
+commissariat. The rainy season had just set in. "As for the negroes,"
+said Mr. Klynhaus, the last planter with whom they parted, "you may
+depend on never seeing a soul of them, unless they attack you off guard;
+but the climate, the climate, will murder you all." Bringing with them
+constitutions already impaired by the fevers and dissipation of
+Paramaribo, the poor boys began to perish long before they began to
+fight. Wading in water all day, hanging their hammocks over water at
+night, it seemed a moist existence, even compared with the climate of
+England and the soil of Holland. It was a case of "Invent a shovel, and
+be a magistrate," even more than Andrew Marvell found it in the United
+Provinces. In fact, Raynal evidently thinks that nothing but Dutch
+experience in hydraulics could ever have cultivated Surinam.
+
+The two gunboats which held one division of the expedition were merely
+old sugar-barges, roofed over with boards, and looking like coffins. They
+were pleasantly named the "Charon" and the "Cerberus," but Stedman
+thought that the "Sudden Death" and the "Wilful Murder" would have been
+titles more appropriate. The chief duty of the troops consisted in lying
+at anchor at the intersections of wooded streams, waiting for rebels who
+never came. It was dismal work, and the raw recruits were full of the
+same imaginary terrors which have haunted other heroes less severely
+tested: the monkeys never rattled the cocoa-nuts against the trees, but
+they all heard the axes of Maroon wood-choppers; and when a sentinel
+declared, one night, that he had seen a negro go down the river in a
+canoe, with his pipe lighted, the whole force was called to arms--against
+a firefly. In fact, the insect race brought by far the most substantial
+dangers. The rebels eluded the military, but the chigres, locusts,
+scorpions, and bush-spiders were ever ready to come half-way to meet
+them; likewise serpents and alligators proffered them the freedom of the
+forests, and exhibited a hospitality almost excessive. Snakes twenty feet
+long hung their seductive length from the trees; jaguars volunteered
+their society through almost impenetrable marshes; vampire bats perched
+by night with lulling endearments upon the toes of the soldiers. When
+Stedman describes himself as killing thirty-eight mosquitoes at one
+stroke, we must perhaps pardon something to the spirit of martyrdom. But
+when we add to these the other woes of his catalogue,--prickly-heat,
+ringworm, putrid-fever, "the growling of Col. Fougeaud, dry sandy
+savannas, unfordable marshes, burning hot days, cold and damp nights,
+heavy rains, and short allowance,"--we can hardly wonder that three
+captains died in a month, and that in two months his detachment of
+forty-two was reduced to a miserable seven.
+
+Yet, through all this, Stedman himself kept his health. His theory of the
+matter almost recalls the time-honored prescription of "A light heart and
+a thin pair of breeches," for he attributes his good condition to his
+keeping up his spirits and kicking off his shoes. Daily bathing in the
+river had also something to do with it; and, indeed, hydropathy was first
+learned of the West-India Maroons,--who did their "packing" in wet
+clay,--and was carried by Dr. Wright to England. But his extraordinary
+personal qualities must have contributed most to his preservation. Never
+did a "meagre, starved, black, burnt, and ragged tatterdemalion," as he
+calls himself, carry about him such a fund of sentiment, philosophy,
+poetry, and art. He had a great faculty for sketching, as the engravings
+in his volumes, with all their odd peculiarities, show; his deepest woes
+he coined always into couplets, and fortified himself against hopeless
+despair with Ovid and Valerius Flaccus, Pope's Homer and Thomson's
+"Seasons." Above all reigned his passion for natural history, a ready
+balm for every ill. Here he was never wanting to the occasion; and, to do
+justice to Dutch Guiana, the occasion never was wanting to him. Were his
+men sickening, the peccaries were always healthy without the camp, and
+the cockroaches within; just escaping from a she-jaguar, he satisfies
+himself, ere he flees, that the print of her claws on the sand is
+precisely the size of a pewter dinner-plate; bitten by a scorpion, he
+makes sure of a scientific description in case he should expire of the
+bite; is the water undrinkable, there is at least some rational interest
+in the number of legs possessed by the centipedes which pre-occupy it.
+This is the highest triumph of man over his accidents, when he thus turns
+his pains to gains, and becomes an entomologist in the tropics.
+
+Meanwhile the rebels kept their own course in the forests, and
+occasionally descended upon plantations beside the very river on whose
+upper waters the useless troops were sickening and dying. Stedman himself
+made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before he came
+any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or destroy a
+rice-field. Sometimes they left the "Charon" and the "Cerberus" moored by
+grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the woods,
+single file. Our ensign, true to himself, gives the minutest schedule of
+the order of march, and the oddest little diagram of manikins with cocked
+hats, and blacker manikins bearing burdens. First, negroes with
+bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body,
+interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the
+rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions,
+and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort
+of palanquin for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they marched valorously
+forth into the woods, to some given point; then they turned, marched back
+to the boats, then rowed back to camp, and straightway went into the
+hospital. Immediately upon this, the coast being clear, Baron and his
+rebels marched out again, and proceeded to business.
+
+In the course of years, these Maroons had acquired their own peculiar
+tactics. They built stockaded fortresses on marshy islands, accessible by
+fords which they alone could traverse. These they defended further by
+sharp wooden pins, or crows'-feet, concealed beneath the surface of the
+miry ground,--and, latterly, by the more substantial protection of
+cannon, which they dragged into the woods, and learned to use. Their
+bush-fighting was unique. Having always more men than weapons, they
+arranged their warriors in threes,--one to use the musket, another to
+take his place if wounded or slain, and a third to drag away the body.
+They had Indian stealthiness and swiftness, with more than Indian
+discipline; discharged their fire with some approach to regularity, in
+three successive lines, the signals being given by the captain's horn.
+They were full of ingenuity: marked their movements for each other by
+scattered leaves and blazed trees; ran zigzag, to dodge bullets; gave
+wooden guns to their unarmed men, to frighten the plantation negroes on
+their guerrilla expeditions; and borrowed the red caps of the black
+rangers whom they slew, to bewilder the aim of the others. One of them,
+finding himself close to the muzzle of a ranger's gun, threw up his hand
+hastily. "What!" he exclaimed, "will you fire on one of your own party?"
+"God forbid!" cried the ranger, dropping his piece, and was instantly
+shot through the body by the Maroon, who the next instant had disappeared
+in the woods.
+
+These rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women had
+not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men drank
+"kill-devil" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the difference
+between the meaning of the word "good" in rebellious circles and in
+reputable. "It must, however, be observed, that what we Europeans call a
+good character was by the Africans looked upon as detestable, especially
+by those born in the woods, whose only crime consisted in avenging the
+wrongs done to their forefathers." But if martial virtues be virtues,
+such were theirs. Not a rebel ever turned traitor or informer, ever
+flinched in battle or under torture, ever violated a treaty or even a
+private promise. But it was their power of endurance which was especially
+astounding; Stedman is never weary of paying tribute to this, or of
+illustrating it in sickening detail; indeed, the records of the world
+show nothing to surpass it; "the lifted axe, the agonizing wheel," proved
+powerless to subdue it; with every limb lopped, every bone broken, the
+victims yet defied their tormentors, laughed, sang, and died triumphant.
+
+Of course they repaid these atrocities in kind. If they had not, it would
+have demonstrated the absurd paradox, that slavery educates higher
+virtues than freedom. It bewilders all the relations of human
+responsibility, if we expect the insurrectionary slave to commit no
+outrages; if slavery has not depraved him, it has done him little harm.
+If it be the normal tendency of bondage to produce saints like Uncle Tom,
+let us all offer ourselves at auction immediately. It is Cassy and Dred
+who are the normal protest of human nature against systems which degrade
+it. Accordingly, these poor, ignorant Maroons, who had seen their
+brothers and sisters flogged, burned, mutilated, hanged on iron hooks,
+broken on the wheel, and had been all the while solemnly assured that
+this was paternal government, could only repay the paternalism in the
+same fashion, when they had the power. Stedman saw a negro chained to a
+red-hot distillery-furnace; he saw disobedient slaves, in repeated
+instances, punished by the amputation of a leg, and sent to boat-service
+for the rest of their lives; and of course the rebels borrowed these
+suggestions. They could bear to watch their captives expire under the
+lash, for they had previously watched their parents. If the government
+rangers received twenty-five florins for every rebel right-hand which
+they brought in, of course they risked their own right hands in the
+pursuit. The difference was, that the one brutality was that of a mighty
+state, and the other was only the retaliation of the victims. And after
+all, Stedman never ventures to assert that the imitation equalled the
+original, or that the Maroons had inflicted nearly so much as they had
+suffered.
+
+The leaders of the rebels, especially, were men who had each his own
+story of wrongs to tell. Baron, the most formidable, had been the slave
+of a Swedish gentleman, who had taught him to read and write, taken him
+to Europe, promised to manumit him on his return--and then, breaking his
+word, sold him to a Jew. Baron refused to work for his new master, was
+publicly flogged under the gallows, fled to the woods next day, and
+became the terror of the colony. Joli Coeur, his first captain, was
+avenging the cruel wrongs of his mother. Bonny, another leader, was born
+in the woods, his mother having taken refuge there just previously, to
+escape from his father, who was also his master. Cojo, another, had
+defended his master against the insurgents until he was obliged by ill
+usage to take refuge among them; and he still bore upon his wrist, when
+Stedman saw him, a silver band, with the inscription,--"True to the
+Europeans." In dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle would have
+found the despised negroes quite as ready as himself to take the
+total-abstinence pledge against rose-water.
+
+In his first two-months' campaign, Stedman never saw the trace of a
+Maroon; in the second, he once came upon their trail; in the third, one
+captive was brought in, two surrendered themselves voluntarily, and a
+large party was found to have crossed a river within a mile of the camp,
+ferrying themselves on palm-trunks, according to their fashion. Deep
+swamps and scorching sands, toiling through briers all day, and sleeping
+at night in hammocks suspended over stagnant water, with weapons
+supported on sticks crossed beneath,--all this was endured for two years
+and a half, before Stedman personally came in sight of the enemy.
+
+On Aug. 20, 1775, the troops found themselves at last in the midst of the
+rebel settlements. These villages and forts bore a variety of expressive
+names, such as "Hide me, O thou surrounding verdure," "I shall be taken,"
+"The woods lament for me," "Disturb me, if you dare," "Take a tasting, if
+you like it," "Come, try me, if you be men," "God knows me, and none
+else," "I shall moulder before I shall be taken." Some were only
+plantation-grounds with a few huts, and were easily laid waste; but all
+were protected more or less by their mere situations. Quagmires
+surrounded them, covered by a thin crust of verdure, sometimes broken
+through by one man's weight, when the victim sank hopelessly into the
+black and bottomless depths below. In other directions there was a solid
+bottom, but inconveniently covered by three or four feet of water,
+through which the troops waded breast-deep, holding their muskets high in
+the air, unable to reload them when once discharged, and liable to be
+picked off by rebel scouts, who ingeniously posted themselves in the tops
+of palm-trees.
+
+Through this delectable region Col. Fougeaud and his followers slowly
+advanced, drawing near the fatal shore where Capt. Meyland's detachment
+had just been defeated, and where their mangled remains still polluted
+the beach. Passing this point of danger without attack, they suddenly met
+a small party of rebels, each bearing on his back a beautifully woven
+hamper of snow-white rice: these loads they threw down, and disappeared.
+Next appeared an armed body from the same direction, who fired upon them
+once, and swiftly retreated; and in a few moments the soldiers came upon
+a large field of standing rice, beyond which lay, like an amphitheatre,
+the rebel village. But between the village and the field had been piled
+successive defences of logs and branches, behind which simple redoubts
+the Maroons lay concealed. A fight ensued, lasting forty minutes, during
+which nearly every soldier and ranger was wounded; but, to their great
+amazement, not one was killed. This was an enigma to them until after the
+skirmish, when the surgeon found that most of them had been struck, not
+by bullets, but by various substitutes, such as pebbles, coat-buttons,
+and bits of silver coin, which had penetrated only skin deep. "We also
+observed that several of the poor rebel negroes, who had been shot, had
+only the shards of Spa-water cans instead of flints, which could seldom
+do execution; and it was certainly owing to these circumstances that we
+came off so well."
+
+The rebels at length retreated, first setting fire to their village; a
+hundred or more lightly built houses, some of them two stories high, were
+soon in flames; and as this conflagration occupied the only neck of land
+between two impassable morasses, the troops were unable to follow, and
+the Maroons had left nothing but rice-fields to be pillaged. That night
+the military force was encamped in the woods; their ammunition was almost
+gone, so they were ordered to lie flat on the ground, even in case of
+attack; they could not so much as build a fire. Before midnight an attack
+was made on them, partly with bullets, and partly with words. The Maroons
+were all around them in the forest, but their object was a puzzle; they
+spent most of the night in bandying compliments with the black rangers,
+whom they alternately denounced, ridiculed, and challenged to single
+combat. At last Fougeaud and Stedman joined in the conversation, and
+endeavored to make this midnight volley of talk the occasion for a
+treaty. This was received with inextinguishable laughter, which echoed
+through the woods like a concert of screech-owls, ending in a _charivari_
+of horns and hallooing. The colonel, persisting, offered them "life,
+liberty, victuals, drink, and all they wanted;" in return, they ridiculed
+him unmercifully. He was a half-starved Frenchman, who had run away from
+his own country, and would soon run away from theirs; they profoundly
+pitied him and his soldiers; they would scorn to spend powder on such
+scarecrows; they would rather feed and clothe them, as being poor white
+slaves, hired to be shot at, and starved for fourpence a day. But as for
+the planters, overseers, and rangers, they should die, every one of them,
+and Bonny should be governor of the colony. "After this, they tinkled
+their bill-hooks, fired a volley, and gave three cheers; which, being
+answered by the rangers, the clamor ended, and the rebels dispersed with
+the rising sun."
+
+Very aimless nonsense it certainly appeared. But the next day put a new
+aspect on it; for it was found, that, under cover of all this noise, the
+Maroons had been busily occupied all night, men, women, and children, in
+preparing and filling great hampers of the finest rice, yams, and
+cassava, from the adjacent provision-grounds, to be used for subsistence
+during their escape, leaving only chaff and refuse for the hungry
+soldiers. "This was certainly such a masterly trait of generalship in a
+savage people, whom we affected to despise, as would have done honor to
+any European commander."
+
+From this time the Maroons fulfilled their threats. Shooting down without
+mercy every black ranger who came within their reach,--one of these
+rangers being, in Stedman's estimate, worth six white soldiers,--they
+left Col. Fougeaud and his regulars to die of starvation and fatigue. The
+enraged colonel, "finding himself thus foiled by a naked negro, swore he
+would pursue Bonny to the world's end." But he never got any nearer than
+to Bonny's kitchen-gardens. He put the troops on half-allowance, sent
+back for provisions and ammunition,--and within ten days changed his
+mind, and retreated to the settlements in despair. Soon after, this very
+body of rebels, under Bonny's leadership, plundered two plantations in
+the vicinity, and nearly captured a powder-magazine, which was, however,
+successfully defended by some armed slaves.
+
+For a year longer these expeditions continued. The troops never gained a
+victory, and they lost twenty men for every rebel killed; but they
+gradually checked the plunder of plantations, destroyed villages and
+planting-grounds, and drove the rebels, for the time at least, into the
+deeper recesses of the woods, or into the adjacent province of Cayenne.
+They had the slight satisfaction of burning Bonny's own house, a
+two-story wooden hut, built in the fashion of our frontier guardhouses.
+They often took single prisoners,--some child, born and bred in the
+woods, and frightened equally by the first sight of a white man and of a
+cow,--or some warrior, who, on being threatened with torture, stretched
+forth both hands in disdain, and said, with Indian eloquence, "These
+hands have made tigers tremble." As for Stedman, he still went
+barefooted, still quarrelled with his colonel, still sketched the scenery
+and described the reptiles, still reared greegree worms for his private
+kitchen, still quoted good poetry and wrote execrable, still pitied all
+the sufferers around him, black, white, and red, until finally he and his
+comrades were ordered back to Holland in 1776.
+
+Among all that wasted regiment of weary and broken-down men, there was
+probably no one but Stedman who looked backward with longing as they
+sailed down the lovely Surinam. True, he bore all his precious
+collections with him,--parrots and butterflies, drawings on the backs of
+old letters, and journals kept on bones and cartridges. But he had left
+behind him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his eccentric
+narrative a single thread of pure romance, in his love for his beautiful
+quadroon wife and his only son.
+
+Within a month after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign
+first saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate
+friend. Her extreme beauty and modesty first fascinated him, and then her
+piteous narrative,--for she was the daughter of a planter, who had just
+gone mad and died in despair from the discovery that he could not legally
+emancipate his own children from slavery. Soon after, Stedman was
+dangerously ill, was neglected and alone; fruits and cordials were
+anonymously sent to him, which proved at last to have come from Joanna;
+and she came herself, ere long, and nursed him, grateful for the visible
+sympathy he had shown to her. This completed the conquest; the passionate
+young Englishman, once recovered, loaded her with presents which she
+refused; talked of purchasing her, and educating her in Europe, which she
+also declined as burdening him too greatly; and finally, amid the
+ridicule of all good society in Paramaribo, surmounted all legal
+obstacles, and was united to the beautiful girl in honorable marriage. He
+provided a cottage for her, where he spent his furloughs, in perfect
+happiness, for four years.
+
+The simple idyl of their loves was unbroken by any stain or
+disappointment, and yet always shadowed with the deepest anxiety for the
+future. Though treated with the utmost indulgence, she was legally a
+slave, and so was the boy of whom she became the mother. Cojo, her uncle,
+was a captain among the rebels against whom her husband fought. And up to
+the time when Stedman was ordered back to Holland, he was unable to
+purchase her freedom; nor could he, until the very last moment, procure
+the emancipation of his boy. His perfect delight at this last triumph,
+when obtained, elicited some satire from his white friends. "While the
+well-thinking few highly applauded my sensibility, many not only blamed
+but publicly derided me for my paternal affection, which was called a
+weakness, a whim." "Nearly forty beautiful boys and girls were left to
+perpetual slavery by their parents of my acquaintance, and many of them
+without being so much as once inquired after at all."
+
+But Stedman was a true-hearted fellow, if his sentiment did sometimes run
+to rodomontade; he left his Joanna only in the hope that a year or two in
+Europe would repair his ruined fortunes, and he could return to treat
+himself to the purchase of his own wedded wife. He describes, with
+unaffected pathos, their parting scene,--though, indeed, there were
+several successive partings,--and closes the description in a
+characteristic manner: "My melancholy having surpassed all description, I
+at last determined to weather one or two painful years in her absence;
+and in the afternoon went to dissipate my mind at a Mr. Roux' cabinet of
+Indian curiosities; where, as my eye chanced to fall on a rattlesnake, I
+will, before I leave the colony, describe this dangerous reptile."
+
+It was impossible to write the history of the Maroons of Surinam except
+through the biography of our ensign (at last promoted captain), because
+nearly all we know of them is through his quaint and picturesque
+narrative, with its profuse illustrations by his own hand. It is not
+fair, therefore, to end without chronicling his safe arrival in Holland,
+on June 3, 1777. It is a remarkable fact, that, after his life in the
+woods, even the Dutch looked slovenly to his eyes. "The inhabitants, who
+crowded about us, appeared but a disgusting assemblage of ill-formed and
+ill-dressed rabble,--so much had my prejudices been changed by living
+among Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to resemble those of a pig;
+their complexions were like the color of foul linen; they seemed to have
+no teeth, and to be covered over with rags and dirt. This prejudice,
+however, was not against these people only, but against all Europeans in
+general, when compared to the sparkling eyes, ivory teeth, shining skin,
+and remarkable cleanliness of those I had left behind me." Yet, in spite
+of these superior attractions, he never recrossed the Atlantic; for his
+Joanna died soon after, and his promising son, being sent to the father,
+was educated in England, became a midshipman in the navy, and was lost at
+sea. With his elegy, in which the last depths of bathos are sadly sounded
+by a mourning parent,--who is induced to print them only by "the effect
+they had on the sympathetic and ingenious Mrs. Cowley,"--the "Narrative
+of a Five Years' Expedition" closes.
+
+The war, which had cost the government forty thousand pounds a year, was
+ended, and left both parties essentially as when it began. The Maroons
+gradually returned to their old abodes, and, being unmolested themselves,
+left others unmolested thenceforward. Originally three thousand,--in
+Stedman's time, fifteen thousand,--they were estimated at seventy
+thousand by Capt. Alexander, who saw Guiana in 1831; and a later American
+scientific expedition, having visited them in their homes, reported them
+as still enjoying their wild freedom, and multiplying, while the Indians
+on the same soil decay. The beautiful forests of Surinam still make the
+morning gorgeous with their beauty, and the night deadly with their
+chill; the stately palm still rears, a hundred feet in air, its straight
+gray shaft and its head of verdure; the mora builds its solid, buttressed
+trunk, a pedestal for the eagle; the pine of the tropics holds out its
+myriad hands with water-cups for the rain and dews, where all the birds
+and the monkeys may drink their fill; the trees are garlanded with
+epiphytes and convolvuli, and anchored to the earth by a thousand vines.
+High among their branches, the red and yellow mocking-birds still build
+their hanging nests, uncouth storks and tree-porcupines cling above, and
+the spotted deer and the tapir drink from the sluggish stream below. The
+night is still made noisy with a thousand cries of bird and beast; and
+the stillness of the sultry noon is broken by the slow tolling of the
+_campañero_, or bell-bird, far in the deep, dark woods, like the chime of
+some lost convent. And as Nature is unchanged there, so apparently is
+man; the Maroons still retain their savage freedom, still shoot their
+wild game and trap their fish, still raise their rice and cassava, yams
+and plantains,--still make cups from the gourd-tree and hammocks from the
+silk-grass plant, wine from the palm-tree's sap, brooms from its leaves,
+fishing-lines from its fibres, and salt from its ashes. Their life does
+not yield, indeed, the very highest results of spiritual culture; its
+mental and moral results may not come up to the level of civilization,
+but they rise far above the level of slavery. In the changes of time, the
+Maroons may yet elevate themselves into the one, but they will never
+relapse into the other.
+
+
+
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+
+In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true records of
+Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a plot
+perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain
+obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the
+political events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the
+scanty traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in
+public libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for
+American history are vanishing,--since not one of our great institutions
+possessed, a few years since, a file of any Southern newspaper of the
+year 1800,--yet the little which I have gained may have an interest that
+makes it worth preserving. Three times, at intervals of thirty years, did
+a wave of unutterable terror sweep across the Old Dominion, bringing
+thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every
+Virginian slave. Each time did one man's name become a spell of dismay
+and a symbol of deliverance. Each time did that name eclipse its
+predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory: John
+Brown revived the story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat Turner recalled
+the vaster schemes of Gabriel.
+
+On Sept. 8, 1800, a Virginia correspondent wrote thus to the Philadelphia
+_United-States Gazette:_--
+
+    "For the week past, we have been under momentary expectation of a
+    rising among the negroes, who have assembled to the number of
+    nine hundred or a thousand, and threatened to massacre all the
+    whites. They are armed with desperate weapons, and secrete
+    themselves in the woods. God only knows our fate: we have strong
+    guards every night under arms."
+
+It was no wonder, if there were foundation for such rumors. Liberty was
+the creed or the cant of the day. France was being disturbed by
+revolution, and England by Clarkson. In America, slavery was habitually
+recognized as a misfortune and an error, only to be palliated by the
+nearness of its expected end. How freely anti-slavery pamphlets had been
+circulated in Virginia, we know from the priceless volumes collected and
+annotated by Washington, and now preserved in the Boston Athenaeum.
+Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," itself an anti-slavery tract, had passed
+through seven editions. Judge St. George Tucker, law-professor in William
+and Mary College, had recently published his noble work, "A Dissertation
+on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State
+of Virginia." From all this agitation, a slave insurrection was a mere
+corollary. With so much electricity in the air, a single flash of
+lightning foreboded all the terrors of the tempest. Let but a single
+armed negro be seen or suspected, and at once, on many a lonely
+plantation, there were trembling hands at work to bar doors and windows
+that seldom had been even closed before, and there was shuddering when a
+gray squirrel scrambled over the roof, or a shower of walnuts came down
+clattering from the overhanging boughs.
+
+Early in September, 1800, as a certain Mr. Moseley Sheppard, of Henrico
+County in Virginia, was one day sitting in his counting-room, two negroes
+knocked at the door, and were let in. They shut the door themselves, and
+began to unfold an insurrectionary plot, which was subsequently repeated
+by one of them, named Ben Woodfolk or Woolfolk, in presence of the court,
+on the 15th of the same month.
+
+He stated, that about the first of the preceding June, he had been asked
+by a negro named Colonel George whether he would like to be made a Mason.
+He refused; but George ultimately prevailed on him to have an interview
+with a certain leading man among the blacks, named Gabriel. Arrived at
+the place of meeting, he found many persons assembled, to whom a
+preliminary oath was administered, that they would keep secret all which
+they might hear. The leaders then began, to the dismay of this witness,
+to allude to a plan of insurrection, which, as they stated, was already
+far advanced toward maturity. Presently a man named Martin, Gabriel's
+brother, proposed religious services, caused the company to be duly
+seated, and began an impassioned exposition of Scripture, bearing upon
+the perilous theme. The Israelites were glowingly portrayed as a type of
+successful resistance to tyranny; and it was argued, that now, as then,
+God would stretch forth his arm to save, and would strengthen a hundred
+to overthrow a thousand. Thus passed, the witness stated, this
+preparatory meeting. At a subsequent gathering the affair was brought to
+a point; and the only difficult question was, whether to rise in
+rebellion upon a certain Saturday, or upon the Sunday following. Gabriel
+said that Saturday was the day already fixed, and that it must not be
+altered; but George was for changing it to Sunday, as being more
+convenient for the country negroes, who could travel on that day without
+suspicion. Gabriel, however, said decisively that they had enough to
+carry Richmond without them; and Saturday was therefore retained as the
+momentous day.
+
+This was the confession, so far as it is now accessible; and on the
+strength of it, Ben Woolfolk was promptly pardoned by the court for all
+his sins, past, present, or to come, and they proceeded with their
+investigation. Of Gabriel little appeared to be known, except that he had
+been the property of Thomas Prosser, a young man who had recently
+inherited a plantation a few miles from Richmond, and who had the
+reputation among his neighbors of "behaving with great barbarity to his
+slaves." Gabriel was, however, reported to be "a fellow of courage and
+intellect above his rank in life," to be about twenty-five years of age,
+and to be guiltless of the alphabet.
+
+Further inquiry made it appear that the preparations of the insurgents
+were hardly adequate to any grand revolutionary design,--at least, if
+they proposed to begin with open warfare. The commissariat may have been
+well organized, for black Virginians are apt to have a prudent eye to the
+larder; but the ordnance department and the treasury were as low as if
+Secretary Floyd had been in charge of them. A slave called "Prosser's
+Ben" testified that he went with Gabriel to see Ben Woolfolk, who was
+going to Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three
+shillings for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in
+recruiting men." Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted
+of a peck of bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords,
+made by Gabriel's brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel
+himself. "These cutlasses," said subsequently a white eye-witness, "are
+made of scythes cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have
+never seen arms so murderous. Those who still doubt the importance of the
+conspiracy which has been so fortunately frustrated would shudder with
+horror at the sight of these instruments of death." And as it presently
+appeared that a conspirator named Scott had astonished his master by
+accidentally pulling ten dollars from a ragged pocket which seemed
+inadequate to the custody of ten cents, it was agreed that the plot might
+still be dangerous, even though the resources seemed limited.
+
+And indeed, as was soon discovered, the effective weapon of the
+insurgents lay in the very audacity of their plan. If the current
+statements of all the Virginia letter-writers were true, "nothing could
+have been better contrived." It was to have taken effect on the first day
+of September. The rendezvous for the blacks was to be a brook six miles
+from Richmond. Eleven hundred men were to assemble there, and were to be
+divided into three columns, their officers having been designated in
+advance. All were to march on Richmond,--then a town of eight thousand
+inhabitants,--under cover of night. The right wing was instantly to seize
+upon the penitentiary building, just converted into an arsenal; while the
+left wing was to take possession of the powder-house. These two columns
+were to be armed chiefly with clubs, as their undertaking depended for
+success upon surprise, and was expected to prevail without hard fighting.
+But it was the central force, armed with muskets, cutlasses, knives, and
+pikes, upon which the chief responsibility rested; these men were to
+enter the town at both ends simultaneously, and begin a general carnage,
+none being excepted save the French inhabitants, who were supposed for
+some reason to be friendly to the negroes. In a very few hours, it was
+thought, they would have entire control of the metropolis. And that this
+hope was not in the least unreasonable, was shown by the subsequent
+confessions of weakness from the whites. "They could scarcely have failed
+of success," wrote the Richmond correspondent of the Boston _Chronicle_;
+"for, after all, we could only muster four or five hundred men, of whom
+not more than thirty had muskets."
+
+For the insurgents, if successful, the penitentiary held several thousand
+stand of arms; the powder-house was well stocked; the Capitol contained
+the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of the
+bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus
+secured and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to
+their standard "their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity
+throughout the continent." In a week, it was estimated, they would have
+fifty thousand men on their side, with which force they could easily
+possess themselves of other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John
+Scott--possibly the dangerous possessor of the ten dollars--was already
+appointed to head the attack on Petersburg. But in case of final failure,
+the project included a retreat to the mountains, with their new-found
+property. John Brown was therefore anticipated by Gabriel, sixty years
+before, in believing the Virginia mountains to have been "created, from
+the foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves."
+
+These are the statements of the contemporary witnesses; they are repeated
+in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear and
+consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or under-stated, it
+is now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of Sept. 12
+(quoted in the New-York _Gazette_ of Sept. 18) declares that "the plot
+has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and, had the attempt been
+made to carry it into execution, but little resistance would have been
+required to render the scheme entirely abortive." But it is necessary to
+remember that this is no more than the Charleston newspapers said at the
+very crisis of Denmark Vesey's formidable plot. "Last evening," wrote a
+lady from Charleston in 1822, "twenty-five hundred of our citizens were
+under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a subject _not to
+be mentioned_ [so underscored]; and unless you hear of it elsewhere, say
+nothing about it." Thus it is always hard to know whether to assume the
+facts of an insurrection as above or below the estimates. This Virginian
+excitement also happened at a period of intense political agitation, and
+was seized upon as a boon by the Federalists. The very article above
+quoted is ironically headed "Holy Insurrection," and takes its motto from
+Jefferson, with profuse capital letters: "The Spirit of the Master is
+abating, that of the Slave rising from the dust, his condition
+mollifying."
+
+In view of the political aspect thus given to the plot, and of its
+ingenuity and thoroughness likewise, the Virginians were naturally
+disposed to attribute to white men some share in it; and speculation
+presently began to run wild. The newspapers were soon full of theories,
+no two being alike, and no one credible. The plot originated, some said,
+in certain handbills written by Jefferson's friend Callender, then in
+prison at Richmond on a charge of sedition; these were circulated by two
+French negroes, aided by a "United Irishman" calling himself a Methodist
+preacher, and it was in consideration of these services that no Frenchman
+was to be injured by the slaves. When Gabriel was arrested, the editor of
+the _United-States Gazette_ affected much diplomatic surprise that no
+letters were _yet_ found upon his person "from Fries, Gallatin, or Duane,
+nor was he at the time of his capture accompanied by any United
+Irishman." "He, however, acknowledges that there are others concerned,
+and that he is not the principal instigator." All Federalists agreed that
+the Southern Democratic talk was constructive insurrection,--which it
+certainly was,---and they painted graphic pictures of noisy "Jacobins"
+over their wine, and eager dusky listeners behind their chairs. "It is
+evident that the French principles of liberty and equality have been
+effused into the minds of the negroes, and that the incautious and
+intemperate use of the words by some whites among us have inspired them
+with hopes of success." "While the fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate
+their _French babble_ of the natural equality of man, the insulted negro
+will be constantly stimulated to cast away his cords, and to sharpen his
+pike." "It is, moreover, believed, though not positively known, that a
+great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished
+by the burlesque appellation of _Democrats_) are implicated with the
+blacks, and would have joined them if they had commenced their
+operations.... The Jacobin printers and their friends are panic-struck.
+Never was terror more strongly depicted in the countenances of men."
+These extracts from three different Federalist newspapers show the
+amiable emotions of that side of the house; while Democratic Duane, in
+the _Aurora_, could find no better repartee than to attribute the whole
+trouble to the policy of the administration in renewing commercial
+intercourse with San Domingo.
+
+I have discovered in the Norfolk _Epitome of the Times_, for Oct. 9,
+1800, a remarkable epistle written from Richmond Jail by the unfortunate
+Callender himself. He indignantly denies the charges against the
+Democrats, of complicity in dangerous plots, boldly retorting them upon
+the Federalists. "An insurrection at this critical moment by the negroes
+of the Southern States would have thrown every thing into confusion, and
+consequently it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole
+or the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a
+disaster must have tended directly to injure the interests of Mr.
+Jefferson, and to promote the slender possibility of a second election of
+Mr. Adams." And, to be sure, the _United-States Gazette_ followed up the
+thing with a good, single-minded party malice which cannot be surpassed
+in these present days, ending in such altitudes of sublime coolness as
+the following: "The insurrection of the negroes in the Southern States,
+which appears to be organized on the true French plan, must be decisive,
+with every reflecting man in those States, of the election of Mr. Adams
+and Gen. Pinckney. The military skill and approved bravery of the general
+must be peculiarly valuable to his countrymen at these trying moments."
+Let us have a military Vice-President, by all means, to meet this
+formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets, and this unexplained
+three shillings in the pocket of "Prosser's Ben"!
+
+But Gabriel's campaign failed, like that of the Federalists; and the
+appointed day brought disasters more fatal than even the sword of Gen.
+Pinckney. The affrighted negroes declared that "the stars in their
+courses fought against Sisera." The most furious tempest ever known in
+Virginia burst upon the land that day, instead of an insurrection. Roads
+and plantations were submerged. Bridges were carried away. The fords,
+which then, as now, were the frequent substitutes for bridges in that
+region, were rendered wholly impassable. The Brook Swamp, one of the most
+important strategic points of the insurgents, was entirely inundated,
+hopelessly dividing Prosser's farm from Richmond; the country negroes
+could not get in, nor those from the city get out. The thousand men
+dwindled to a few hundred, and these half paralyzed by superstition;
+there was nothing to do but to dismiss them, and before they could
+re-assemble they were betrayed.
+
+That the greatest alarm was instantly created throughout the community,
+there is no question. All the city of Richmond was in arms, and in all
+large towns of the State the night-patrol was doubled. It is a little
+amusing to find it formally announced, that "the Governor, impressed with
+the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three
+aides-de-camp." A troop of United-States cavalry was ordered to Richmond.
+Numerous arrests were made. Men were convicted on one day, and hanged on
+the next,--five, six, ten, fifteen at a time, almost without evidence.
+Three hundred dollars were offered by Gov. Monroe for the arrest of
+Gabriel; as much more for another chief named Jack Bowler, _alias_
+Ditcher; whereupon Bowler _alias_ Ditcher surrendered himself, but it
+took some weeks to get upon the track of Gabriel. He was finally captured
+at Norfolk, on board a schooner just arrived from Richmond, in whose hold
+he had concealed himself for eleven days, having thrown overboard a
+bayonet and bludgeon, which were his only arms. Crowds of people
+collected to see him, including many of his own color. He was arrested on
+Sept. 24, convicted on Oct. 3, and executed on Oct. 7; and it is known of
+him further, only, that, like almost all leaders of slave insurrections,
+he showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay. "When he was
+apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and confidence,
+showing not the least disposition to equivocate, or screen himself from
+justice,"--but making no confession that could implicate any one else.
+"The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk
+_Epitome_ of Sept. 25, "was such as might be expected from a mind capable
+of forming the daring project which he had conceived." The _United-States
+Gazette_ for Oct. 9 states, more sarcastically, that "the general is said
+to have manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of
+heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather
+than gratify the officious inquiries of the Governor."
+
+Some of these newspapers suggest that the authorities found it good
+policy to omit the statement made by Gabriel, whatever it was. At any
+rate, he assured them that he was by no means the sole instigator of the
+affair; he could name many, even in Norfolk, who were more deeply
+concerned. To his brother Solomon he is said to have stated that the real
+head of the plot was Jack Bowler. Still another leader was "Gen. John
+Scott," already mentioned, the slave of Mr. Greenhow, hired by Mr.
+McCrea. He was captured by his employer in Norfolk, just as he was boldly
+entering a public conveyance to escape; and the Baltimore _Telegraphe_
+declared that he had a written paper directing him to apply to Alexander
+Biddenhurst or Weddenhurst in Philadelphia, "corner of Coats Alley and
+Budd Street, who would supply his needs." What became of this military
+individual, or of his Philadelphia sympathizers, does not appear. But it
+was noticed, as usually happens in such cases, that all the insurgents
+had previously passed for saints. "It consists within my knowledge," says
+one letter-writer, "that many of these wretches who were or would have
+been partakers in the plot have been treated with the utmost tenderness
+by their masters, and were more like children than slaves."
+
+These appear to be all the details now accessible of this once famous
+plot. They were not very freely published, even at the time. "The
+minutiae of the conspiracy have not been detailed to the public," said
+the Salem (Mass.) _Gazette_ of Oct. 7, "and perhaps, through a mistaken
+notion of prudence and policy, will not be detailed in the Richmond
+papers." The New-York _Commercial Advertiser_ of Oct. 13 was still more
+explicit. "The trials of the negroes concerned in the late insurrection
+are suspended until the opinions of the Legislature can be had on the
+subject. This measure is said to be owing to the immense numbers who are
+interested in the plot, whose death, should they all be found guilty and
+be executed, will nearly produce the annihilation of the blacks in this
+part of the country." And in the next issue of the same journal a
+Richmond correspondent makes a similar statement, with the following
+addition: "A conditional amnesty is perhaps expected. At the next session
+of the Legislature [of Virginia], they took into consideration the
+subject referred to them, in secret session, with closed doors. The whole
+result of their deliberations has never yet been made public, as the
+injunction of secrecy has never been removed. To satisfy the court, the
+public, and themselves, they had a task so difficult to perform, that it
+is not surprising that their deliberations were in secret."
+
+It is a matter of historical interest to know that in these mysterious
+sessions lay the germs of the American Colonization Society. A
+correspondence was at once secretly commenced between the Governor of
+Virginia and the President of the United States, with a view to securing
+a grant of land whither troublesome slaves might be banished. Nothing
+came of it then; but in 1801, 1802, and 1804, these attempts were
+renewed. And finally, on Jan. 22, 1805, the following vote was passed,
+still in secret session: "_Resolved_, that the Senators of this State in
+the Congress of the United States be instructed, and the Representatives
+be requested, to use their best efforts for the obtaining from the
+General Government a competent portion of territory in the State of
+Louisiana, to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as
+have been or shall be emancipated, or hereafter may become dangerous to
+the public safety," etc. But of all these efforts nothing was known till
+their record was accidentally discovered by Charles Fenton Mercer in
+1816. He at once brought the matter to light, and moved a similar
+resolution in the Virginia Legislature; it was almost unanimously
+adopted, and the first formal meeting of the Colonization Society, in
+1817, was called "in aid" of this Virginia movement. But the whole
+correspondence was never made public until the Nat Turner insurrection of
+1831 recalled the previous excitement; and these papers were demanded by
+Mr. Summers, a member of the Legislature, who described them as "having
+originated in a convulsion similar to that which had recently, but more
+terribly, occurred."
+
+But neither these subsequent papers, nor any documents which now appear
+accessible, can supply any authentic or trustworthy evidence as to the
+real extent of the earlier plot. It certainly was not confined to the
+mere environs of Richmond. The Norfolk _Epitome_ of Oct. 6 states that on
+the 6th and 7th of the previous month one hundred and fifty blacks,
+including twenty from Norfolk, were assembled near Whitlock's Mills in
+Suffolk County, and remained in the neighborhood till the failure of the
+Richmond plan became known. Petersburg newspapers also had letters
+containing similar tales. Then the alarm spread more widely. Near
+Edenton, N.C., there was undoubtedly a real insurrection, though promptly
+suppressed; and many families ultimately removed from that vicinity in
+consequence. In Charleston, S.C., there was still greater excitement, if
+the contemporary press may be trusted; it was reported that the
+freeholders had been summoned to appear in arms, on penalty of a fine of
+fifteen pounds, which many preferred to pay rather than risk taking the
+fever which then prevailed. These reports were, however, zealously
+contradicted in letters from Charleston, dated Oct. 8; and the Charleston
+newspapers up to Sept. 17 had certainly contained no reference to any
+especial excitement. This alone might not settle the fact, for reasons
+already given. But the omission of any such affair from the valuable
+pamphlet published in 1822 by Edwin C. Holland, containing reminiscences
+of insurrections in South Carolina, is presumptive evidence that no very
+extended agitation occurred.
+
+But wherever there was a black population, slave or emancipated, men's
+startled consciences made cowards of them all, and recognized the negro
+as a dangerous man, because an injured one. In Philadelphia it was
+seriously proposed to prohibit the use of sky-rockets for a time, because
+they had been employed as signals in San Domingo. "Even in Boston," said
+the New-York _Daily Advertiser_ of Sept. 20, "fears are expressed, and
+measures of prevention adopted." This probably refers to a singular
+advertisement which appeared in some of the Boston newspapers on Sept.
+16, and runs as follows:--
+
+    "NOTICE TO BLACKS.
+
+    "The officers of the police having made returns to the subscriber
+    of the names of the following persons who are Africans or
+    negroes, not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of
+    any of the United States, the same are hereby warned and directed
+    to depart out of this Commonwealth before the tenth day of
+    October next, as they would avoid the pains and penalties of the
+    law in that case provided, which was passed by the Legislature
+    March 26, 1788.
+
+    "CHARLES BULFINCH, Superintendent.
+
+    "By order and direction of the Selectmen."
+
+The names annexed are about three hundred, with the places of their
+supposed origin, and they occupy a column of the paper. So at least
+asserts the _United-States Gazette_ of Sept. 23. "It seems probable,"
+adds the editor, "from the nature of the notice, that some suspicion of
+the design of the negroes is entertained; and we regret to say there is
+too much cause." The law of 1788 above mentioned was "An Act for
+suppressing rogues, vagabonds, and the like," which forbade all persons
+of African descent, unless citizens of some one of the United States or
+subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, from remaining more than two months
+within the Commonwealth, on penalty of imprisonment and hard labor. This
+singular statute remained unrepealed until 1834.
+
+Amid the general harmony in the contemporary narratives of Gabriel's
+insurrection, it would be improper to pass by one exceptional legend,
+which by some singular fatality has obtained more circulation than all
+the true accounts put together. I can trace it no farther back than Nat
+Turner's time, when it was published in the Albany _Evening Journal_;
+thence transferred to the _Liberator_ of Sept. 17, 1831, and many other
+newspapers; then refuted in detail by the _Richmond Enquirer_ of Oct. 21;
+then resuscitated in the John-Brown epoch by the Philadelphia _Press_,
+and extensively copied. It is fresh, spirited, and full of graphic and
+interesting details, nearly every one of which is altogether false.
+
+Gabriel in this narrative becomes a rather mythical being, of vast
+abilities and life-long preparations. He bought his freedom, it is
+stated, at the age of twenty-one, and then travelled all over the
+Southern States, enlisting confederates and forming stores of arms. At
+length his plot was discovered, in consequence of three negroes having
+been seen riding out of a stable-yard together; and the Governor offered
+a reward of ten thousand dollars for further information, to which a
+Richmond gentleman added as much more. Gabriel concealed himself on board
+the "Sally Ann," a vessel just sailing for San Domingo, and was revealed
+by his little nephew, whom he had sent for a jug of rum. Finally, the
+narrative puts an eloquent dying speech into Gabriel's mouth, and, to
+give a properly tragic consummation, causes him to be torn to death by
+four wild horses. The last item is, however, omitted in the more recent
+reprints of the story.
+
+Every one of these statements appears to be absolutely erroneous. Gabriel
+lived and died a slave, and was probably never out of Virginia. His plot
+was voluntarily revealed by accomplices. The rewards offered for his
+arrest amounted to three hundred dollars only. He concealed himself on
+board the schooner "Mary," bound to Norfolk, and was discovered by the
+police. He died on the gallows, with ten associates, having made no
+address to the court or the people. All the errors of the statement were
+contradicted when it was first made public, but they have proved very
+hard to kill.
+
+Some of these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with
+this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both
+being composed by a colored man. Several witnesses have assured me of
+having heard this sung in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of
+the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It is surely one
+of history's strange parallelisms, that this fatal enterprise, like that
+of John Brown afterwards, should thus have embalmed itself in music. And
+twenty-two years after these events, their impression still remained
+vivid enough for Benjamin Lundy, in Tennessee, to write: "So well had
+they matured their plot, and so completely had they organized their
+system of operations, that nothing but a seemingly miraculous
+intervention of the arm of Providence was supposed to have been capable
+of saving the city from pillage and flames, and the inhabitants thereof
+from butchery. So dreadful was the alarm and so great the consternation
+produced on this occasion, that a member of Congress from that State was
+some time after heard to express himself in his place as follows: 'The
+night-bell is never heard to toll in the city of Richmond, but the
+anxious mother presses her infant more closely to her bosom.'" The
+Congressman was John Randolph of Roanoke, and it was Gabriel who had
+taught him the lesson.
+
+And longer than the melancholy life of that wayward statesman,--down even
+to the beginning of the American civil war,--there lingered in Richmond a
+memorial of those days, most peculiar and most instructive. Before the
+days of secession, when the Northern traveller in Virginia, after
+traversing for weary leagues its miry ways, its desolate fields, and its
+flowery forests, rode at last into its metropolis, he was sure to be
+guided ere long to visit its stately Capitol, modelled by Jefferson, when
+French minister, from the Maison Carrée. Standing before it, he might
+admire undisturbed the Grecian outline of its exterior; but he found
+himself forbidden to enter, save by passing an armed and uniformed
+sentinel at the doorway. No other State of the Union then found it
+necessary to protect its State House by a permanent cordon of bayonets.
+Yet there for half a century stood sentinel the "Public Guard" of
+Virginia; and when the traveller asked the origin of the precaution, he
+was told that it was the lasting memorial of Gabriel's Defeat.
+
+
+
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+
+On Saturday afternoon, May 25, 1822, a slave named Devany, belonging to
+Col. Prioleau of Charleston, S.C., was sent to market by his
+mistress,--the colonel being absent in the country. After doing his
+errands, he strolled down upon the wharves in the enjoyment of that
+magnificent wealth of leisure which usually characterized the former
+"house-servant" of the South, when beyond hail of the street-door. He
+presently noticed a small vessel lying in the stream, with a peculiar
+flag flying; and while looking at it, he was accosted by a slave named
+William, belonging to Mr. John Paul, who remarked to him, "I have often
+seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number 96 upon it
+before." After some further conversation on this trifling point, William
+suddenly inquired, "Do you know that something serious is about to take
+place?" Devany disclaiming the knowledge of any graver impending crisis
+than the family dinner, the other went on to inform him that many of the
+slaves were "determined to right themselves." "We are determined," he
+added, "to shake off our bondage, and for that purpose we stand on a good
+foundation; many have joined, and if you will go with me, I will show you
+the man who has the list of names, and who will take yours down."
+
+This startling disclosure was quite too much for Devany: he was made of
+the wrong material for so daring a project; his genius was culinary, not
+revolutionary. Giving some excuse for breaking off the conversation, he
+went forthwith to consult a free colored man, named Pensil or Pencell,
+who advised him to warn his master instantly. So he lost no time in
+telling the secret to his mistress and her young son; and on the return
+of Col. Prioleau from the country, five days afterward, it was at once
+revealed to him. Within an hour or two he stated the facts to Mr.
+Hamilton, the intendant, or, as he would now be called, mayor; Mr.
+Hamilton at once summoned the corporation, and by five o'clock Devany and
+William were under examination.
+
+This was the first warning of a plot which ultimately filled Charleston
+with terror. And yet so thorough and so secret was the organization of
+the negroes, that a fortnight passed without yielding the slightest
+information beyond the very little which was obtained from these two.
+William Paul was, indeed, put in confinement, and soon gave evidence
+inculpating two slaves as his employers,--Mingo Harth and Peter Poyas.
+But these men, when arrested, behaved with such perfect coolness, and
+treated the charge with such entire levity;--their trunks and premises,
+when searched, were so innocent of all alarming contents;--that they were
+soon discharged by the wardens. William Paul at length became alarmed for
+his own safety, and began to let out further facts piecemeal, and to
+inculpate other men. But some of those very men came voluntarily to the
+intendant, on hearing that they were suspected, and indignantly offered
+themselves for examination. Puzzled and bewildered, the municipal
+government kept the thing as secret as possible, placed the city guard in
+an efficient condition, provided sixteen hundred rounds of ball
+cartridges, and ordered the sentinels and patrols to be armed with loaded
+muskets. "Such had been our fancied security, that the guard had
+previously gone on duty without muskets, and with only sheathed bayonets
+and bludgeons."
+
+It has since been asserted, though perhaps on questionable authority,
+that the Secretary of War was informed of the plot, even including some
+details of the plan and the leader's name, before it was known in
+Charleston. If so, he utterly disregarded it; and, indeed, so well did
+the negroes play their part, that the whole report was eventually
+disbelieved, while--as was afterwards proved--they went on to complete
+their secret organization, and hastened by a fortnight the appointed day
+of attack. Unfortunately for their plans, however, another betrayal took
+place at the very last moment, from a different direction. A class-leader
+in a Methodist church had been persuaded or bribed by his master to
+procure further disclosures. He at length came and stated, that, about
+three months before, a man named Rolla, slave of Gov. Bennett, had
+communicated to a friend of his the fact of an intended insurrection, and
+had said that the time fixed for the outbreak was the following Sunday
+night, June 16. As this conversation took place on Friday, it gave but a
+very short time for the city authorities to act, especially as they
+wished neither to endanger the city nor to alarm it.
+
+Yet so cautiously was the game played on both sides that the whole thing
+was still kept a secret from the Charleston public; and some members of
+the city government did not fully appreciate their danger till they had
+passed it. "The whole was concealed," wrote the governor afterwards,
+"until the time came; but secret preparations were made. Saturday night
+and Sunday morning passed without demonstrations; doubts were excited,
+and counter orders issued for diminishing the guard." It afterwards
+proved that these preparations showed to the slaves that their plot was
+betrayed, and so saved the city without public alarm. Newspaper
+correspondence soon was full of the story, each informant of course
+hinting plainly that he had been behind the scenes all along, and had
+withheld it only to gratify the authorities in their policy of silence.
+It was "now no longer a secret," they wrote; adding, that, for five or
+six weeks, but little attention had been paid by the community to these
+rumors, the city council having kept it carefully to themselves until a
+number of suspicious slaves had been arrested. This refers to ten
+prisoners who were seized on June 18, an arrest which killed the plot,
+and left only the terrors of what might have been. The investigation,
+thus publicly commenced, soon revealed a free colored man named Denmark
+Vesey as the leader of the enterprise,--among his chief coadjutors being
+that innocent Peter and that unsuspecting Mingo who had been examined and
+discharged nearly three weeks before.
+
+It is matter of demonstration, that, but for the military preparations on
+the appointed Sunday night, the attempt would have been made. The
+ringleaders had actually met for their final arrangements, when, by
+comparing notes, they found themselves foiled; and within another week
+they were prisoners on trial. Nevertheless, the plot which they had laid
+was the most elaborate insurrectionary project ever formed by American
+slaves, and came the nearest to a terrible success. In boldness of
+conception and thoroughness of organization there has been nothing to
+compare with it; and it is worth while to dwell somewhat upon its
+details, first introducing the _dramatis personae_.
+
+Denmark Vesey had come very near figuring as a revolutionist in Hayti,
+instead of South Carolina. Capt. Vesey, an old resident of Charleston,
+commanded a ship that traded between St. Thomas and Cape Français, during
+our Revolutionary War, in the slave-transportation line. In the year 1781
+he took on board a cargo of three hundred and ninety slaves, and sailed
+for the Cape. On the passage, he and his officers were much attracted by
+the beauty and intelligence of a boy of fourteen, whom they unanimously
+adopted into the cabin as a pet. They gave him new clothes, and a new
+name, Télémaque, which was afterwards gradually corrupted into Telmak and
+Denmark. They amused themselves with him until their arrival at Cape
+Français, and then, "having no use for the boy," sold their pet as if he
+had been a macaw or a monkey. Capt. Vesey sailed for St. Thomas; and,
+presently making another trip to Cape Français, was surprised to hear
+from his consignee that Télémaque would be returned on his hands as being
+"unsound,"--not in theology nor in morals, but in body,--subject to
+epileptic fits, in fact. According to the custom of that place, the boy
+was examined by the city physician, who required Capt. Vesey to take him
+back; and Denmark served him faithfully, with no trouble from epilepsy,
+for twenty years, travelling all over the world with him, and learning to
+speak various languages. In 1800 he drew a prize of fifteen hundred
+dollars in the East Bay-street Lottery, with which he bought his freedom
+from his master for six hundred dollars,--much less than his market
+value. From that time, the official report says, he worked as a carpenter
+in Charleston, distinguished for physical strength and energy. "Among
+those of his color he was looked up to with awe and respect. His temper
+was impetuous and domineering in the extreme, qualifying him for the
+despotic rule of which he was ambitious. All his passions were
+ungovernable and savage; and to his numerous wives and children he
+displayed the haughty and capricious cruelty of an Eastern bashaw."
+
+"For several years before he disclosed his intentions to any one, he
+appears to have been constantly and assiduously engaged in endeavoring to
+imbitter the minds of the colored population against the white. He
+rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of the
+Scriptures which he thought he could pervert to his purpose, and would
+readily quote them to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God;
+that slaves were bound to attempt their emancipation, however shocking
+and bloody might be the consequences; and that such efforts would not
+only be pleasing to the Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined, and their
+success predicted, in the Scriptures. His favorite texts when he
+addressed those of his own color were Zech. xiv. 1-3, and Josh. vi. 21;
+and in all his conversations he identified their situation with that of
+the Israelites. The number of inflammatory pamphlets on slavery brought
+into Charleston from some of our sister States within the last four years
+(and once from Sierra Leone), and distributed amongst the colored
+population of the city, for which there was a great facility, in
+consequence of the unrestricted intercourse allowed to persons of color
+between the different States in the Union, and the speeches in Congress
+of those opposed to the admission of Missouri into the Union, perhaps
+garbled and misrepresented, furnished him with ample means for inflaming
+the minds of the colored population of the State; and by distorting
+certain parts of those speeches, or selecting from them particular
+passages, he persuaded but too many that Congress had actually declared
+them free, and that they were held in bondage contrary to the laws of the
+land. Even whilst walking through the streets in company with another, he
+was not idle; for if his companion bowed to a white person, he would
+rebuke him, and observe that all men were born equal, and that he was
+surprised that any one would degrade himself by such conduct; that he
+would never cringe to the whites, nor ought any one who had the feelings
+of a man. When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would sarcastically and
+indignantly reply, 'You deserve to remain slaves;' and if he were further
+asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, 'Go and buy a spelling-book,
+and read the fable of Hercules and the Wagoner,' which he would then
+repeat, and apply it to their situation. He also sought every opportunity
+of entering into conversation with white persons, when they could be
+overheard by negroes near by, especially in grog-shops,--during which
+conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on slavery; and
+sometimes, when, from the character he was conversing with, he found he
+might still be bolder, he would go so far, that, had not his declarations
+in such situations been clearly proved, they would scarcely have been
+credited. He continued this course until some time after the commencement
+of the last winter; by which time he had not only obtained incredible
+influence amongst persons of color, but many feared him more than their
+owners, and, one of them declared, even more than his God."
+
+It was proved against him, that his house had been the principal place of
+meeting for the conspirators, that all the others habitually referred to
+him as the leader, and that he had shown great address in dealing with
+different temperaments and overcoming a variety of scruples. One witness
+testified that Vesey had read to him from the Bible about the deliverance
+of the children of Israel; another, that he had read to him a speech
+which had been delivered "in Congress by a Mr. King" on the subject of
+slavery, and Vesey had said that "this Mr. King was the black man's
+friend; that he, Mr. King, had declared he would continue to speak,
+write, and publish pamphlets against slavery the longest day he lived,
+until the Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves, for that
+slavery was a great disgrace to the country." But among all the reports
+there are only two sentences which really reveal the secret soul of
+Denmark Vesey, and show his impulses and motives. "He said he did not go
+with Creighton to Africa, because he had not a will; he wanted to stay
+and see what he could do for his fellow-creatures." The other takes us
+still nearer home. Monday Gell stated in his confession, that Vesey, on
+first broaching the plan to him, said "he was satisfied with his own
+condition, being free; but, as all his children were slaves, he wished to
+see what could be done for them."
+
+It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent
+preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a
+condition of freedom, to the _naïve_ astonishment of his judges. "It is
+difficult to imagine," says the sentence finally passed on Denmark Vesey,
+"what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprise so
+wild and visionary. You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and
+enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation. You had, therefore,
+much to risk and little to gain." Yet one witness testified: "Vesey said
+the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise. I
+said, I was living well; he said, though I was, others were not, and that
+'twas such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and
+that after all things were well he would mark me." "His general
+conversation," said another witness, a white boy, "was about religion,
+which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the
+creation of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights,
+blacks as well as whites, etc.; all his religious remarks were mingled
+with slavery." And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even
+after the betrayal of his cherished plans. "After the plot was
+discovered," said Monday Gell, in his confession, "Vesey said it was all
+over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned,
+by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying
+together."
+
+The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter
+Poyas. Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the
+organizing mind. He kept the register of "candidates," and decided who
+should or should not be enrolled. "We can't live so," he often reminded
+his confederates; "we must break the yoke." "God has a hand in it; we
+have been meeting for four years, and are not yet betrayed." Peter was a
+ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value. He was to be the military
+leader. His plans showed some natural generalship: he arranged the
+night-attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the
+streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition
+were kept for sale. He voluntarily undertook the management of the most
+difficult part of the enterprise,--the capture of the main
+guard-house,--and had pledged himself to advance alone and surprise the
+sentinel. He was said to have a magnetism in his eyes, of which his
+confederates stood in great awe; if he once got his eye upon a man, there
+was no resisting it. A white witness has since narrated, that, after his
+arrest, he was chained to the floor in a cell, with another of the
+conspirators. Men in authority came, and sought by promises, threats, and
+even tortures, to ascertain the names of other accomplices. His
+companion, wearied out with pain and suffering, and stimulated by the
+hope of saving his own life, at last began to yield. Peter raised
+himself, leaned upon his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying
+quietly, "Die like a man," and instantly lay down again. It was enough;
+not another word was extorted.
+
+One of the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack
+Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack,--Gullah signifying Angola, the
+place of his origin. A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in
+his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this side
+the Atlantic. For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense
+influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had the
+reputation of being invulnerable, and of teaching invulnerability as an
+art, he was very good at beating up recruits for insurrection. Over those
+of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made them
+join in the revolt as one man. They met him monthly at a place called
+Bulkley's Farm, selected because the black overseer on that plantation
+was one of the initiated, and because the farm was accessible by water,
+thus enabling them to elude the patrol. There they prepared cartridges
+and pikes, and had primitive banquets, which assumed a melodramatic
+character under the inspiriting guidance of Jack. If a fowl was privately
+roasted, that mystic individual muttered incantations over it; and then
+they all grasped at it, exclaiming, "Thus we pull Buckra to pieces!" He
+gave them parched corn and ground-nuts to be eaten as internal safeguards
+on the day before the outbreak, and a consecrated _cullah_, or crab's
+claw, to be carried in the mouth by each, as an amulet. These rather
+questionable means secured him a power which was very unquestionable; the
+witnesses examined in his presence all showed dread of his conjurations,
+and referred to him indirectly, with a kind of awe, as "the little man
+who can't be shot."
+
+When Gullah Jack was otherwise engaged, there seems to have been a sort
+of deputy seer employed in the enterprise, a blind man named Philip. He
+was a preacher; was said to have been born with a caul on his head, and
+so claimed the gift of second-sight. Timid adherents were brought to his
+house for ghostly counsel. "Why do you look so timorous?" he said to
+William Garner, and then quoted Scripture, "Let not your heart be
+troubled." That a blind man should know how he looked, was beyond the
+philosophy of the visitor; and this piece of rather cheap ingenuity
+carried the day.
+
+Other leaders were appointed also. Monday Gell was the scribe of the
+enterprise; he was a native African, who had learned to read and write.
+He was by trade a harness-maker, working chiefly on his own account. He
+confessed that he had written a letter to President Boyer of the new
+black republic; "the letter was about the sufferings of the blacks, and
+to know if the people of St. Domingo would help them if they made an
+effort to free themselves." This epistle was sent by the black cook of a
+Northern schooner, and the envelope was addressed to a relative of the
+bearer.
+
+Tom Russell was the armorer, and made pikes "on a very improved model,"
+the official report admits. Polydore Faber fitted the weapons with
+handles. Bacchus Hammett had charge of the fire-arms and ammunition, not
+as yet a laborious duty. William Garner and Mingo Harth were to lead the
+horse-company. Lot Forrester was the courier, and had done, no one ever
+knew how much, in the way of enlisting country negroes, of whom Ned
+Bennett was to take command when enlisted. Being the governor's servant,
+Ned was probably credited with some official experience. These were the
+officers: now for the plan of attack.
+
+It was the custom then, as later, for the country negroes to flock
+largely into Charleston on Sunday. More than a thousand came, on ordinary
+occasions, and a far larger number might at any time make their
+appearance without exciting any suspicion. They gathered in, especially
+by water, from the opposite sides of Ashley and Cooper Rivers, and from
+the neighboring islands; and they came in a great number of canoes of
+various sizes,--many of which could carry a hundred men,--which were
+ordinarily employed in bringing agricultural products to the Charleston
+market. To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city
+government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,--and
+that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were
+rather fearful of coming into town; and it was found, that, even then,
+there were more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday. This fact,
+then, was the essential point in the plan of insurrection. Whole
+plantations were found to have been enlisted among the "candidates," as
+they were termed; and it was proved that the city negroes, who lived
+nearest the place of meeting, had agreed to conceal these confederates in
+their houses to a large extent, on the night of the proposed outbreak.
+
+The details of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass
+of the confederates; they were known only to a few, and were finally to
+be announced only after the evening prayer-meetings on the appointed
+Sunday. But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work
+marked out. When the clock struck twelve, all were to move. Peter Poyas
+was to lead a party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined by
+a force from James's Island; he was then to march up and seize the
+arsenal and guard-house opposite St. Michael's Church, and detach a
+sufficient number to cut off all white citizens who should appear at the
+alarm-posts. A second body of negroes, from the country and the Neck,
+headed by Ned Bennett, was to assemble on the Neck, and seize the arsenal
+there. A third was to meet at Gov. Bennett's Mills, under command of
+Rolla, and, after putting the governor and intendant to death, to march
+through the city, or be posted at Cannon's Bridge, thus preventing the
+inhabitants of Cannonsborough from entering the city. A fourth, partly
+from the country, and partly from the neighboring localities in the city,
+was to rendezvous on Gadsden's Wharf, and attack the upper guard-house. A
+fifth, composed of country and Neck negroes, was to assemble at Bulkley's
+Farm, two miles and a half from the city, seize the upper
+powder-magazine, and then march down; and a sixth was to assemble at
+Denmark Vesey's, and obey his orders. A seventh detachment, under Gullah
+Jack, was to assemble in Boundary Street, at the head of King Street, to
+capture the arms of the Neck company of militia, and to take an
+additional supply from Mr. Duquercron's shop. The naval stores on Mey's
+Wharf were also to be attacked. Meanwhile, a horse-company, consisting of
+many draymen, hostlers, and butcher-boys, was to meet at Lightwood's
+Alley, and then scour the streets to prevent the whites from assembling.
+Every white man coming out of his own door was to be killed; and, if
+necessary, the city was to be fired in several places,--slow-match for
+this purpose having been purloined from the public arsenal, and placed in
+an accessible position.
+
+Beyond this, the plan of action was either unformed or undiscovered; some
+slight reliance seems to have been placed on English aid,--more on
+assistance from St. Domingo. At any rate, all the ships in the harbor
+were to be seized; and in these, if the worst came to the worst, those
+most deeply inculpated could set sail, bearing with them, perhaps, the
+spoils of shops and of banks. It seems to be admitted by the official
+narrative, that they might have been able, at that season of the year,
+and with the aid of the fortifications on the Neck and around the harbor,
+to retain possession of the city for some time.
+
+So unsuspicious were the authorities, so unprepared the citizens, so open
+to attack lay the city, that nothing seemed necessary to the success of
+the insurgents except organization and arms. Indeed, the plan of
+organization easily covered a supply of arms. By their own contributions
+they had secured enough to strike the first blow,--a few hundred pikes
+and daggers, together with swords and guns for the leaders. But they had
+carefully marked every place in the city where weapons were to be
+obtained. On King-street Road, beyond the municipal limits, in a common
+wooden shop, were left unguarded the arms of the Neck company of militia,
+to the number of several hundred stand; and these were to be secured by
+Bacchus Hammett, whose master kept the establishment. In Mr. Duquercron's
+shop there were deposited for sale as many more weapons; and they had
+noted Mr. Schirer's shop in Queen Street, and other gunsmiths'
+establishments. Finally, the State arsenal in Meeting Street, a building
+with no defences except ordinary wooden doors, was to be seized early in
+the outbreak. Provided, therefore, that the first moves proved
+successful, all the rest appeared sure.
+
+Very little seems to have been said among the conspirators in regard to
+any plans of riot or debauchery, subsequent to the capture of the city.
+Either their imaginations did not dwell on them, or the witnesses did not
+dare to give testimony, or the authorities to print it. Death was to be
+dealt out, comprehensive and terrible; but nothing more is mentioned. One
+prisoner, Rolla, is reported in the evidence to have dropped hints in
+regard to the destiny of the women; and there was a rumor in the
+newspapers of the time, that he or some other of Gov. Bennett's slaves
+was to have taken the governor's daughter, a young girl of sixteen, for
+his wife, in the event of success; but this is all. On the other hand,
+Denmark Vesey was known to be for a war of immediate and total
+extermination; and when some of the company opposed killing "the
+ministers and the women and children," Vesey read from the Scriptures
+that all should be cut off, and said that "it was for their safety not to
+leave one white skin alive, for this was the plan they pursued at St.
+Domingo." And all this was not a mere dream of one lonely enthusiast, but
+a measure which had been maturing for four full years among several
+confederates, and had been under discussion for five months among
+multitudes of initiated "candidates."
+
+As usual with slave-insurrections, the best men and those most trusted
+were deepest in the plot. Rolla was the only prominent conspirator who
+was not an active church-member. "Most of the ringleaders," says a
+Charleston letter-writer of that day, "were the rulers or class-leaders
+in what is called the African Society, and were considered faithful,
+honest fellows. Indeed, many of the owners could not be convinced, till
+the fellows confessed themselves, that they were concerned, and that the
+first object of all was to kill their masters." And the first official
+report declares that it would not be difficult to assign a motive for the
+insurrectionists, "if it had not been distinctly proved, that, with
+scarcely an exception, they had no individual hardship to complain of,
+and were among the most humanely treated negroes in the city. The
+facilities for combining and confederating in such a scheme were amply
+afforded by the extreme indulgence and kindness which characterize the
+domestic treatment of our slaves. Many slave-owners among us, not
+satisfied with ministering to the wants of their domestics by all the
+comforts of abundant food and excellent clothing, with a misguided
+benevolence have not only permitted their instruction, but lent to such
+efforts their approbation and applause."
+
+"I sympathize most sincerely," says the anonymous author of a pamphlet of
+the period, "with the very respectable and pious clergyman whose heart
+must still bleed at the recollection that his confidential class-leader,
+but a week or two before his just conviction, had received the communion
+of the Lord's Supper from his hand. This wretch had been brought up in
+his pastor's family, and was treated with the same Christian attention as
+was shown to their own children." "To us who are accustomed to the base
+and proverbial ingratitude of these people, this ill return of kindness
+and confidence is not surprising; but they who are ignorant of their real
+character will read and wonder."
+
+One demonstration of this "Christian attention" had lately been the
+closing of the African Church,--of which, as has been stated, most of the
+leading revolutionists were members,--on the ground that it tended to
+spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On Jan. 15, 1821, the
+city marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the gospel and
+others who keep night--and Sunday-schools for slaves, that the education
+of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city government feel
+imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there were some
+special as well as general grounds for disaffection among these
+ungrateful favorites of fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied
+dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen,--since you cannot keep men
+ignorant without making them unreasonable also,--that on the ensuing
+Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that every
+black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them;" this
+being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to be on
+its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had ended
+the Missouri Compromise discussion by making them all free, and that the
+law would protect their liberty if they could only secure it. Others,
+again, were threatened with the vengeance of the conspirators, unless
+they also joined; on the night of attack, it was said, the initiated
+would have a countersign, and all who did not know it would share the
+fate of the whites. Add to this the reading of Congressional speeches,
+and of the copious magazine of revolution to be found in the Bible,--and
+it was no wonder, if they for the first time were roused, under the
+energetic leadership of Vesey, to a full consciousness of their own
+condition.
+
+"Not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by
+their owners; but this was very generally the case with all who were
+convicted,--many of them possessing the highest confidence of their
+owners, and not one of bad character." In one case it was proved that
+Vesey had forbidden his followers to trust a certain man, because he had
+once been seen intoxicated. In another case it was shown that a slave
+named George had made every effort to obtain their confidence, but was
+constantly excluded from their meetings as a talkative fellow who could
+not be trusted,--a policy which his levity of manner, when examined in
+court, fully justified. They took no women into counsel,--not from any
+distrust apparently, but in order that their children might not be left
+uncared-for in case of defeat and destruction. House-servants were rarely
+trusted, or only when they had been carefully sounded by the chief
+leaders. Peter Poyas, in commissioning an agent to enlist men, gave him
+excellent cautions: "Don't mention it to those waiting-men who receive
+presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they'll betray us; I
+will speak to them." When he did speak, if he did not convince them, he
+at least frightened them. But the chief reliance was on those slaves who
+were hired out, and therefore more uncontrolled,--and also upon the
+country negroes.
+
+The same far-sighted policy directed the conspirators to disarm suspicion
+by peculiarly obedient and orderly conduct. And it shows the precaution
+with which the thing was carried on, that, although Peter Poyas was
+proved to have had a list of some six hundred persons, yet not one of his
+particular company was ever brought to trial. As each leader kept to
+himself the names of his proselytes, and as Monday Gell was the only one
+of these leaders who turned traitor, any opinion as to the numbers
+actually engaged must be altogether conjectural. One witness said nine
+thousand; another, six thousand six hundred. These statements were
+probably extravagant, though not more so than Gov. Bennett's assertion,
+on the other side, that "all who were actually concerned had been brought
+to justice,"--unless by this phrase he designates only the ringleaders.
+The avowed aim of the governor's letter, indeed, is to smooth the thing
+over, for the credit and safety of the city; and its evasive tone
+contrasts strongly with the more frank and thorough statements of the
+judges, made after the thing could no longer be hushed up. These high
+authorities explicitly acknowledge that they had failed to detect more
+than a small minority of those concerned in the project, and seem to
+admit, that, if it had once been brought to a head, the slaves generally
+would have joined in.
+
+"We cannot venture to say," says the intendant's pamphlet, "to how many
+the knowledge of the intended effort was communicated, who without
+signifying their assent, or attending any of the meetings, were yet
+prepared to profit by events. That there are many who would not have
+permitted the enterprise to have failed at a critical moment, for the
+want of their co-operation, we have the best reason for believing." So
+believed the community at large; and the panic was in proportion, when
+the whole danger was finally made public. "The scenes I witnessed," says
+one who has since narrated the circumstances, "and the declaration of the
+impending danger that met us at all times and on all occasions, forced
+the conviction that never were an entire people more thoroughly alarmed
+than were the people of Charleston at that time.... During the
+excitement, and the trial of the supposed conspirators, rumor proclaimed
+all, and doubtless more than all, the horrors of the plot. The city was
+to be fired in every quarter; the arsenal in the immediate vicinity was
+to be broken open, and the arms distributed to the insurgents, and a
+universal massacre of the white inhabitants to take place. Nor did there
+seem to be any doubt in the mind of the people, that such would actually
+have been the result had not the plot fortunately been detected before
+the time appointed for the outbreak. It was believed, as a matter of
+course, that every black in the city would join in the insurrection, and
+that if the original design had been attempted, and the city taken by
+surprise, the negroes would have achieved a complete and easy victory.
+Nor does it seem at all impossible that such might have been, or yet may
+be, the case, if any well-arranged and resolute rising should take
+place."
+
+Indeed, this universal admission, that all the slaves were ready to take
+part in any desperate enterprise, was one of the most startling aspects
+of the affair. The authorities say that the two principal State's
+evidence declared that "they never spoke to any person of color on the
+subject, or knew of any one who had been spoken to by the other leaders,
+who had withheld his assent." And the conspirators seem to have been
+perfectly satisfied that all the remaining slaves would enter their ranks
+upon the slightest success. "Let us assemble a sufficient number to
+commence the work with spirit, and we'll not want men; they'll fall in
+behind us fast enough." And as an illustration of this readiness, the
+official report mentions a slave who had belonged to one master for
+sixteen years, sustaining a high character for fidelity and affection,
+who had twice travelled with him through the Northern States, resisting
+every solicitation to escape, and who yet was very deeply concerned in
+the insurrection, though knowing it to involve the probable destruction
+of the whole family with whom he lived.
+
+One singular circumstance followed the first rumors of the plot. Several
+white men, said to be of low and unprincipled character, at once began to
+make interest with the supposed leaders among the slaves, either from
+genuine sympathy, or with the intention of betraying them for money, or
+by profiting by the insurrection, should it succeed. Four of these were
+brought to trial; but the official report expresses the opinion that many
+more might have been discovered but for the inadmissibility of slave
+testimony against whites. Indeed, the evidence against even these four
+was insufficient for a capital conviction, although one was overheard,
+through stratagem, by the intendant himself, and arrested on the spot.
+This man was a Scotchman, another a Spaniard, a third a German, and the
+fourth a Carolinian. The last had for thirty years kept a shop in the
+neighborhood of Charleston; he was proved to have asserted that "the
+negroes had as much right to fight for their liberty as the white
+people," had offered to head them in the enterprise, and had said that in
+three weeks he would have two thousand men. But in no case, it appears,
+did these men obtain the confidence of the slaves; and the whole plot was
+conceived and organized, so far as appears, without the slightest
+co-operation from any white man.
+
+The trial of the conspirators began on Wednesday, June 19. At the request
+of the intendant, Justices Kennedy and Parker summoned five freeholders
+(Messrs. Drayton, Heyward, Pringle, Legaré, and Turnbull) to constitute a
+court, under the provisions of the Act "for the better ordering and
+governing negroes and other slaves." The intendant laid the case before
+them, with a list of prisoners and witnesses. By a vote of the court, all
+spectators were excluded, except the owners and counsel of the slaves
+concerned. No other colored person was allowed to enter the jail, and a
+strong guard of soldiers was kept always on duty around the building.
+Under these general arrangements the trials proceeded with elaborate
+formality, though with some variations from ordinary usage,--as was,
+indeed, required by the statute.
+
+For instance, the law provided that the testimony of any Indian or slave
+could be received, without oath, against a slave or free colored person,
+although it was not valid, even under oath, against a white. But it is
+best to quote the official language in respect to the rules adopted: "As
+the court had been organized under a statute of a peculiar and local
+character, and intended for the government of a distinct class of persons
+in the community, they were bound to conform their proceedings to its
+provisions, which depart in many essential features from the principles
+of the common law and some of the settled rules of evidence. The court,
+however, determined to adopt those rules, whenever they were not
+repugnant to nor expressly excepted by that statute, nor inconsistent
+with the local situation and policy of the State; and laid down for their
+own government the following regulations: First, that no slave should be
+tried except in the presence of his owner or his counsel, and that notice
+should be given in every case at least one day before the trial; second,
+that the testimony of one witness, unsupported by additional evidence or
+by circumstances, should lead to no conviction of a capital nature;
+third, that the witnesses should be confronted with the accused and with
+each other in every case, except where testimony was given under a solemn
+pledge that the names of the witnesses should not be divulged,--as they
+declared, in some instances, that they apprehended being murdered by the
+blacks, if it was known that they had volunteered their evidence; fourth,
+that the prisoners might be represented by counsel, whenever this was
+requested by the owners of the slaves, or by the prisoners themselves if
+free; fifth, that the statements or defences of the accused should be
+heard in every case, and they be permitted themselves to examine any
+witness they thought proper."
+
+It is singular to observe how entirely these rules seem to concede that a
+slave's life has no sort of value to himself, but only to his master. His
+master, not he himself, must choose whether it be worth while to employ
+counsel. His master, not his mother or his wife, must be present at the
+trial. So far is this carried, that the provision to exclude "persons who
+had no particular interest in the slaves accused" seems to have excluded
+every acknowledged relative they had in the world, and admitted only
+those who had invested in them so many dollars. And yet the very first
+section of that part of the statute under which they were tried lays down
+an explicit recognition of their humanity: "And whereas natural justice
+forbids that any _person_, of what condition soever, should be condemned
+unheard." So thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of person and
+chattel intermingled, that when Gov. Bennett petitions for mitigation of
+sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I ask this,
+gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing loss," it
+is really impossible to decide whether the predominant emotion be
+affectional or financial.
+
+It is a matter of painful necessity to acknowledge that the proceedings
+of most slave-tribunals have justified the honest admission of Gov. Adams
+of South Carolina, in his legislative message of 1855: "The
+administration of our laws, in relation to our colored population, by our
+courts of magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present
+constituted, calls loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in
+conformity with justice or humanity." This trial, as reported by the
+justices themselves, seems to have been no worse than the
+average,--perhaps better. In all, thirty-five were sentenced to death,
+thirty-four to transportation, twenty-seven acquitted by the court, and
+twenty-five discharged without trial, by the Committee of
+Vigilance,--making in all one hundred and twenty-one.
+
+The sentences pronounced by Judge Kennedy upon the leading rebels, while
+paying a high tribute to their previous character, of course bring all
+law and all Scripture to prove the magnitude of their crime. "It is a
+melancholy fact," he says, "that those servants in whom we reposed the
+most unlimited confidence have been the principal actors in this wicked
+scheme." Then he rises into earnest appeals. "Are you incapable of the
+heavenly influence of that gospel, all whose paths are peace? It was to
+reconcile us to our destiny on earth, and to enable us to discharge with
+fidelity all our duties, whether as master or servant, that those
+inspired precepts were imparted by Heaven to fallen man."
+
+To these reasonings the prisoners had, of course, nothing to say; but the
+official reports bear the strongest testimony to their fortitude. "Rolla,
+when arraigned, affected not to understand the charge against him, and,
+when it was at his request further explained to him, assumed, with
+wonderful adroitness, astonishment and surprise. He was remarkable,
+throughout his trial, for great presence and composure of mind. When he
+was informed he was convicted, and was advised to prepare for death,
+though he had previously (but after his trial) confessed his guilt, he
+appeared perfectly confounded, but exhibited no signs of fear. In Ned's
+behavior there was nothing remarkable; but his countenance was stern and
+immovable, even whilst he was receiving the sentence of death: from his
+looks it was impossible to discover or conjecture what were his feelings.
+Not so with Peter: for in his countenance were strongly marked
+disappointed ambition, revenge, indignation, and an anxiety to know how
+far the discoveries had extended; and the same emotions were exhibited in
+his conduct. He did not appear to fear personal consequences, for his
+whole behavior indicated the reverse; but exhibited an evident anxiety
+for the success of their plan, in which his whole soul was embarked. His
+countenance and behavior were the same when he received his sentence; and
+his only words were, on retiring, 'I suppose you'll let me see my wife
+and family before I die?' and that not in a supplicating tone. When he
+was asked, a day or two after, if it was possible he could wish to see
+his master and family murdered, who had treated him so kindly, he only
+replied to the question by a smile. Monday's behavior was not peculiar.
+When he was before the court, his arms were folded; he heard the
+testimony given against him, and received his sentence, with the utmost
+firmness and composure. But no description can accurately convey to
+others the impression which the trial, defence, and appearance of Gullah
+Jack made on those who witnessed the workings of his cunning and rude
+address. When arrested and brought before the court, in company with
+another African named Jack, the property of the estate of Pritchard, he
+assumed so much ignorance, and looked and acted the fool so well, that
+some of the court could not believe that this was the necromancer who was
+sought after. This conduct he continued when on his trial, until he saw
+the witnesses and heard the testimony as it progressed against him; when,
+in an instant, his countenance was lighted up as if by lightning, and his
+wildness and vehemence of gesture, and the malignant glance with which he
+eyed the witnesses who appeared against him, all indicated the savage,
+who indeed had been _caught_, but not _tamed_. His courage, however, soon
+forsook him. When he received sentence of death, he earnestly implored
+that a fortnight longer might be allowed him, and then a week longer,
+which he continued earnestly to solicit until he was taken from the
+court-room to his cell; and when he was carried to execution, he gave up
+his spirit without firmness or composure."
+
+Not so with Denmark Vesey. The plans of years were frustrated; his own
+life and liberty were thrown away; many others were sacrificed through
+his leadership; and one more was added to the list of unsuccessful
+insurrections. All these disastrous certainties he faced calmly, and gave
+his whole mind composedly to the conducting of his defence. With his arms
+tightly folded, and his eyes fixed on the floor, he attentively followed
+every item of the testimony. He heard the witnesses examined by the
+court, and cross-examined by his own counsel; and it is evident from the
+narrative of the presiding judge, that he showed no small skill and
+policy in the searching cross-examination which he then applied. The
+fears, the feelings, the consciences, of those who had betrayed him, all
+were in turn appealed to; but the facts were quite overpowering, and it
+was too late to aid his comrades or himself. Then turning to the court,
+he skilfully availed himself of the point which had so much impressed the
+community: the intrinsic improbability that a man in his position of
+freedom and prosperity should sacrifice every thing to free other people.
+If they thought it so incredible, why not give him the benefit of the
+incredibility? The act being, as they stated, one of infatuation, why
+convict him of it on the bare word of men who, by their own showing, had
+not only shared the infatuation, but proved traitors to it? An ingenious
+defence,--indeed, the only one which could by any possibility be
+suggested, anterior to the days of Choate and somnambulism; but in vain.
+He was sentenced; and it was not, apparently, till the judge reproached
+him for the destruction he had brought on his followers, that he showed
+any sign of emotion. Then the tears came into his eyes. But he said not
+another word.
+
+The executions took place on five different days; and, bad as they were,
+they might have been worse. After the imaginary Negro Plot of New York,
+in 1741, thirteen negroes had been judicially burned alive; two had
+suffered the same sentence at Charleston in 1808; and it was undoubtedly
+some mark of progress, that in this case the gallows took the place of
+the flames. Six were hanged on July 2, upon Blake's lands, near
+Charleston,--Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Jesse, Ned, Rolla, and
+Batteau,--the last three being slaves of the governor himself. Gullah
+Jack and John were executed "on the Lines," near Charleston, on July 12;
+and twenty-two more on July 26. Four others suffered their fate on July
+30; and one more, William Garner, effected a temporary escape, was
+captured, and tried by a different court, and was finally executed on
+Aug. 9.
+
+The self-control of these men did not desert them at their execution.
+When the six leaders suffered death, the report says, Peter Poyas
+repeated his charge of secrecy: "Do not open your lips; die silent, as
+you shall see me do;" and all obeyed. And though afterwards, as the
+particulars of the plot became better known, there was less inducement to
+conceal, yet every one of the thirty-five seems to have met his fate
+bravely, except the conjurer. Gov. Bennett, in his letter, expresses much
+dissatisfaction at the small amount learned from the participators. "To
+the last hour of the existence of several who appeared to be conspicuous
+actors in the drama, they were pressingly importuned to make further
+confessions,"--this "importuning" being more clearly defined in a letter
+of Mr. Ferguson, owner of two of the slaves, as "having them severely
+corrected." Yet so little was obtained, that the governor was compelled
+to admit at last that the really essential features of the plot were not
+known to any of the informers.
+
+It is to be remembered, that the plot failed because a man unauthorized
+and incompetent, William Paul, undertook to make enlistments on his own
+account. He happened on one of precisely that class of men,--favored
+house-servants,--whom his leaders had expressly reserved for more skilful
+manipulations. He being thus detected, one would have supposed that the
+discovery of many accomplices would at once have followed. The number
+enlisted was counted by thousands; yet for twenty-nine days after the
+first treachery, and during twenty days of official examination, only
+fifteen of the conspirators were ferreted out. Meanwhile the informers'
+names had to be concealed with the utmost secrecy; they were in peril of
+their lives from the slaves,--William Paul scarcely dared to go beyond
+the doorstep,--and the names of important witnesses examined in June were
+still suppressed in the official report published in October. That a
+conspiracy on so large a scale should have existed in embryo during four
+years, and in an active form for several months, and yet have been so
+well managed, that, after actual betrayal, the authorities were again
+thrown off their guard, and the plot nearly brought to a head
+again,--this certainly shows extraordinary ability in the leaders, and a
+talent for concerted action on the part of slaves generally, with which
+they have hardly been credited.
+
+And it is also to be noted, that the range of the conspiracy extended far
+beyond Charleston. It was proved that Frank, slave of Mr. Ferguson,
+living nearly forty miles from the city, had boasted of having enlisted
+four plantations in his immediate neighborhood. It was in evidence that
+the insurgents "were trying all round the country, from Georgetown and
+Santee round about to Combahee, to get people;" and, after the trials, it
+was satisfactorily established that Vesey "had been in the country as far
+north as South Santee, and southwardly as far as the Euhaws, which is
+between seventy and eighty miles from the city." Mr. Ferguson himself
+testified that the good order of any gang was no evidence of their
+ignorance of the plot, since the behavior of his own initiated slaves had
+been unexceptionable, in accordance with Vesey's directions.
+
+With such an organization and such materials, there was nothing in the
+plan which could be pronounced incredible or impracticable. There is no
+reason why they should not have taken the city. After all the governor's
+entreaties as to moderate language, the authorities were obliged to admit
+that South Carolina had been saved from a "horrible catastrophe." "For,
+although success could not possibly have attended the conspirators, yet,
+before their suppression, Charleston would probably have been wrapped in
+flames, many valuable lives would have been sacrificed, and an immense
+loss of property sustained by the citizens, even though no other
+distressing occurrences were experienced by them; while the plantations
+in the lower country would have been disorganized, and the agricultural
+interests have sustained an enormous loss." The Northern journals had
+already expressed still greater anxieties. "It appears," said the
+New-York _Commercial Advertiser_, "that, but for the timely disclosure,
+the whole of that State would in a few days have witnessed the horrid
+spectacle once witnessed in St. Domingo."
+
+My friend, David Lee Child, has kindly communicated to me a few memoranda
+of a conversation held long since with a free colored man who had worked
+in Vesey's shop during the time of the insurrection; and these generally
+confirm the official narratives. "I was a young man then," he said; "and,
+owing to the policy of preventing communication between free colored
+people and slaves, I had little opportunity of ascertaining how the
+slaves felt about it. I know that several of them were abused in the
+street, and some put in prison, for appearing in sackcloth. There was an
+ordinance of the city, that any slave who wore a badge of mourning should
+be imprisoned and flogged. They generally got the law, which is
+thirty-nine lashes; but sometimes it was according to the decision of the
+court." "I heard, at the time, of arms being buried in coffins at
+Sullivan's Island." "In the time of the insurrection, the slaves were
+tried in a small room in the jail where they were confined. No colored
+person was allowed to go within two squares of the prison. Those two
+squares were filled with troops, five thousand of whom were on duty day
+and night. I was told, Vesey said to those that tried him, that the work
+of insurrection would go on; but as none but white persons were permitted
+to be present, I cannot tell whether he said it."
+
+During all this time there was naturally a silence in the Charleston
+journals, which strongly contrasts with the extreme publicity at last
+given to the testimony. Even the _National Intelligencer_, at Washington,
+passed lightly over the affair, and deprecated the publication of
+particulars. The Northern editors, on the other hand, eager for items,
+were constantly complaining of this reserve, and calling for further
+intelligence. "The Charleston papers," said the Hartford _Courant_ of
+July 16, "have been silent on the subject of the insurrection; but
+letters from this city state that it has created much alarm, and that two
+brigades of troops were under arms for some time to suppress any risings
+that might have taken place." "You will doubtless hear," wrote a
+Charleston correspondent of the same paper, just before, "many reports,
+and some exaggerated ones." "There was certainly a disposition to revolt,
+and some preparations made, principally by the plantation negroes, to
+take the city." "We hoped they would progress so far as to enable us to
+ascertain and punish the ringleaders." "Assure my friends that we feel in
+perfect security, although the number of nightly guards, and other
+demonstrations, may induce a belief among strangers to the contrary."
+
+The strangers would have been very blind strangers, if they had not been
+more influenced by the actions of the Charleston citizens than by their
+words. The original information was given on May 25, 1822. The time
+passed, and the plot failed on June 16. A plan for its revival on July 2
+proved abortive. Yet a letter from Charleston, in the Hartford _Courant_
+of Aug. 6, represented the panic as unabated: "Great preparations are
+making, and all the military are put in preparation to guard against any
+attempt of the same kind again; but we have no apprehension of its being
+repeated." On Aug. 10, Gov. Bennett wrote the letter already mentioned,
+which was printed and distributed as a circular, its object being to
+deprecate undue alarm. "Every individual in the State is interested,
+whether in regard to his own property, or the reputation of the State, in
+giving no more importance to the transaction than it justly merits." Yet,
+five days after this,--two months after the first danger had passed,--a
+re-enforcement of United-States troops arrived at Fort Moultrie; and,
+during the same month, several different attempts were made by small
+parties of armed negroes to capture the mails between Charleston and
+Savannah, and a reward of two hundred dollars was offered for their
+detection.
+
+The first official report of the trials was prepared by the intendant, by
+request of the city council. It passed through four editions in a few
+months,--the first and fourth being published in Charleston, and the
+second and third in Boston. Being, however, but a brief pamphlet, it did
+not satisfy the public curiosity; and in October of the same year (1822),
+a larger volume appeared at Charleston, edited by the magistrates who
+presided at the trials,--Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker. It contains
+the evidence in full, and a separate narrative of the whole affair, more
+candid and lucid than any other which I have found in the newspapers or
+pamphlets of the day. It exhibits that rarest of all qualities in a
+slave-community, a willingness to look facts in the face. This narrative
+has been faithfully followed, with the aid of such cross-lights as could
+be secured from many other quarters, in preparing the present history.
+
+The editor of the first official report racked his brains to discover the
+special causes of the revolt, and never trusted himself to allude to the
+general one. The negroes rebelled because they were deluded by
+Congressional eloquence; or because they were excited by a church
+squabble; or because they had been spoilt by mistaken indulgences, such
+as being allowed to learn to read,--"a misguided benevolence," as he
+pronounces it. So the Baptist Convention seems to have thought it was
+because they were not Baptists; and an Episcopal pamphleteer, because
+they were not Episcopalians. It never seems to occur to any of these
+spectators, that these people rebelled simply because they were slaves,
+and wished to be free.
+
+No doubt, there were enough special torches with which a man so skilful
+as Denmark Vesey could kindle up these dusky powder-magazines; but, after
+all, the permanent peril lay in the powder. So long as that existed,
+every thing was incendiary. Any torn scrap in the street might contain a
+Missouri-Compromise speech, or a report of the last battle in St.
+Domingo, or one of those able letters of Boyer's which were winning the
+praise of all, or one of John Randolph's stirring speeches in England
+against the slave-trade. The very newspapers which reported the happy
+extinction of the insurrection by the hanging of the last conspirator,
+William Garner, reported also, with enthusiastic indignation, the
+massacre of the Greeks at Constantinople and at Scio; and then the
+Northern editors, breaking from their usual reticence, pointed out the
+inconsistency of Southern journals in printing, side by side,
+denunciations of Mohammedan slave-sales, and advertisements of those of
+Christians.
+
+Of course the insurrection threw the whole slavery question open to the
+public. "We are sorry to see," said the _National Intelligencer_ of Aug.
+31, "that a discussion of the hateful Missouri question is likely to be
+revived, in consequence of the allusions to its supposed effect in
+producing the late servile insurrection in South Carolina." A member of
+the Board of Public Works of South Carolina published in the Baltimore
+_American Farmer_ an essay urging the encouragement of white laborers,
+and hinting at the ultimate abolition of slavery "if it should ever be
+thought desirable." More boldly still, a pamphlet appeared in Charleston,
+under the signature of "Achates," arguing with remarkable sagacity and
+force against the whole system of slave-labor _in towns_; and proposing
+that all slaves in Charleston should be sold or transferred to the
+plantations, and their places supplied by white labor. It is interesting
+to find many of the facts and arguments of Helper's "Impending Crisis"
+anticipated in this courageous tract, written under the pressure of a
+crisis which had just been so narrowly evaded. The author is described in
+the preface as "a soldier and patriot of the Revolution, whose name, did
+we feel ourselves at liberty to use it, would stamp a peculiar weight and
+value on his opinions." It was commonly attributed to Gen. Thomas
+Pinckney.
+
+Another pamphlet of the period, also published in Charleston, recommended
+as a practical cure for insurrection the copious administration of
+Episcopal-Church services, and the prohibition of negroes from attending
+Fourth-of-July celebrations. On this last point it is more consistent
+than most pro-slavery arguments. "The celebration of the Fourth of July
+belongs _exclusively_ to the white population of the United States. The
+American Revolution was _a family quarrel among equals_. In this the
+negroes had no concern; their condition remained, and must remain,
+unchanged. They have no more to do with the celebration of that day than
+with the landing of the Pilgrims on the rock at Plymouth. It therefore
+seems to me improper to allow these people to be present on these
+occasions. In our speeches and orations, much, and sometimes more than is
+politically necessary, is said about personal liberty, which negro
+auditors know not how to apply except by running the parallel with their
+own condition. They therefore imbibe false notions of their own personal
+rights, and give reality in their minds to what has no real existence.
+The peculiar state of our community must be steadily kept in view. This,
+I am gratified to learn, will in some measure be promoted by the
+institution of the South Carolina Association."
+
+On the other hand, more stringent laws became obviously necessary to keep
+down the advancing intelligence of the Charleston slaves. Dangerous
+knowledge must be excluded from without and from within. For the first
+purpose the South Carolina Legislature passed, in December, 1822, the Act
+for the imprisonment of Northern colored seamen, which afterwards
+produced so much excitement. For the second object, the Grand Jury, about
+the same time, presented as a grievance "the number of schools which are
+kept within the city by persons of color," and proposed their
+prohibition. This was the encouragement given to the intellectual
+progress of the slaves; while, as a reward for betraying them, Pensil,
+the free colored man who advised with Devany, received a present of one
+thousand dollars; and Devany himself had what was rightly judged to be
+the higher gift of freedom, and was established in business, with liberal
+means, as a drayman. He lived long in Charleston, thriving greatly in his
+vocation, and, according to the newspapers, enjoyed the privilege of
+being the only man of property in the State whom a special statute
+exempted from taxation.
+
+More than half a century has passed since the incidents of this true
+story closed. It has not vanished from the memories of South Carolinians,
+though the printed pages which once told it have gradually disappeared
+from sight. The intense avidity which at first grasped at every incident
+of the great insurrectionary plot was succeeded by a prolonged distaste
+for the memory of the tale; and the official reports which told what
+slaves had once planned and dared have now come to be among the rarest of
+American historical documents. In 1841, a friend of the writer, then
+visiting South Carolina, heard from her hostess, for the first time, the
+events which are recounted here. On asking to see the reports of the
+trials, she was cautiously told that the only copy in the house, after
+being carefully kept for years under lock and key, had been burnt at
+last, lest it should reach the dangerous eyes of the slaves. The same
+thing had happened, it was added, in many other families. This partially
+accounts for the great difficulty now to be found in obtaining a single
+copy of either publication; and this is why, to the readers of American
+history, Denmark Vesey and Peter Poyas have commonly been but the shadows
+of names.
+
+
+
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+
+During the year 1831, up to the 23d of August, the Virginia newspapers
+seem to have been absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied
+the minds of intelligent American citizens: What Gen. Jackson should do
+with the scolds, and what with the disreputables? should South Carolina
+be allowed to nullify? and would the wives of cabinet ministers call on
+Mrs. Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of
+the Richmond _Enquirer_, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages
+are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner. Then the
+terror flared on increasing, until the remotest Southern States were
+found shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection; until far-off
+European colonies--Antigua, Martinique, Caraccas, Tortola--recognized by
+some secret sympathy the same epidemic alarms; until the very boldest
+words of freedom were reported as uttered in the Virginia House of
+Delegates with unclosed doors; until an obscure young man named Garrison
+was indicted at common law in North Carolina, and had a price set upon
+his head by the Legislature of Georgia.
+
+Near the south-eastern border of Virginia, in Southampton County, there
+is a neighborhood known as "The Cross Keys." It lies fifteen miles from
+Jerusalem, the county-town, or "court-house," seventy miles from Norfolk,
+and about as far from Richmond. It is some ten or fifteen miles from
+Murfreesborough in North Carolina, and about twenty-five from the Great
+Dismal Swamp. Up to Sunday, the 21st of August, 1831, there was nothing
+to distinguish it from any other rural, lethargic, slipshod Virginia
+neighborhood, with the due allotment of mansion-houses and log huts,
+tobacco-fields and "old-fields," horses, dogs, negroes, "poor white
+folks," so called, and other white folks, poor without being called so.
+One of these last was Joseph Travis, who had recently married the widow
+of one Putnam Moore, and had unfortunately wedded to himself her negroes
+also.
+
+In the woods on the plantation of Joseph Travis, upon the Sunday just
+named, six slaves met at noon for what is called in the Northern States a
+picnic, and in the Southern a barbecue. The bill of fare was to be
+simple: one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting
+an aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be
+the final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in
+preparation. In this plot four of the men had been already
+initiated--Henry, Hark or Hercules, Nelson, and Sam. Two others were
+novices, Will and Jack by name. The party had remained together from
+twelve to three o'clock, when a seventh man joined them,--a short, stout,
+powerfully built person, of dark mulatto complexion, and strongly marked
+African features, but with a face full of expression and resolution. This
+was Nat Turner.
+
+He was at this time nearly thirty-one years old, having been born on the
+2d of October, 1800. He had belonged originally to Benjamin Turner,--from
+whom he took his last name, slaves having usually no patronymic;--had
+then been transferred to Putnam Moore, and then to his present owner. He
+had, by his own account, felt himself singled out from childhood for some
+great work; and he had some peculiar marks on his person, which, joined
+to his mental precocity, were enough to occasion, among his youthful
+companions, a superstitious faith in his gifts and destiny. He had some
+mechanical ingenuity also; experimentalized very early in making paper,
+gunpowder, pottery, and in other arts, which, in later life, he was found
+thoroughly to understand. His moral faculties appeared strong, so that
+white witnesses admitted that he had never been known to swear an oath,
+to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. And, in general, so
+marked were his early peculiarities that people said "he had too much
+sense to be raised; and, if he was, he would never be of any use as a
+slave." This impression of personal destiny grew with his growth: he
+fasted, prayed, preached, read the Bible, heard voices when he walked
+behind his plough, and communicated his revelations to the awe-struck
+slaves. They told him, in return, that, "if they had his sense, they
+would not serve any master in the world."
+
+The biographies of slaves can hardly be individualized; they belong to
+the class. We know bare facts; it is only the general experience of human
+beings in like condition which can clothe them with life. The outlines
+are certain, the details are inferential. Thus, for instance, we know
+that Nat Turner's young wife was a slave; we know that she belonged to a
+different master from himself; we know little more than this, but this is
+much. For this is equivalent to saying, that, by day or by night, her
+husband had no more power to protect her than the man who lies bound upon
+a plundered vessel's deck has power to protect his wife on board the
+pirate schooner disappearing in the horizon. She may be well treated, she
+may be outraged; it is in the powerlessness that the agony lies. There
+is, indeed, one thing more which we do know of this young woman: the
+Virginia newspapers state that she was tortured under the lash, after her
+husband's execution, to make her produce his papers: this is all.
+
+What his private experiences and special privileges or wrongs may have
+been, it is therefore now impossible to say. Travis was declared to be
+"more humane and fatherly to his slaves than any man in the county;" but
+it is astonishing how often this phenomenon occurs in the contemporary
+annals of slave insurrections. The chairman of the county court also
+stated, in pronouncing sentence, that Nat Turner had spoken of his master
+as "only too indulgent;" but this, for some reason, does not appear in
+his printed Confession, which only says, "He was a kind master, and
+placed the greatest confidence in me." It is very possible that it may
+have been so, but the printed accounts of Nat Turner's person look
+suspicious: he is described in Gov. Floyd's proclamation as having a scar
+on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, and a large knot
+on one of the bones of his right arm, produced by a blow; and although
+these were explained away in Virginia newspapers as having been produced
+by fights with his companions, yet such affrays are entirely foreign to
+the admitted habits of the man. It must therefore remain an open
+question, whether the scars and the knot were produced by black hands or
+by white.
+
+Whatever Nat Turner's experiences of slavery might have been, it is
+certain that his plans were not suddenly adopted, but that he had brooded
+over them for years. To this day there are traditions among the Virginia
+slaves of the keen devices of "Prophet Nat." If he was caught with lime
+and lampblack in hand, conning over a half-finished county-map on the
+barn-door, he was always "planning what to do if he were blind"; or,
+"studying how to get to Mr. Francis's house." When he had called a
+meeting of slaves, and some poor whites came eavesdropping, the poor
+whites at once became the subjects for discussion: he incidentally
+mentioned that the masters had been heard threatening to drive them away;
+one slave had been ordered to shoot Mr. Jones's pigs, another to tear
+down Mr. Johnson's fences. The poor whites, Johnson and Jones, ran home
+to see to their homesteads, and were better friends than ever to Prophet
+Nat.
+
+He never was a Baptist preacher, though such vocation has often been
+attributed to him. The impression arose from his having immersed himself,
+during one of his periods of special enthusiasm, together with a poor
+white man named Brantley. "About this time," he says in his Confession,
+"I told these things to a white man, on whom it had a wonderful effect;
+and he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a
+cutaneous eruption, and the blood oozed from the pores of his skin, and
+after praying and fasting nine days he was healed. And the Spirit
+appeared to me again, and said, as the Saviour had been baptized, so
+should we be also; and when the white people would not let us be baptized
+by the church, we went down into the water together, in the sight of many
+who reviled us, and were baptized by the Spirit. After this I rejoiced
+greatly, and gave thanks to God."
+
+The religious hallucinations narrated in his Confession seem to have been
+as genuine as the average of such things, and are very well expressed.
+The account reads quite like Jacob Behmen. He saw white spirits and black
+spirits contending in the skies; the sun was darkened, the thunder
+rolled. "And the Holy Ghost was with me, and said, 'Behold me as I stand
+in the heavens!' And I looked, and saw the forms of men in different
+attitudes. And there were lights in the sky, to which the children of
+darkness gave other names than what they really were; for they were the
+lights of the Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west, even as
+they were extended on the cross on Calvary, for the redemption of
+sinners." He saw drops of blood on the corn: this was Christ's blood,
+shed for man. He saw on the leaves in the woods letters and numbers and
+figures of men,--the same symbols which he had seen in the skies. On May
+12, 1828, the Holy Spirit appeared to him, and proclaimed that the yoke
+of Jesus must fall on him, and he must fight against the serpent when the
+sign appeared. Then came an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831: this
+was the sign; then he must arise and prepare himself, and slay his
+enemies with their own weapons; then also the seal was removed from his
+lips, and then he confided his plans to four associates.
+
+When he came, therefore, to the barbecue on the appointed Sunday, and
+found not these four only, but two others, his first question to the
+intruders was, how they came thither. To this Will answered manfully,
+that his life was worth no more than the others, and "his liberty was as
+dear to him." This admitted him to confidence; and as Jack was known to
+be entirely under Hark's influence, the strangers were no bar to their
+discussion. Eleven hours they remained there, in anxious consultation:
+one can imagine those dusky faces, beneath the funereal woods, and amid
+the flickering of pine-knot torches, preparing that stern revenge whose
+shuddering echoes should ring through the land so long. Two things were
+at last decided: to begin their work that night; and to begin it with a
+massacre so swift and irresistible as to create in a few days more terror
+than many battles, and so spare the need of future bloodshed. "It was
+agreed that we should commence at home on that night, and, until we had
+armed and equipped ourselves and gained sufficient force, neither age nor
+sex was to be spared: which was invariably adhered to."
+
+John Brown invaded Virginia with nineteen men, and with the avowed
+resolution to take no life but in self-defence. Nat Turner attacked
+Virginia from within, with six men, and with the determination to spare
+no life until his power was established. John Brown intended to pass
+rapidly through Virginia, and then retreat to the mountains. Nat Turner
+intended to "conquer Southampton County as the white men did in the
+Revolution, and then retreat, if necessary, to the Dismal Swamp." Each
+plan was deliberately matured; each was in its way practicable; but each
+was defeated by a single false step, as will soon appear.
+
+We must pass over the details of horror, as they occurred during the next
+twenty-four hours. Swift and stealthy as Indians, the black men passed
+from house to house,--not pausing, not hesitating, as their terrible work
+went on. In one thing they were humaner than Indians, or than white men
+fighting against Indians: there was no gratuitous outrage beyond the
+death-blow itself, no insult, no mutilation; but in every house they
+entered, that blow fell on man, woman, and child,--nothing that had a
+white skin was spared. From every house they took arms and ammunition,
+and from a few money. On every plantation they found recruits: those
+dusky slaves, so obsequious to their master the day before, so prompt to
+sing and dance before his Northern visitors, were all swift to transform
+themselves into fiends of retribution now; show them sword or musket, and
+they grasped it, though it were an heirloom from Washington himself. The
+troop increased from house to house,--first to fifteen, then to forty,
+then to sixty. Some were armed with muskets, some with axes, some with
+scythes, some came on their masters' horses. As the numbers increased,
+they could be divided, and the awful work was carried on more rapidly
+still. The plan then was for an advanced guard of horsemen to approach
+each house at a gallop, and surround it till the others came up.
+Meanwhile, what agonies of terror must have taken place within, shared
+alike by innocent and by guilty! what memories of wrongs inflicted on
+those dusky creatures, by some,--what innocent participation, by others,
+in the penance! The outbreak lasted for but forty-eight hours; but,
+during that period, fifty-five whites were slain, without the loss of a
+single slave.
+
+One fear was needless, which to many a husband and father must have
+intensified the last struggle. These negroes had been systematically
+brutalized from childhood; they had been allowed no legalized or
+permanent marriage; they had beheld around them an habitual
+licentiousness, such as can scarcely exist except under slavery; some of
+them had seen their wives and sisters habitually polluted by the husbands
+and the brothers of these fair white women who were now absolutely in
+their power. Yet I have looked through the Virginia newspapers of that
+time in vain for one charge of an indecent outrage on a woman against
+these triumphant and terrible slaves. Wherever they went, there went
+death, and that was all. It is reported by some of the contemporary
+newspapers, that a portion of this abstinence was the result of
+deliberate consultation among the insurrectionists; that some of them
+were resolved on taking the white women for wives, but were overruled by
+Nat Turner. If so, he is the only American slave-leader of whom we know
+certainly that he rose above the ordinary level of slave vengeance; and
+Mrs. Stowe's picture of Dred's purposes is then precisely typical of his:
+"Whom the Lord saith unto us, 'Smite,' them will we smite. We will not
+torment them with the scourge and fire, nor defile their women as they
+have done with ours. But we will slay them utterly, and consume them from
+off the face of the earth."
+
+When the number of adherents had increased to fifty or sixty, Nat Turner
+judged it time to strike at the county-seat, Jerusalem. Thither a few
+white fugitives had already fled, and couriers might thence be despatched
+for aid to Richmond and Petersburg, unless promptly intercepted. Besides,
+he could there find arms, ammunition, and money; though they had already
+obtained, it is dubiously reported, from eight hundred to one thousand
+dollars. On the way it was necessary to pass the plantation of Mr.
+Parker, three miles from Jerusalem. Some of the men wished to stop here
+and enlist some of their friends. Nat Turner objected, as the delay might
+prove dangerous; he yielded at last, and it proved fatal.
+
+He remained at the gate with six or eight men; thirty or forty went to
+the house, half a mile distant. They remained too long, and he went alone
+to hasten them. During his absence a party of eighteen white men came up
+suddenly, dispersing the small guard left at the gate; and when the main
+body of slaves emerged from the house, they encountered, for the first
+time, their armed masters. The blacks halted; the whites advanced
+cautiously within a hundred yards, and fired a volley; on its being
+returned, they broke into disorder, and hurriedly retreated, leaving some
+wounded on the ground. The retreating whites were pursued, and were saved
+only by falling in with another band of fresh men from Jerusalem, with
+whose aid they turned upon the slaves, who in their turn fell into
+confusion. Turner, Hark, and about twenty men on horseback retreated in
+some order; the rest were scattered. The leader still planned to reach
+Jerusalem by a private way, thus evading pursuit; but at last decided to
+stop for the night, in the hope of enlisting additional recruits.
+
+During the night the number increased again to forty, and they encamped
+on Major Ridley's plantation. An alarm took place during the
+darkness,--whether real or imaginary, does not appear,--and the men
+became scattered again. Proceeding to make fresh enlistments with the
+daylight, they were resisted at Dr. Blunt's house, where his slaves,
+under his orders, fired upon them; and this, with a later attack from a
+party of white men near Capt. Harris's, so broke up the whole force that
+they never re-united. The few who remained together agreed to separate
+for a few hours to see if any thing could be done to revive the
+insurrection, and meet again that evening at their original rendezvous.
+But they never reached it.
+
+Gloomily came Nat Turner at nightfall into those gloomy woods where
+forty-eight hours before he had revealed the details of his terrible plot
+to his companions. At the outset all his plans had succeeded; every thing
+was as he predicted: the slaves had come readily at his call; the masters
+had proved perfectly defenceless. Had he not been persuaded to pause at
+Parker's plantation, he would have been master before now of the arms and
+ammunition at Jerusalem; and with these to aid, and the Dismal Swamp for
+a refuge, he might have sustained himself indefinitely against his
+pursuers.
+
+Now the blood was shed, the risk was incurred, his friends were killed or
+captured, and all for what? Lasting memories of terror, to be sure, for
+his oppressors; but, on the other hand, hopeless failure for the
+insurrection, and certain death for him. What a watch he must have kept
+that night! To that excited imagination, which had always seen spirits in
+the sky and blood-drops on the corn and hieroglyphic marks on the dry
+leaves, how full the lonely forest must have been of signs and solemn
+warnings! Alone with the fox's bark, the rabbit's rustle, and the
+screech-owl's scream, the self-appointed prophet brooded over his
+despair. Once creeping to the edge of the wood, he saw men stealthily
+approach on horseback. He fancied them some of his companions; but before
+he dared to whisper their ominous names, "Hark" or "Dred,"--for the
+latter was the name, since famous, of one of his more recent
+recruits,--he saw them to be white men, and shrank back stealthily
+beneath his covert.
+
+There he waited two days and two nights,--long enough to satisfy himself
+that no one would rejoin him, and that the insurrection had hopelessly
+failed. The determined, desperate spirits who had shared his plans were
+scattered forever, and longer delay would be destruction for him also. He
+found a spot which he judged safe, dug a hole under a pile of fence-rails
+in a field, and lay there for six weeks, only leaving it for a few
+moments at midnight to obtain water from a neighboring spring. Food he
+had previously provided, without discovery, from a house near by.
+
+Meanwhile an unbounded variety of rumors went flying through the State.
+The express which first reached the governor announced that the militia
+were retreating before the slaves. An express to Petersburg further fixed
+the number of militia at three hundred, and of blacks at eight hundred,
+and invented a convenient shower of rain to explain the dampened ardor of
+the whites. Later reports described the slaves as making three desperate
+attempts to cross the bridge over the Nottoway between Cross Keys and
+Jerusalem, and stated that the leader had been shot in the attempt. Other
+accounts put the number of negroes at three hundred, all well mounted and
+armed, with two or three white men as leaders. Their intention was
+supposed to be to reach the Dismal Swamp, and they must be hemmed in from
+that side.
+
+Indeed, the most formidable weapon in the hands of slave insurgents is
+always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which
+follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted.
+Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even
+after it had commenced operations; but it is the fatal weakness of a
+rural slaveholding community, that it can never furnish men promptly for
+such a purpose. "My first intention was," says one of the most
+intelligent newspaper narrators of the affair, "to have attacked them
+with thirty or forty men; but those who had families here were strongly
+opposed to it."
+
+As usual, each man was pinioned to his own hearth-stone. As usual, aid
+had to be summoned from a distance; and, as usual, the United-States
+troops were the chief reliance. Col. House, commanding at Fort Monroe,
+sent at once three companies of artillery under Lieut.-Col. Worth, and
+embarked them on board the steamer "Hampton" for Suffolk. These were
+joined by detachments from the United States ships "Warren" and
+"Natchez," the whole amounting to nearly eight hundred men. Two volunteer
+companies went from Richmond, four from Petersburg, one from Norfolk, one
+from Portsmouth, and several from North Carolina. The militia of Norfolk,
+Nansemond, and Princess Anne Counties, and the United States troops at
+Old Point Comfort, were ordered to scour the Dismal Swamp, where it was
+believed that two or three thousand fugitives were preparing to join the
+insurgents. It was even proposed to send two companies from New York and
+one from New London to the same point.
+
+When these various forces reached Southampton County, they found all
+labor paralyzed and whole plantations abandoned. A letter from Jerusalem,
+dated Aug. 24, says, "The oldest inhabitant of our county has never
+experienced such a distressing time as we have had since Sunday night
+last.... Every house, room, and corner in this place is full of women and
+children, driven from home, who had to take the woods until they could
+get to this place." "For many miles around their track," says another
+"the county is deserted by women and children." Still another writes,
+"Jerusalem is full of women, most of them from the other side of the
+river,--about two hundred at Vix's." Then follow descriptions of the
+sufferings of these persons, many of whom had lain night after night in
+the woods. But the immediate danger was at an end, the short-lived
+insurrection was finished, and now the work of vengeance was to begin. In
+the frank phrase of a North Carolina correspondent, "The massacre of the
+whites was over, and the white people had commenced the destruction of
+the negroes, which was continued after our men got there, from time to
+time, as they could fall in with them, all day yesterday." A postscript
+adds, that "passengers by the Fayetteville stage say, that, by the latest
+accounts, one hundred and twenty negroes had been killed,"--this being
+little more than one day's work.
+
+These murders were defended as Nat Turner defended his: a fearful blow
+must be struck. In shuddering at the horrors of the insurrection, we have
+forgotten the far greater horrors of its suppression.
+
+The newspapers of the day contain many indignant protests against the
+cruelties which took place. "It is with pain," says a correspondent of
+the _National Intelligencer_, Sept. 7, 1831, "that we speak of another
+feature of the Southampton Rebellion; for we have been most unwilling to
+have our sympathies for the sufferers diminished or affected by their
+misconduct. We allude to the slaughter of many blacks without trial and
+under circumstances of great barbarity.... We met with an individual of
+intelligence who told us that he himself had killed between ten and
+fifteen.... We [the Richmond troop] witnessed with surprise the
+sanguinary temper of the population, who evinced a strong disposition to
+inflict immediate death on every prisoner."
+
+There is a remarkable official document from Gen. Eppes, the officer in
+command, to be found in the Richmond _Enquirer_ for Sept. 6, 1831. It is
+an indignant denunciation of precisely these outrages; and though he
+refuses to give details, he supplies their place by epithets:
+"revolting,"--"inhuman and not to be justified,"--"acts of barbarity and
+cruelty,"--"acts of atrocity,"--"this course of proceeding dignifies the
+rebel and the assassin with the sanctity of martyrdom." And he ends by
+threatening martial law upon all future transgressors. Such general
+orders are not issued except in rather extreme cases. And in the parallel
+columns of the newspaper the innocent editor prints equally indignant
+descriptions of Russian atrocities in Lithuania, where the Poles were
+engaged in active insurrection, amid profuse sympathy from Virginia.
+
+The truth is, it was a Reign of Terror. Volunteer patrols rode in all
+directions, visiting plantations. "It was with the greatest difficulty,"
+said Gen. Brodnax before the House of Delegates, "and at the hazard of
+personal popularity and esteem, that the coolest and most judicious among
+us could exert an influence sufficient to restrain an indiscriminate
+slaughter of the blacks who were suspected." A letter from the Rev. G. W.
+Powell declares, "There are thousands of troops searching in every
+direction, and many negroes are killed every day: the exact number will
+never be ascertained." Petition after petition was subsequently presented
+to the Legislature, asking compensation for slaves thus assassinated
+without trial.
+
+Men were tortured to death, burned, maimed, and subjected to nameless
+atrocities. The overseers were called on to point out any slaves whom
+they distrusted, and if any tried to escape they were shot down. Nay,
+worse than this. "A party of horsemen started from Richmond with the
+intention of killing every colored person they saw in Southampton County.
+They stopped opposite the cabin of a free colored man, who was hoeing in
+his little field. They called out, 'Is this Southampton County?' He
+replied, 'Yes, sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree.' They
+shot him dead, and rode on." This is from the narrative of the editor of
+the Richmond _Whig_, who was then on duty in the militia, and protested
+manfully against these outrages. "Some of these scenes," he adds, "are
+hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents."
+
+These were the masters' stories. If even these conceded so much, it would
+be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report. I am indebted to my
+honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this
+terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman,
+once well known in New York, Charity Bowery. "At the time of the old
+Prophet Nat," she said, "the colored folks was afraid to pray loud; for
+the whites threatened to punish 'em dreadfully, if the least noise was
+heard. The patrols was low drunken whites; and in Nat's time, if they
+heard any of the colored folks praying, or singing a hymn, they would
+fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em, afore master or
+missis could get to 'em. The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time.
+The whites always suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place
+called Duplon. They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they
+shot; then they pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about
+the insurrection. He told 'em he didn't know any thing about any
+insurrection. They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put
+his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court." (This
+is no exaggeration, if the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.)
+"It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat's
+time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try
+to make 'em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody
+could interfere. Mr. James Cole, high sheriff, said, if any of the
+patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his
+people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had
+killed. Mr. Cole said, 'If you don't pack up, as quick as God Almighty
+will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again,
+I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you.' He went off, and wasn't seen
+in them parts again."
+
+These outrages were not limited to the colored population; but other
+instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times. An
+Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg.
+An alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching
+towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge. After the
+panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that "the blacks, as
+men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated." This
+led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town. He took passage
+in the stage, but the stage was intercepted. He then fled to a friend's
+house; the house was broken open, and he was dragged forth. The civil
+authorities, being applied to, refused to interfere. The mob stripped
+him, gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked,
+under a hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage
+to New York.
+
+Of the capture or escape of most of that small band who met with Nat
+Turner in the woods upon the Travis plantation, little can now be known.
+All appear among the list of convicted, except Henry and Will. Gen.
+Moore, who occasionally figures as second in command, in the newspaper
+narratives of that day, was probably the Hark or Hercules before
+mentioned; as no other of the confederates had belonged to Mrs. Travis,
+or would have been likely to bear her previous name of Moore. As usual,
+the newspapers state that most, if not all the slaves, were "the property
+of kind and indulgent masters."
+
+The subordinate insurgents sought safety as they could. A free colored
+man, named Will Artist, shot himself in the woods, where his hat was
+found on a stake and his pistol lying by him; another was found drowned;
+others were traced to the Dismal Swamp; others returned to their homes,
+and tried to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their
+masters that they had been forced, against their will, to join,--the
+usual defence in such cases. The number shot down at random must, by all
+accounts, have amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human
+registration now. The number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is
+officially stated at fifty-five; of these, seventeen were convicted and
+hanged, twelve convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free
+colored men sent on for further trial and finally acquitted. "Not one of
+those known to be concerned escaped." Of those executed, one only was a
+woman, "Lucy, slave of John T. Barrow."
+
+There is one touching story, in connection with these terrible
+retaliations, which rests on good authority, that of the Rev. M. B. Cox,
+a Liberian missionary, then in Virginia. In the hunt which followed the
+massacre, a slaveholder went into the woods, accompanied by a faithful
+slave, who had been the means of saving his life during the insurrection.
+When they had reached a retired place in the forest, the man handed his
+gun to his master, informing him that he could not live a slave any
+longer, and requesting him either to free him or shoot him on the spot.
+The master took the gun, in some trepidation, levelled it at the faithful
+negro, and shot him through the heart. It is probable that this
+slaveholder was a Dr. Blunt,--his being the only plantation where the
+slaves were reported as thus defending their masters. "If this be true,"
+said the Richmond _Enquirer_, when it first narrated this instance of
+loyalty, "great will be the desert of these noble-minded Africans."
+
+Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might
+be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence
+of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made
+to represent it as a trifling affair. A distinguished citizen of Virginia
+wrote, three months later, to the Hon. W. B. Seabrook of South Carolina,
+"From all that has come to my knowledge during and since that affair, I
+am convinced most fully that every black preacher in the country east of
+the Blue Ridge was in the secret." "There is much reason to believe,"
+says the Governor's Message on Dec. 6, "that the spirit of insurrection
+was not confined to Southampton. Many convictions have taken place
+elsewhere, and some few in distant counties." The withdrawal of the
+United States troops, after some ten days' service, was a signal for
+fresh excitement; and an address, numerously signed, was presented to the
+United States Government, imploring their continued stay. More than three
+weeks after the first alarm, the governor sent a supply of arms into
+Prince William, Fauquier, and Orange Counties. "From examinations which
+have taken place in other counties," says one of the best newspaper
+historians of the affair (in the Richmond _Enquirer_ of Sept. 6), "I fear
+that the scheme embraced a wider sphere than I at first supposed." Nat
+Turner himself, intentionally or otherwise, increased the confusion by
+denying all knowledge of the North Carolina outbreak, and declaring that
+he had communicated his plans to his four confederates within six months;
+while, on the other hand, a slave-girl, sixteen or seventeen years old,
+belonging to Solomon Parker, testified that she had heard the subject
+discussed for eighteen months, and that at a meeting held during the
+previous May some eight or ten had joined the plot.
+
+It is astonishing to discover, by laborious comparison of newspaper
+files, how vast was the immediate range of these insurrectionary alarms.
+Every Southern State seems to have borne its harvest of terror. On the
+eastern shore of Maryland, great alarm was at once manifested, especially
+in the neighborhood of Easton and Snowhill; and the houses of colored men
+were searched for arms even in Baltimore. In Delaware, there were similar
+rumors through Sussex and Dover Counties; there were arrests and
+executions; and in Somerset County great public meetings were held, to
+demand additional safeguards. On election-day in Seaford, Del., some
+young men, going out to hunt rabbits, discharged their guns in sport; the
+men being absent, all the women in the vicinity took to flight; the alarm
+spread like the "Ipswich Fright"; soon Seaford was thronged with armed
+men; and when the boys returned from hunting, they found cannon drawn out
+to receive them.
+
+In North Carolina, Raleigh and Fayetteville were put under military
+defence, and women and children concealed themselves in the swamps for
+many days. The rebel organization was supposed to include two thousand.
+Forty-six slaves were imprisoned in Union County, twenty-five in Sampson
+County, and twenty-three at least in Duplin County, some of whom were
+executed. The panic also extended into Wayne, New Hanover, and Lenoir
+Counties. Four men were shot without trial in Wilmington,--Nimrod,
+Abraham, Prince, and "Dan the Drayman," the latter a man of seventy,--and
+their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. Nearly two
+months afterwards the trials were still continuing; and at a still later
+day, the governor in his proclamation recommended the formation of
+companies of volunteers in every county.
+
+In South Carolina, Gen. Hayne issued a proclamation "to prove the
+groundlessness of the existing alarms,"--thus implying that serious
+alarms existed. In Macon, Ga., the whole population were roused from
+their beds at midnight by a report of a large force of armed negroes five
+miles off. In an hour, every woman and child was deposited in the largest
+building of the town, and a military force hastily collected in front.
+The editor of the Macon _Messenger_ excused the poor condition of his
+paper, a few days afterwards, by the absorption of his workmen in patrol
+duties and describes "dismay and terror" as the condition of the people
+of "all ages and sexes." In Jones, Twiggs, and Monroe Counties, the same
+alarms were reported; and in one place "several slaves were tied to a
+tree, while a militia captain hacked at them with his sword."
+
+In Alabama, at Columbus and Fort Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint
+conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still
+greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that
+part of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being
+apparently founded on one stray copy of the Boston _Liberator_.
+
+In Tennessee, the Shelbyville _Freeman_ announced that an insurrectionary
+plot had just been discovered, barely in time for its defeat, through the
+treachery of a female slave. In Louisville, Ky., a similar organization
+was discovered or imagined, and arrests were made in consequence. "The
+papers, from motives of policy, do not notice the disturbance," wrote one
+correspondent to the Portland _Courier_. "Pity us!" he added.
+
+But the greatest bubble burst in Louisiana. Capt. Alexander, an English
+tourist, arriving in New Orleans at the beginning of September, found the
+whole city in tumult. Handbills had been issued, appealing to the slaves
+to rise against their masters, saying that all men were born equal,
+declaring that Hannibal was a black man, and that they also might have
+great leaders among them. Twelve hundred stand of weapons were said to
+have been found in a black man's house; five hundred citizens were under
+arms, and four companies of regulars were ordered to the city, whose
+barracks Alexander himself visited.
+
+If such was the alarm in New Orleans, the story, of course, lost nothing
+by transmission to other slave States. A rumor reached Frankfort, Ky.,
+that the slaves already had possession of the coast, both above and below
+New Orleans. But the most remarkable circumstance is, that all this seems
+to have been a mere revival of an old terror once before excited and
+exploded. The following paragraph had appeared in the Jacksonville, Ga.,
+_Observer_, during the spring previous:--
+
+    "FEARFUL DISCOVERY.--We were favored, by yesterday's mail, with a
+    letter from New Orleans, of May 1, in which we find that an
+    important discovery had been made a few days previous in that
+    city. The following is an extract: 'Four days ago, as some
+    planters were digging under ground, they found a square room
+    containing eleven thousand stand of arms and fifteen thousand
+    cartridges, each of the cartridges containing a bullet.' It is
+    said the negroes intended to rise as soon as the sickly season
+    began, and obtain possession of the city by massacring the white
+    population. The same letter states that the mayor had prohibited
+    the opening of Sunday schools for the instruction of blacks,
+    under a penalty of five hundred dollars for the first offence,
+    and, for the second, death."
+
+Such were the terrors that came back from nine other slave States, as the
+echo of the voice of Nat Turner. And when it is also known that the
+subject was at once taken up by the legislatures of other States, where
+there was no public panic, as in Missouri and Tennessee; and when,
+finally, it is added that reports of insurrection had been arriving all
+that year from Rio Janeiro, Martinique, St. Jago, Antigua, Caraccas, and
+Tortola,--it is easy to see with what prolonged distress the accumulated
+terror must have weighed down upon Virginia during the two months that
+Nat Turner lay hid.
+
+True, there were a thousand men in arms in Southampton County, to inspire
+security. But the blow had been struck by only seven men before; and
+unless there were an armed guard in every house, who could tell but any
+house might at any moment be the scene of new horrors? They might kill or
+imprison negroes by day, but could they resist their avengers by night?
+"The half cannot be told," wrote a lady from another part of Virginia, at
+this time, "of the distresses of the people. In Southampton County, the
+scene of the insurrection, the distress beggars description. A gentleman
+who has been there says that even here, where there has been great alarm,
+we have no idea of the situation of those in that county.... I do not
+hesitate to believe that many negroes around us would join in a massacre
+as horrible as that which has taken place, if an opportunity should
+offer."
+
+Meanwhile the cause of all this terror was made the object of desperate
+search. On Sept. 17 the governor offered a reward of five hundred dollars
+for his capture; and there were other rewards, swelling the amount to
+eleven hundred dollars,--but in vain. No one could track or trap him. On
+Sept. 30 a minute account of his capture appeared in the newspapers, but
+it was wholly false. On Oct. 7 there was another, and on Oct. 18 another;
+yet all without foundation. Worn out by confinement in his little cave,
+Nat Turner grew more adventurous, and began to move about stealthily by
+night, afraid to speak to any human being, but hoping to obtain some
+information that might aid his escape. Returning regularly to his retreat
+before daybreak, he might possibly have continued this mode of life until
+pursuit had ceased, had not a dog succeeded where men had failed. The
+creature accidentally smelt out the provisions hid in the cave, and
+finally led thither his masters, two negroes, one of whom was named
+Nelson. On discovering the formidable fugitive, they fled precipitately,
+when he hastened to retreat in an opposite direction. This was on Oct.
+15; and from this moment the neighborhood was all alive with excitement,
+and five or six hundred men undertook the pursuit.
+
+It shows a more than Indian adroitness in Nat Turner to have escaped
+capture any longer. The cave, the arms, the provisions, were found; and,
+lying among them, the notched stick of this miserable Robinson Crusoe,
+marked with five weary weeks and six days. But the man was gone. For ten
+days more he concealed himself among the wheat-stacks on Mr. Francis's
+plantation, and during this time was reduced almost to despair. Once he
+decided to surrender himself, and walked by night within two miles of
+Jerusalem before his purpose failed him. Three times he tried to get out
+of that neighborhood, but in vain: travelling by day was of course out of
+the question, and by night he found it impossible to elude the patrol.
+Again and again, therefore, he returned to his hiding-place; and, during
+his whole two months' liberty, never went five miles from the Cross Keys.
+On the 25th of October, he was at last discovered by Mr. Francis as he
+was emerging from a stack. A load of buckshot was instantly discharged at
+him, twelve of which passed through his hat as he fell to the ground. He
+escaped even then; but his pursuers were rapidly concentrating upon him,
+and it is perfectly astonishing that he could have eluded them for five
+days more.
+
+On Sunday, Oct. 30, a man named Benjamin Phipps, going out for the first
+time on patrol duty, was passing at noon a clearing in the woods where a
+number of pine-trees had long since been felled. There was a motion among
+their boughs; he stopped to watch it; and through a gap in the branches
+he saw, emerging from a hole in the earth beneath, the face of Nat
+Turner. Aiming his gun instantly, Phipps called on him to surrender. The
+fugitive, exhausted with watching and privation, entangled in the
+branches, armed only with a sword, had nothing to do but to
+yield,--sagaciously reflecting, also, as he afterwards explained, that
+the woods were full of armed men, and that he had better trust fortune
+for some later chance of escape, instead of desperately attempting it
+then. He was correct in the first impression, since there were fifty
+armed scouts within a circuit of two miles. His insurrection ended where
+it began; for this spot was only a mile and a half from the house of
+Joseph Travis.
+
+Tom, emaciated, ragged, "a mere scarecrow," still wearing the hat
+perforated with buckshot, with his arms bound to his sides, he was driven
+before the levelled gun to the nearest house, that of a Mr. Edwards. He
+was confined there that night; but the news had spread so rapidly that
+within an hour after his arrival a hundred persons had collected, and the
+excitement became so intense "that it was with difficulty he could be
+conveyed alive to Jerusalem." The enthusiasm spread instantly through
+Virginia; M. Trezvant, the Jerusalem postmaster, sent notices of it far
+and near; and Gov. Floyd himself wrote a letter to the Richmond
+_Enquirer_ to give official announcement of the momentous capture.
+
+When Nat Turner was asked by Mr. T. R. Gray, the counsel assigned him,
+whether, although defeated, he still believed in his own Providential
+mission, he answered, as simply as one who came thirty years after him,
+"Was not Christ crucified?" In the same spirit, when arraigned before the
+court, "he answered, 'Not guilty,' saying to his counsel that he did not
+feel so." But apparently no argument was made in his favor by his
+counsel, nor were any witnesses called,--he being convicted on the
+testimony of Levi Waller, and upon his own confession, which was put in
+by Mr. Gray, and acknowledged by the prisoner before the six justices
+composing the court, as being "full, free, and voluntary." He was
+therefore placed in the paradoxical position of conviction by his own
+confession, under a plea of "Not guilty." The arrest took place on the
+30th of October, 1831, the confession on the 1st of November, the trial
+and conviction on the 5th, and the execution on the following Friday, the
+11th of November, precisely at noon. He met his death with perfect
+composure, declined addressing the multitude assembled, and told the
+sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Another account says that he
+"betrayed no emotion, and even hurried the executioner in the performance
+of his duty." "Not a limb nor a muscle was observed to move. His body,
+after his death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection."
+
+The confession of the captive was published under authority of Mr. Gray,
+in a pamphlet, at Baltimore. Fifty thousand copies of it are said to have
+been printed; and it was "embellished with an accurate likeness of the
+brigand, taken by Mr. John Crawley, portrait-painter, and lithographed by
+Endicott & Swett, at Baltimore." The newly established _Liberator_ said
+of it, at the time, that it would "only serve to rouse up other leaders,
+and hasten other insurrections," and advised grand juries to indict Mr.
+Gray. I have never seen a copy of the original pamphlet; it is not easily
+to be found in any of our public libraries; and I have heard of but one
+as still existing, although the Confession itself has been repeatedly
+reprinted. Another small pamphlet, containing the main features of the
+outbreak, was published at New York during the same year, and this is in
+my possession. But the greater part of the facts which I have given were
+gleaned from the contemporary newspapers.
+
+Who now shall go back thirty years, and read the heart of this
+extraordinary man, who, by the admission of his captors, "never was known
+to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits"; who, on the same
+authority, "for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension was
+surpassed by few men," "with a mind capable of attaining any thing"; who
+knew no book but his Bible, and that by heart; who devoted himself soul
+and body to the cause of his race, without a trace of personal hope or
+fear; who laid his plans so shrewdly that they came at last with less
+warning than any earthquake on the doomed community around; and who, when
+that time arrived, took the life of man, woman, and child, without a
+throb of compunction, a word of exultation, or an act of superfluous
+outrage? Mrs. Stowe's "Dred" seems dim and melodramatic beside the actual
+Nat Turner, and De Quincey's "Avenger" is his only parallel in
+imaginative literature. Mr. Gray, his counsel, rises into a sort of
+bewildered enthusiasm with the prisoner before him. "I shall not attempt
+to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by
+himself, in the condemned-hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate
+composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the
+expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still
+bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him, clothed
+with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise his manacled hands
+to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man,--I looked
+on him, and the blood curdled in my veins."
+
+But, the more remarkable the personal character of Nat Turner, the
+greater the amazement felt that he should not have appreciated the
+extreme felicity of his position as a slave. In all insurrections, the
+standing wonder seems to be that the slaves most trusted and best used
+should be most deeply involved. So in this case, as usual, men resorted
+to the most astonishing theories of the origin of the affair. One
+attributed it to Free-Masonry, and another to free whiskey,--liberty
+appearing dangerous, even in these forms. The poor whites charged it upon
+the free colored people, and urged their expulsion; forgetting that in
+North Carolina the plot was betrayed by one of this class, and that in
+Virginia there were but two engaged, both of whom had slave wives. The
+slaveholding clergymen traced it to want of knowledge of the Bible,
+forgetting that Nat Turner knew scarcely any thing else. On the other
+hand, "a distinguished citizen of Virginia" combined in one sweeping
+denunciation "Northern incendiaries, tracts, Sunday schools, religion,
+reading, and writing."
+
+But whether the theories of its origin were wise or foolish, the
+insurrection made its mark; and the famous band of Virginia
+emancipationists, who all that winter made the House of Delegates ring
+with unavailing eloquence,--till the rise of slave-exportation to new
+cotton regions stopped their voices,--were but the unconscious
+mouthpieces of Nat Turner. In January, 1832, in reply to a member who had
+called the outbreak a "petty affair," the eloquent James McDowell thus
+described the impression it left behind:--
+
+    "Now, sir, I ask you, I ask gentlemen in conscience to say, was
+    that a 'petty affair' which startled the feelings of your whole
+    population; which threw a portion of it into alarm, a portion of
+    it into panic; which wrung out from an affrighted people the
+    thrilling cry, day after day, conveyed to your executive, '_We
+    are in peril of our lives; send us an army for defence_'? Was
+    that a 'petty affair' which drove families from their
+    homes,--which assembled women and children in crowds, without
+    shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition of
+    weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and
+    terror could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet
+    death from famine, death from climate, death from hardships,
+    preferring any thing rather than the horrors of meeting it from a
+    domestic assassin? Was that a 'petty affair' which erected a
+    peaceful and confiding portion of the State into a military camp;
+    which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers
+    had offended; which barred every door, penetrated every bosom
+    with fear or suspicion; which so banished every sense of security
+    from every man's dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break
+    upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be
+    driven to the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and
+    the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle? Was it the
+    fear of Nat Turner, and his deluded, drunken handful of
+    followers, which produced such effects? Was it this that induced
+    distant counties, where the very name of Southampton was strange,
+    to arm and equip for a struggle? No, sir: it was the suspicion
+    eternally attached to the slave himself,--the suspicion that a
+    Nat Turner might be in every family; that the same bloody deed
+    might be acted over at any time and in any place; that the
+    materials for it were spread through the land, and were always
+    ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this
+    withering apprehension,--nothing but the paralyzing and deadening
+    weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every
+    man who has helpless dependants to protect,--nothing but this
+    could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could
+    have made any portion of this powerful Commonwealth, for a single
+    instant, to have quailed and trembled."
+
+While these things were going on, the enthusiasm for the Polish
+Revolution was rising to its height. The nation was ringing with a peal
+of joy, on hearing that at Frankfort the Poles had killed fourteen
+thousand Russians. The _Southern Religious Telegraph_ was publishing an
+impassioned address to Kosciuszko; standards were being consecrated for
+Poland in the larger cities; heroes like Skrzynecki, Czartoryski,
+Rozyski, Raminski, were choking the trump of Fame with their complicated
+patronymics. These are all forgotten now; and this poor negro, who did
+not even possess a name, beyond one abrupt monosyllable,--for even the
+name of Turner was the master's property,--still lives, a memory of
+terror, and a symbol of wild retribution.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+1. Dallas, R. C. "The History of the Maroons, from their origin to the
+establishment of their chief tribe at Sierra Leone: including the
+expedition to Cuba, for the purpose of procuring Spanish chasseurs; and
+the state of the Island of Jamaica for the last ten years, with a
+succinct history of the island previous to that period." In two volumes.
+London, 1803. [8vo.]
+
+2. Edwards, Bryan. "The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British
+Colonies in the West Indies. To which is added a general description of
+the Bahama Islands, by Daniel M'Kinnen, Esq." In four volumes.
+Philadelphia, 1806. [8vo.]
+
+3. Edwards, Bryan. "Proceedings of the Governor and Associates of Jamaica
+in regard to the Maroon Negroes, with an account of the Maroons." London,
+1796. 8vo.
+
+4. Edwards, Bryan. "Historical Survey of St. Domingo, with an account of
+the Maroon Negroes, a history of the war in the West Indies, 1793-94"
+[etc.]. London, 1801. 4to.
+
+5. _Edinburgh Review_, ii. 376. [Review of Dallas and Edwards, by Henry
+Lord Brougham.]
+
+Also Annual Register, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, etc.
+
+[There appeared in _Once a Week_ (1865) a paper entitled "The Maroons of
+Jamaica," and reprinted in _Every Saturday_ (i. 50, Jan. 31, 1866), in
+which Gov. Eyre is quoted as having said, in the London _Times_, "To the
+fidelity and loyalty of the Maroons it is due that the negroes did not
+commit greater devastation" in the recent insurrection; thus curiously
+repeating the encomium given by Lord Balcarres seventy years before.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM
+
+1. "Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the revolted negroes of
+Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America, from the year
+1772 to 1777 ... by Capt. J. G. Stedman." London. Printed for J. Johnson,
+St. Paul's Churchyard, and J. Edwards, Pall Mall. 1790. [2 vols. 4to.]
+
+2. "Transatlantic Sketches, comprising visits to the most interesting
+scenes in North and South America and the West Indies. With notes on
+negro slavery and Canadian emigration. By Capt. J. E. Alexander, 42 Royal
+Highlanders." London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington St., 1833. [2 vols.
+8vo.]
+
+Also Annual Register, etc.
+
+[The best account of the present condition of the Maroons, or, as they
+are now called, bush-negroes, of Surinam, is to be found in a graphic
+narrative of a visit to Dutch Guiana, by W. G. Palgrave, in the
+_Fortnightly Review_, xxiv. 801; xxv. 194, 536. These papers are
+reprinted in _Littell's Living Age_, cxxviii. 154, cxxix. 409. He
+estimates the present numbers of these people as approaching thirty
+thousand. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" gives the names of several
+publications relating to their peculiar dialect, popularly known as
+Negro-English, but including many Dutch words.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+The materials for the history of Gabriel's revolt are still very
+fragmentary, and must be sought in the contemporary newspapers. No
+continuous file of Southern newspapers for the year 1800 was to be found,
+when this narrative was written, in any Boston or New-York library,
+though the Harvard-College Library contained a few numbers of the
+Baltimore _Telegraphe_ and the Norfolk _Epitome of the Times_. My chief
+reliance has therefore been the Southern correspondence of the Northern
+newspapers, with the copious extracts there given from Virginian
+journals. I am chiefly indebted to the Philadelphia _United-States
+Gazette_, the Boston _Independent Chronicle_, the Salem _Gazette_ and
+_Register_, the New-York _Daily Advertiser_, and the Connecticut
+_Courant_. The best continuous narratives that I have found are in the
+_Courant_ of Sept. 29, 1800, and the Salem _Gazette_ of Oct. 7, 1800; but
+even these are very incomplete. Several important documents I have been
+unable to discover,--the official proclamation of the governor, the
+description of Gabriel's person, and the original confession of the
+slaves as given to Mr. Sheppard. The discovery of these would no doubt
+have enlarged, and very probably corrected, my narrative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+1. "Negro Plot. An Account of the late intended insurrection among a
+portion of the blacks of the city of Charleston, S.C. Published by the
+Authority of the Corporation of Charleston." Second edition. Boston:
+printed and published by Joseph W. Ingraham. 1822. 8vo, pp. 50.
+
+[A third edition was printed at Boston during the same year, a copy of
+which is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The
+first and fourth editions, which were printed at Charleston, S.C., I have
+never seen.]
+
+2. "An Official Report of the trials of sundry negroes, charged with an
+attempt to raise an insurrection in the State of South Carolina: preceded
+by an introduction and narrative; and in an appendix, a report of the
+trials of four white persons, on indictments for attempting to excite the
+slaves to insurrection. Prepared and published at the request of the
+court. By Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker, members of the Charleston
+bar, and the presiding magistrates of the court." Charleston: printed by
+James R. Schenck, 23 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 188x4.
+
+3. "Reflections occasioned by the late disturbances in Charleston, by
+Achates." Charleston: printed and sold by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St.
+1822. 8vo, pp. 30.
+
+4. "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and
+Western States, respecting the institution and existence of slavery among
+them. To which is added a minute and particular account of the actual
+state and condition of their Negro Population, together with Historical
+Notices of all the Insurrections that have taken place since the
+settlement of the country.--Facts are stubborn things.--_Shakspeare_. By
+a South Carolinian." [Edwin C. Holland.] Charleston: printed by A. E.
+Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 86.
+
+5. "Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the views of the Baptists
+relative to the colored population in the United States, in a
+communication to the Governor of South Carolina." Second edition.
+Charleston: printed by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1833. 8vo, pp. 16.
+
+[The first edition appeared in 1823. It relates to a petition offered by
+a Baptist Convention for a day of thanksgiving and humiliation, in
+reference to the insurrection, and to a violent hurricane which had just
+occurred.]
+
+6. "Practical Considerations, founded on the Scriptures, relative to the
+Slave Population of South Carolina. Respectfully dedicated to the South
+Carolina Association. By a South Carolinian." Charleston: printed and
+sold by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1823. 8vo, pp. 38.
+
+7. [The letter of Gov. Bennett, dated Aug. 10, 1822, was evidently
+printed originally as a pamphlet or circular, though I have not been able
+to find it in that form. It may be found reprinted in the _Columbian
+Centinel_ (Aug. 31, 1822), _Connecticut Courant_ (Sept. 3), and Worcester
+_Spy_ (Sept. 18). It is also printed in Lundy's _Genius of Universal
+Emancipation_ for September, 1822 (ii. 42), and reviewed in subsequent
+numbers (pp. 81, 131, 142).]
+
+8. "The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom. Boston: Anti-Slavery Bazaar.
+1841. 12mo." [This contains an article on p. 158, entitled "Servile
+Insurrections," by Edmund Jackson, including brief personal reminiscences
+of the Charleston insurrection, during which he resided in that city.]
+
+[Of the above-named pamphlets, all now rare, Nos. 1 and 2 are in my own
+possession. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, are in the Wendell Phillips collection of
+pamphlets in the Boston Public Library.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+1. "The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late Insurrection in
+Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, in the
+prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when
+read before the Court of Southampton, with the certificate under seal of
+the court convened at Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1831, for this trial. Also an
+authentic account of the whole insurrection, with lists of the whites who
+were murdered, and of the negroes brought before the Court of
+Southampton, and there sentenced, etc." New York: printed and published
+by C. Brown, 211 Water Street, 1831.
+
+[This pamphlet was reprinted in the _Anglo-African Magazine_ (New York),
+December, 1859. Whether it is identical with the work said by the
+newspapers of the period to have been published at Baltimore, I have been
+unable to ascertain. But if, as was alleged, forty thousand copies of the
+Baltimore pamphlet were issued, it seems impossible that they should have
+become so scarce. The first reprint of the Confession, so far as I know,
+was a partial one in Abdy's "Journal in the United States." London. 1835.
+3 vols. 8vo.]
+
+2. "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was
+witnessed in Southhampton County (Va.), on Monday, the 22d of August
+last, when Fifty-five of its inhabitants (mostly women and children) were
+inhumanly massacred by the blacks! Communicated by those who were
+eye-witnesses of the bloody scene, and confirmed by the confessions of
+several of the Blacks, while under Sentence of Death." [By Samuel Warner,
+New York.] Printed for Warner & West. 1831. 12mo, pp. 36 [or more, copy
+incomplete. With a frontispiece]. Among the Wendell Phillips tracts in
+the Boston Public Library.
+
+3. "Slave Insurrection in 1831, in Southampton County, Va., headed by Nat
+Turner. Also a conspiracy of slaves in Charleston, S.C., in 1822." New
+York: compiled and published by Henry Bibb, 9 Spruce St. 1849. 12mo, pp.
+12.
+
+[The contemporary newspaper narratives may be found largely quoted in the
+first volume of the _Liberator_ (1831), and in Lundy's _Genius of
+Universal Emancipation_ (September, 1831). The files of the Richmond
+_Enquirer_ have also much information on the subject.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Black Rebellion, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Black Rebellion: Five Slave Revolts, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Rebellion, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Rebellion
+       Five Slave Revolts
+
+Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8432]
+This file was first posted on July 9, 2003
+Last updated: April 29, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK REBELLION ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by Eric Eldred, Thomas Berger, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
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+HTML file produced by David Widger
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+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      BLACK REBELLION: FIVE SLAVE REVOLTS
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      From "Travellers and Outlaws" <br /> <br /> Episodes In American History
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      With An Appendix Of Authorities
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: This text contains five chapters of T.W. Higgison's
+      'Travellers and Outlaws'. This collection is commonly referred to as
+      'Black Rebellion: five slave revolts'.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      AUTHOR'S NOTE:
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The author would express his thanks to the proprietors and editors of the
+      <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, <i>Harper's Magazine</i>, and the <i>Century</i>,
+      for their permission to reprint such portions of this volume as were
+      originally published in those periodicals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AUTHOR'S NOTE: </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE MAROONS OF SURINAM. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> GABRIEL'S DEFEAT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> DENMARK VESEY </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_APPE"> APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the
+      skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica when some fresh foray of those
+      unconquered guerrillas swept down from the outlying plantations, startled
+      the Assembly from its order, Gen. Williamson from his billiards, and Lord
+      Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,&mdash;endangering, according to the
+      official statement, "public credit," "civil rights," and "the prosperity,
+      if not the very existence, of the country," until they were "persuaded to
+      make peace" at last. They were the Circassians of the New World, but they
+      were black, instead of white; and as the Circassians refused to be
+      transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so the Maroons refused to be
+      transferred from Spanish dominion to English, and thus their revolt began.
+      The difference is, that while the white mountaineers numbered four hundred
+      thousand, and only defied Nicholas, the black mountaineers numbered less
+      than two thousand, and defied Cromwell; and while the Circassians, after
+      years of revolt, were at last subdued, the Maroons, on the other hand, who
+      rebelled in 1655, were never conquered, but only made a compromise of
+      allegiance, and exist as a separate race to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was not
+      a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had found
+      there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only by
+      those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of human
+      skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign races,&mdash;an
+      effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen hundred, with a
+      black slave population quite as large and infinitely more hardy and
+      energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the English: the negroes
+      remained unsubdued. The slaveholders were banished from the island: the
+      slaves only exiled themselves to the mountains; thence the English could
+      not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers whom the English employed. And when
+      Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and peace was made with Spain, and
+      the children of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were beginning to grow rich by
+      importing slaves for Roman-Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still held
+      their own wild empire in the mountains, and, being sturdy heathens every
+      one, practised Obeah rites in approved pagan fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the Spanish
+      word <i>Marrano</i>, a wild boar,&mdash;these fugitives being all
+      boar-hunters; according to another, from <i>Marony</i>, a river separating
+      French and Dutch Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells;
+      and by another still, from <i>Cimarron</i>, a word meaning untamable, and
+      used alike for apes and runaway slaves. But whether these rebel marauders
+      were regarded as monkeys or men, they made themselves equally formidable.
+      As early as 1663, the Governor and Council of Jamaica offered to each
+      Maroon, who should surrender, his freedom and twenty acres of land; but
+      not one accepted the terms. During forty years, forty-four Acts of
+      Assembly were passed in respect to them, and at least a quarter of a
+      million pounds sterling were expended in the warfare against them. In
+      1733, the force employed in this service consisted of two regiments of
+      regular troops, and the whole militia of the island; but the Assembly said
+      that "the Maroons had within a few years greatly increased,
+      notwithstanding all the measures that had been concerted for their
+      suppression," "to the great terror of his Majesty's subjects," and "to the
+      manifest weakening and preventing the further increase of strength and
+      inhabitants of the island."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was
+      called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and
+      blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn Dallas's
+      History of the Maroons; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion.
+      Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated
+      into one force, and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was
+      religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah influence he
+      established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and insurgents; no
+      party could be sent forth, by the government, but he knew it in time to
+      lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region left
+      unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and as
+      his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot, and never risked a
+      battle, his forces naturally increased, while those of his opponents were
+      decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a prisoner; it was
+      impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing with them, as
+      Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by victory;" and the
+      only men who could obtain the slightest advantage against them were the
+      imported Mosquito Indians, or the "Black Shot," a company of Government
+      negroes. For nine full years this particular war continued unchecked, Gen.
+      Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession of
+      the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as by an
+      earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the California
+      cañons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the Atlantic States,
+      known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or symbolically as
+      purgatories. These Jamaica chasms vary from two hundred yards to a mile in
+      length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet high, and often
+      absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end admit but one man at
+      a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can grow; water flows
+      within them; and they often communicate with one another, forming a series
+      of traps for an invading force. Tired and thirsty with climbing, the weary
+      soldiers toil on, in single file, without seeing or hearing an enemy, up
+      the steep and winding path they traverse one "cockpit," then enter
+      another. Suddenly a shot is fired from the dense and sloping forest on the
+      right, then another and another, each dropping its man; the startled
+      troops face hastily in that direction, when a more murderous volley is
+      poured from the other side; the heights above flash with musketry, while
+      the precipitous path by which they came seems to close in fire behind
+      them. By the time the troops have formed in some attempt at military
+      order, the woods around them are empty, and their agile and noiseless foes
+      have settled themselves into ambush again, farther up the defile, ready
+      for a second attack, if needed. But one is usually sufficient; disordered,
+      exhausted, bearing their wounded with them, the soldiers retreat in panic,
+      if permitted to escape at all, and carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the
+      plantations, and the Government House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period,
+      should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more
+      difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover,
+      these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of
+      warfare seemed to them unjustifiable; and the description given by
+      Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,&mdash;"the
+      grandest of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost
+      hope of a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a
+      provision-ground, or cut them off from water. But there was little
+      satisfaction in this: the wild-pine leaves and the grapevine-withes
+      supplied the rebels with water; and their plantation-grounds were the wild
+      pineapple and the plantain-groves, and the forests, where the wild boars
+      harbored, and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were
+      militiamen. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought
+      about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting
+      parties, Cudjoe and Gen. Williamson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and
+      respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations
+      without the medium of a preliminary bullet, required some ingenuity of
+      manoeuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious: he would not
+      come halfway to meet any one; nothing would content him but an interview
+      in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most difficult
+      passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties, to signal
+      with their horns, one by one, the approach of the plenipotentiaries, and
+      then to retire on the main body. Through this line of dangerous sentinels,
+      therefore, Col. Guthrie and his handful of men bravely advanced; horn
+      after horn they heard sounded, but there was no other human noise in the
+      woods, and they had advanced till they saw the smoke of the Maroon huts
+      before they caught a glimpse of a human form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A conversation was at last opened with the invisible rebels. On their
+      promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them; then
+      several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable chief
+      was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat, humpbacked,
+      dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves, and an old felt
+      hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental scarlet, he could
+      not have been treated with more distinguished consideration; indeed, in
+      that case, "the exchange of hats" with which Dr. Russell finally
+      volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify negotiations, might have been a
+      less severe test of good fellowship. This fine stroke of diplomacy had its
+      effect, however; the rebel captains agreed to a formal interview with Col.
+      Guthrie and Capt. Sadler, and a treaty was at last executed with all due
+      solemnity, under a large cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile.
+      This treaty recognized the military rank of "Capt. Cudjoe," "Capt.
+      Accompong," and the rest; gave assurance that the Maroons should be
+      "forever hereafter in a perfect state of freedom and liberty;" ceded to
+      them fifteen hundred acres of land; and stipulated only that they should
+      keep the peace, should harbor no fugitive from justice or from slavery,
+      and should allow two white commissioners to remain among them, simply to
+      represent the British Government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large
+      body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected,
+      however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the
+      mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,&mdash;a few fires
+      left burning with old women to watch them,&mdash;a few provision-grounds
+      exposed by clearing away the bushes,&mdash;they lured the troops far up
+      among the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all
+      fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream, where
+      they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until finally they
+      forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss. Three months after
+      this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable interview, exchanging
+      hostages first. The position of the white hostage, at least, was not the
+      most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by the women and children
+      with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while the little boys pointed
+      their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and that with evident relish.
+      However, Capt. Quao, like Capt. Cudjoe, made a treaty at last; and hats
+      were interchanged, instead of hostages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of
+      hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the
+      Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the
+      situation of their chief town, that the English Government has erected
+      barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on
+      the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by
+      the white population below; and they lived on a daintier diet, so that the
+      English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The
+      mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of
+      millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to
+      mountain again. They hunted the wild boars, and prepared the flesh by
+      salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious "jerked
+      hog" of buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry, cultivated corn
+      and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas, and papaws and mameys, and
+      avocados, and all luxurious West-Indian fruits; the very weeds of their
+      orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in their names;
+      and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked across these
+      gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and over those
+      again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter ocean-horizon, and
+      the illimitable sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had senses like those of American Indians; tracked each other by the
+      smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called to each other by horns,
+      using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and
+      distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke English
+      diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah rites quite
+      undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated largely with the
+      slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty stipulations; sometimes
+      brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed them; left their towns and
+      settled on the planters lands when they preferred them: but were quite
+      orderly and luxuriously happy. During the formidable insurrection of the
+      Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a dubious part. When left to go on
+      their own way, they did something towards suppressing it; but when placed
+      under the guns of the troops, and ordered to fire on those of their own
+      color, they threw themselves on the ground without discharging a shot.
+      Nevertheless, they gradually came up into reputable standing; they grew
+      more and more industrious and steady; and after they had joined very
+      heartily in resisting D'Estaing's threatened invasion of the island in
+      1779, it became the fashion to speak of "our faithful and affectionate
+      Maroons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1795, their position was as follows: Their numbers had not materially
+      increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the outskirts of
+      plantations; nor materially diminished, for many runaway slaves had joined
+      them; while there were also separate settlements of fugitives, who had
+      maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white superintendents had
+      lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without the slightest official
+      authority, but with a great deal of actual influence. But there was an
+      "irrepressible conflict" behind all this apparent peace, and the slightest
+      occasion might, at any moment, revive all the old terror. That occasion
+      was close at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Capt. Cudjoe and Capt. Accompong, and the other founders of Maroon
+      independence, had passed away; and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead,
+      in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of Maroon
+      majesty: he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with gold lace and
+      plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he was helped first
+      at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he presided at councils as
+      magnificently as at table, though with less appetite; and possessed,
+      meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human being. The
+      real power lay entirely with Major James, the white superintendent, who
+      had been brought up among the Maroons by his father (and predecessor), and
+      who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil hour, the Government
+      removed him, and put a certain unpopular Capt. Craskell in his place; and
+      as there happened to be, about the same time, a great excitement
+      concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons, who had been seized and
+      publicly whipped on a charge of hog-stealing, their kindred refused to
+      allow the new superintendent to remain in the town. A few attempts at
+      negotiation only brought them to a higher pitch of wrath, which ended in
+      their despatching the following peculiar diplomatic note to the Earl of
+      Balcarres: "The Maroons wishes nothing else from the country but battle,
+      and they desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at all. So they are
+      waiting every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David Schaw will see you
+      on Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till Monday, nine o'clock,
+      and if they don't come up, they will come down themselves." Signed, "Col.
+      Montagu and all the rest."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were
+      concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect.
+      Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so favorably
+      impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of money for
+      their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Col. Gallimore," a Jamaica
+      Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing some bullets into the
+      contribution-box. And it was probably in accordance with his view of the
+      subject, that, when the Maroons sent ambassadors in return, they were at
+      once imprisoned, most injudiciously and unjustly; and when Old Montagu
+      himself and thirty-seven others, following, were seized and imprisoned
+      also, it is not strange that the Maroons, joined by many slaves, were soon
+      in open insurrection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The fighting
+      men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five hundred;
+      against whom the Government could bring nearly fifteen hundred regular
+      troops and several thousand militiamen. Lord Balcarres himself took the
+      command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a large force up
+      to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as expeditiously as
+      possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably defeated, and had to
+      fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the troops, in which some forty
+      or fifty were killed,&mdash;including Col. Sandford, commanding the
+      regulars, and the bullet-loving Col. Gallimore, in command of the militia,&mdash;while
+      not a single Maroon was even wounded, so far as could be ascertained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually
+      got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had been
+      burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season; and, between
+      fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous. Meanwhile the
+      Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all their orders,
+      picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their lines at night,
+      burned houses and destroyed plantations far below. The only man who could
+      cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the superintendent just
+      removed by Government; and his services were not employed, as he was not
+      trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a volunteer party farther into
+      the mountains than any of the assailants had yet penetrated, guided by
+      tracks known to himself only, and by the smell of the smoke of Maroon
+      fires. After a very exhausting march, including a climb of a hundred and
+      fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought them just within the
+      entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he, pointing to the entrance,
+      "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can enter here; no white man
+      except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon establishment, has ever gone
+      beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I have penetrated four miles
+      farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far as that. There are two other
+      ways of getting into the defile, practicable for the Maroons, but not for
+      any one of you. In neither of them can I ascend or descend with my arms,
+      which must be handed to me, step by step, as practised by the Maroons
+      themselves. One of the ways lies to the eastward, and the other to the
+      westward; and they will take care to have both guarded, if they suspect
+      that I am with you; which, from the route you have come to-day, they will.
+      They now see you, and if you advance fifty paces more, they will convince
+      you of it." At this moment a Maroon horn sounded the notes indicating his
+      name; and, as he made no answer, a voice was heard, inquiring if he were
+      among them. "If he is," said the voice, "let him go back, we do not wish
+      to hurt him, but as for the rest of you, come on and try battle if you
+      choose." But the gentlemen did not choose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and
+      worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the
+      whole force of the island, and they were defending their liberty by
+      precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half
+      a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the
+      enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from
+      their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an
+      eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at
+      large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a
+      country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and
+      prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers
+      had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen;
+      while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them
+      was known to have been killed. Capt. Craskell, the banished
+      superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole
+      slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and would
+      soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of French
+      emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained away, the
+      vague terror remained. Indeed, the lieutenant-governor announced in his
+      message that he had satisfactory evidence that the French Convention was
+      concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner, named Murenson, had testified
+      that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet) had secretly sent a
+      hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and threatened to land fifteen
+      hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it all back at last, yet the
+      Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three hundred dollars for
+      killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred and fifty dollars for
+      killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined them. They also voted
+      five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong tribe of Maroons, who
+      had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and various prizes and
+      gratuities were also offered by the different parishes, with the same
+      object of self-protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Col. Walpole was promoted
+      in his stead, and brevetted as general, by way of incentive. He found a
+      people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury not
+      empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the Maroons
+      for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his opponents. First,
+      he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his efforts towards
+      cutting off his opponents from water, and, most effectual move of all, he
+      attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a howitzer, with immense
+      labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a visitation not dreamed of in
+      Maroon philosophy, and their quaint compliments to their new opponent
+      remain on record. "Damn dat little buckra!" they said, "he cunning more
+      dan dem toder. Dis here da new fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter
+      you, and when big ball 'top, de damn sunting [something] fire arter you
+      again." With which Parthian arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the
+      way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was
+      deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the
+      purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as
+      yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought
+      best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Col. Quarrell
+      had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men, however
+      well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a Spanish
+      fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in some
+      quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had always
+      denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down the
+      natives of that very soil with hounds; and should England now follow the
+      humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly
+      quoted all known instances of zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations,
+      for instance, used elephants in war, and, no doubt, would gladly use lions
+      and tigers also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful
+      indifference to the distinction between friend and foe; why not, then, use
+      these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate,
+      "something must be done;" the final argument always used, when a bad or
+      desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send
+      to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying
+      chasseurs; and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till
+      the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Col. Quarrell
+      finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples of
+      conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of
+      popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice they were
+      armed who knew their Quarrell just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the
+      commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He
+      sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who
+      insisted on fighting every thing that came in their way,&mdash;first a
+      Spanish schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across
+      the mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy
+      Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and chasseurs,
+      and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas, who
+      overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court against
+      admitting foreigners within his government; "the only accustomed exception
+      being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of foreign traders
+      who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner had not brought
+      any of these commodities; but then he had come to obtain the means of
+      capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular practitioner of the
+      privileged profession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no
+      difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs
+      as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of
+      taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,&mdash;this
+      being, after all, the essential part of his expedition,&mdash;Don Luis de
+      las Casas put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of
+      the entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English
+      service. Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six
+      chasseurs. Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting
+      forty; he got them safe to Batabano; but at the last moment, learning the
+      state of affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority.
+      When he had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed
+      objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and
+      silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don
+      Guillermo sent a messenger after him, and bribed him too; and thus at
+      length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last
+      evening at a puppet-show in which the principal figure was a burlesque on
+      his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of
+      renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four muzzled
+      dogs, set sail for Jamaica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the
+      pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall,
+      meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and
+      drawers, with broad straw hat, and moccasins of raw-hide; his belt
+      sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or <i>machete</i>, like an iron
+      bar sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton
+      leashes for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a
+      fierce breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for
+      attack, and accompanied by smaller dogs called <i>finders</i>. It is no
+      wonder, when these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay,
+      that terror ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed, and
+      windows crowded; not a negro dared to stir; and the muzzled dogs,
+      infuriated by confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with
+      their noisy barking and the rattling of their chains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How much would have come of all this in actual conflict, does not appear.
+      The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain
+      conditions and guaranties,&mdash;a decision probably accelerated by the
+      terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was the
+      declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of Gen. Walpole, that
+      "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the island, the
+      rebels could not have been induced to surrender." Nevertheless, a treaty
+      was at last made, without the direct intervention of the quadrupeds. Again
+      commissioners went up among the mountains to treat with negotiators at
+      first invisible; again were hats and jackets interchanged, not without coy
+      reluctance on the part of the well-dressed Englishmen; and a solemn
+      agreement was effected. The most essential part of the bargain was a
+      guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the suspicious Maroons.
+      Gen. Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that no such unfair
+      advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the hostages
+      previously surrendered, who were placed in irons; nor should any attempt
+      be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add, that this
+      promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial Government, to the
+      lasting grief of Gen. Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had violated
+      the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its terms,
+      and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken refuge
+      among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were at once
+      placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to Halifax,
+      to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the credit of
+      English honor, we rejoice to know that Gen. Walpole not merely protested
+      against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined the sword of
+      honor which the Assembly had voted him, in its gratitude, and then retired
+      from military service forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They
+      were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax, then welcomed when seen,
+      and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of
+      reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,&mdash;their only
+      visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the
+      redoubtable Col. Quarrell; and twenty-five thousand pounds were
+      appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper;
+      pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of
+      industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it
+      seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,&mdash;for theirs
+      was such that two previous colonies had deserted it,&mdash;and in a
+      climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a
+      schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to
+      appreciate that luxury of civilization, utterly refusing, on grounds of
+      conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to
+      listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent
+      Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service time, and left Old
+      Montagu, who still survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon.
+      One discourse he briefly reported as follows, very much to the point:
+      "Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus
+      quarrel, mus set down softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an
+      extreme unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle
+      race,&mdash;at least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other
+      side,&mdash;they soon grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those
+      about them, suspicious of all attempts to scatter them among the community
+      at large, frozen by the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to
+      a milder one, they finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued
+      between the authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was
+      properly responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for
+      a century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were
+      reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers,
+      shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate
+      lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra
+      Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds; since which they disappear from
+      history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which had
+      kept aloof from the late outbreak, at the Accompong settlement, and
+      elsewhere. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and retain
+      it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica,
+      there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at Accompong
+      Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten families at
+      Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two hundred and
+      seventy families in all,&mdash;each station being, as of old, under the
+      charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt, that, under the
+      influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling with the mass of
+      colored population in Jamaica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in
+      its time: the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by
+      Sheridan, and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds
+      against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the
+      Colonial Government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards.
+      This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in
+      Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be
+      cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia,
+      they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not venture
+      to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his injustice to
+      the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the indignation of the
+      more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards, the public indignation
+      ran quite high in England, against the bloodhounds and their employers, so
+      that the home ministry found it necessary to send a severe reproof to the
+      Colonial Government. For a few years the tales of the Maroons thus emerged
+      from mere colonial annals, and found their way into annual registers and
+      parliamentary debates; but they have long since vanished from popular
+      memory. Their record still retains its interest, however, as that of one
+      of the heroic races of the world; and all the more, because it is with
+      their kindred that the American nation has to deal, in solving one of the
+      most momentous problems of its future career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE MAROONS OF SURINAM.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When that eccentric individual, Capt. John Gabriel Stedman, resigned his
+      commission in the English Navy, took the oath of abjuration, and was
+      appointed ensign in the Scots brigade employed for two centuries by
+      Holland, he little knew that "their High Mightinesses the States of the
+      United Provinces" would send him out, within a year, to the forests of
+      Guiana, to subdue rebel negroes. He never imagined that the year 1773
+      would behold him beneath the rainy season in a tropical country, wading
+      through marshes and splashing through lakes, exploring with his feet for
+      submerged paths, commanding impracticable troops, and commanded by an
+      insufferable colonel, feeding on greegree worms and fed upon by mosquitos,
+      howled at by jaguars, hissed at by serpents, and shot at by those
+      exceedingly unattainable gentlemen, "still longed for, never seen," the
+      Maroons of Surinam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, as our young ensign sailed up the Surinam River, the world of tropic
+      beauty came upon him with enchantment. Dark, moist verdure was close
+      around him, rippling waters below; the tall trees of the jungle and the
+      low mangroves beneath were all hung with long vines and lianas, a maze of
+      cordage, like a fleet at anchor; lithe monkeys travelled ceaselessly up
+      and down these airy paths, in armies, bearing their young, like knapsacks,
+      on their backs; macaws and humming-birds, winged jewels, flew from tree to
+      tree. As they neared Paramaribo, the river became a smooth canal among
+      luxuriant plantations; the air was perfumed music, redolent of
+      orange-blossoms and echoing with the songs of birds and the sweet plash of
+      oars; gay barges came forth to meet them; "while groups of naked boys and
+      girls were promiscuously playing and flouncing, like so many tritons and
+      mermaids, in the water." And when the troops disembarked,&mdash;five
+      hundred fine young men, the oldest not thirty, all arrayed in new uniforms
+      and bearing orange-flowers in their caps, a bridal wreath for beautiful
+      Guiana,&mdash;it is no wonder that the Creole ladies were in ecstasy; and
+      the boyish recruits little foresaw the day, when, reduced to a few dozens,
+      barefooted and ragged as filibusters, their last survivors would gladly
+      re-embark from a country beside which even Holland looked dry and even
+      Scotland comfortable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For over all that earthly paradise there brooded not alone its terrible
+      malaria, its days of fever and its nights of deadly chill, but the worse
+      shadows of oppression and of sin, which neither day nor night could
+      banish. The first object which met Stedman's eye, as he stepped on shore,
+      was the figure of a young girl stripped to receive two hundred lashes, and
+      chained to a hundred-pound weight. And the few first days gave a glimpse
+      into a state of society worthy of this exhibition,&mdash;men without
+      mercy, women without modesty, the black man a slave to the white man's
+      passions, and the white man a slave to his own. The later West-Indian
+      society in its worst forms is probably a mere dilution of the utter
+      profligacy of those early days. Greek or Roman decline produced nothing
+      more debilitating or destructive than the ordinary life of a Surinam
+      planter, and his one virtue of hospitality only led to more unbridled
+      excesses and completed the work of vice. No wonder that Stedman himself,
+      who, with all his peculiarities, was essentially simple and manly, soon
+      became disgusted, and made haste to get into the woods and cultivate the
+      society of the Maroons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebels against whom this expedition was sent were not the original
+      Maroons of Surinam, but a later generation. The originals had long since
+      established their independence, and their leaders were flourishing their
+      honorary silver-mounted canes in the streets of Paramaribo. Fugitive
+      negroes had begun to establish themselves in the woods from the time when
+      the colony was finally ceded by the English to the Dutch, in 1674. The
+      first open outbreak occurred in 1726, when the plantations on the Seramica
+      River revolted; it was found impossible to subdue them, and the government
+      very imprudently resolved to make an example of eleven captives, and thus
+      terrify the rest of the rebels. They were tortured to death, eight of the
+      eleven being women: this drove the others to madness, and plantation after
+      plantation was visited with fire and sword. After a long conflict, their
+      chief, Adoe, was induced to make a treaty, in 1749. The rebels promised to
+      keep the peace, and in turn were promised freedom, money, tools, clothes,
+      and, finally, arms and ammunition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no permanent peace was ever made upon a barrel of gunpowder as a
+      basis; and, of course, an explosion followed this one. The colonists
+      naturally evaded the last item of the bargain; and the rebels, receiving
+      the gifts, and remarking the omission of the part of Hamlet, asked
+      contemptuously if the Europeans expected negroes to subsist on combs and
+      looking-glasses? New hostilities at once began; a new body of slaves on
+      the Ouca River revolted; the colonial government was changed in
+      consequence, and fresh troops shipped from Holland; and after four
+      different embassies had been sent into the woods, the rebels began to
+      listen to reason. The black generals, Capt. Araby and Capt. Boston, agreed
+      upon a truce for a year, during which the colonial government might decide
+      for peace or war, the Maroons declaring themselves indifferent. Finally
+      the government chose peace, delivered ammunition, and made a treaty, in
+      1761; the white and black plenipotentiaries exchanged English oaths and
+      then negro oaths, each tasting a drop of the other's blood during the
+      latter ceremony, amid a volley of remarkable incantations from the black
+      <i>gadoman</i> or priest. After some final skirmishes, in which the rebels
+      almost always triumphed, the treaty was at length accepted by all the
+      various villages of Maroons. Had they known that at this very time five
+      thousand slaves in Berbice were just rising against their masters, and
+      were looking to them for assistance, the result might have been different;
+      but this fact had not reached them, nor had the rumors of insurrection in
+      Brazil among negro and Indian slaves. They consented, therefore, to the
+      peace. "They write from Surinam," says the "Annual Register" for Jan. 23,
+      1761, "that the Dutch governor, finding himself unable to subdue the rebel
+      negroes of that country by force, hath wisely followed the example of Gov.
+      Trelawney at Jamaica, and concluded an amicable treaty with them; in
+      consequence of which, all the negroes of the woods are acknowledged to be
+      free, and all that is passed is buried in oblivion." So ended a war of
+      thirty-six years; and in Stedman's day the original three thousand Ouca
+      and Seramica Maroons had multiplied, almost incredibly, to fifteen
+      thousand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for those slaves not sharing in this revolt it was not so easy to
+      "bury the whole past in oblivion." The Maroons had told some very plain
+      truths to the white ambassadors, and had frankly advised them, if they
+      wished for peace, to mend their own manners and treat their chattels
+      humanely. But the planters learned nothing by experience,&mdash;and,
+      indeed, the terrible narrations of Stedman were confirmed by those of
+      Alexander, so lately as 1831. Of course, therefore, in a colony comprising
+      eighty thousand blacks to four thousand whites, other revolts were
+      stimulated by the success of this one. They reached their highest point in
+      1772, when an insurrection on the Cottica River, led by a negro named
+      Baron, almost gave the finishing blow to the colony; the only adequate
+      protection being found in a body of slaves liberated expressly for that
+      purpose,&mdash;a dangerous and humiliating precedent. "We have been
+      obliged to set three or four hundred of our stoutest negroes free to
+      defend us," says an honest letter from Surinam, in the "Annual Register"
+      for Sept. 5, 1772. Fortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron
+      presumed too much upon his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too
+      near the seacoast, in a marshy fastness, from which he was finally ejected
+      by twelve hundred Dutch troops, though the chief work was done, Stedman
+      thinks, by the "black rangers" or liberated slaves. Checked by this
+      defeat, he again drew back into the forests, resuming his guerrilla
+      warfare against the plantations. Nothing could dislodge him; blood-hounds
+      were proposed, but the moisture of the country made them useless: and thus
+      matters stood when Stedman came sailing, amid orange-blossoms and music,
+      up the winding Surinam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our young officer went into the woods in the condition of Falstaff,
+      "heinously unprovided." Coming from the unbounded luxury of the
+      plantations, he found himself entering "the most horrid and impenetrable
+      forests, where no kind of refreshment was to be had,"&mdash;he being
+      provisioned only with salt pork and pease. After a wail of sorrow for this
+      inhuman neglect, he bursts into a gush of gratitude for the private
+      generosity which relieved his wants at the last moment by the following
+      list of supplies: "24 bottles best claret, 12 ditto Madeira, 12 ditto
+      porter, 12 ditto cider, 12 ditto rum, 2 large loaves white sugar, 2
+      gallons brandy, 6 bottles muscadel, 2 gallons lemon-juice, 2 gallons
+      ground coffee, 2 large Westphalia hams, 2 salted bullocks' tongues, 1
+      bottle Durham mustard, 6 dozen spermaceti candles." The hams and tongues
+      seem, indeed, rather a poor halfpennyworth to this intolerable deal of
+      sack; but this instance of Surinam privation in those days may open some
+      glimpse at the colonial standards of comfort. "From this specimen,"
+      moralizes our hero, "the reader will easily perceive, that, if some of the
+      inhabitants of Surinam show themselves the disgrace of the creation by
+      their cruelties and brutality, others, by their social feelings, approve
+      themselves an ornament to the human species. With this instance of virtue
+      and generosity I therefore conclude this chapter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the troops soon had to undergo worse troubles than those of the
+      commissariat. The rainy season had just set in. "As for the negroes," said
+      Mr. Klynhaus, the last planter with whom they parted, "you may depend on
+      never seeing a soul of them, unless they attack you off guard; but the
+      climate, the climate, will murder you all." Bringing with them
+      constitutions already impaired by the fevers and dissipation of
+      Paramaribo, the poor boys began to perish long before they began to fight.
+      Wading in water all day, hanging their hammocks over water at night, it
+      seemed a moist existence, even compared with the climate of England and
+      the soil of Holland. It was a case of "Invent a shovel, and be a
+      magistrate," even more than Andrew Marvell found it in the United
+      Provinces. In fact, Raynal evidently thinks that nothing but Dutch
+      experience in hydraulics could ever have cultivated Surinam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two gunboats which held one division of the expedition were merely old
+      sugar-barges, roofed over with boards, and looking like coffins. They were
+      pleasantly named the "Charon" and the "Cerberus," but Stedman thought that
+      the "Sudden Death" and the "Wilful Murder" would have been titles more
+      appropriate. The chief duty of the troops consisted in lying at anchor at
+      the intersections of wooded streams, waiting for rebels who never came. It
+      was dismal work, and the raw recruits were full of the same imaginary
+      terrors which have haunted other heroes less severely tested: the monkeys
+      never rattled the cocoa-nuts against the trees, but they all heard the
+      axes of Maroon wood-choppers; and when a sentinel declared, one night,
+      that he had seen a negro go down the river in a canoe, with his pipe
+      lighted, the whole force was called to arms&mdash;against a firefly. In
+      fact, the insect race brought by far the most substantial dangers. The
+      rebels eluded the military, but the chigres, locusts, scorpions, and
+      bush-spiders were ever ready to come half-way to meet them; likewise
+      serpents and alligators proffered them the freedom of the forests, and
+      exhibited a hospitality almost excessive. Snakes twenty feet long hung
+      their seductive length from the trees; jaguars volunteered their society
+      through almost impenetrable marshes; vampire bats perched by night with
+      lulling endearments upon the toes of the soldiers. When Stedman describes
+      himself as killing thirty-eight mosquitoes at one stroke, we must perhaps
+      pardon something to the spirit of martyrdom. But when we add to these the
+      other woes of his catalogue,&mdash;prickly-heat, ringworm, putrid-fever,
+      "the growling of Col. Fougeaud, dry sandy savannas, unfordable marshes,
+      burning hot days, cold and damp nights, heavy rains, and short allowance,"&mdash;we
+      can hardly wonder that three captains died in a month, and that in two
+      months his detachment of forty-two was reduced to a miserable seven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, through all this, Stedman himself kept his health. His theory of the
+      matter almost recalls the time-honored prescription of "A light heart and
+      a thin pair of breeches," for he attributes his good condition to his
+      keeping up his spirits and kicking off his shoes. Daily bathing in the
+      river had also something to do with it; and, indeed, hydropathy was first
+      learned of the West-India Maroons,&mdash;who did their "packing" in wet
+      clay,&mdash;and was carried by Dr. Wright to England. But his
+      extraordinary personal qualities must have contributed most to his
+      preservation. Never did a "meagre, starved, black, burnt, and ragged
+      tatterdemalion," as he calls himself, carry about him such a fund of
+      sentiment, philosophy, poetry, and art. He had a great faculty for
+      sketching, as the engravings in his volumes, with all their odd
+      peculiarities, show; his deepest woes he coined always into couplets, and
+      fortified himself against hopeless despair with Ovid and Valerius Flaccus,
+      Pope's Homer and Thomson's "Seasons." Above all reigned his passion for
+      natural history, a ready balm for every ill. Here he was never wanting to
+      the occasion; and, to do justice to Dutch Guiana, the occasion never was
+      wanting to him. Were his men sickening, the peccaries were always healthy
+      without the camp, and the cockroaches within; just escaping from a
+      she-jaguar, he satisfies himself, ere he flees, that the print of her
+      claws on the sand is precisely the size of a pewter dinner-plate; bitten
+      by a scorpion, he makes sure of a scientific description in case he should
+      expire of the bite; is the water undrinkable, there is at least some
+      rational interest in the number of legs possessed by the centipedes which
+      pre-occupy it. This is the highest triumph of man over his accidents, when
+      he thus turns his pains to gains, and becomes an entomologist in the
+      tropics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the rebels kept their own course in the forests, and
+      occasionally descended upon plantations beside the very river on whose
+      upper waters the useless troops were sickening and dying. Stedman himself
+      made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before he came any
+      nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or destroy a
+      rice-field. Sometimes they left the "Charon" and the "Cerberus" moored by
+      grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the woods, single
+      file. Our ensign, true to himself, gives the minutest schedule of the
+      order of march, and the oddest little diagram of manikins with cocked
+      hats, and blacker manikins bearing burdens. First, negroes with bill-hooks
+      to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body, interspersed
+      with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the rear-guard, with
+      many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions, and new rum,
+      surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort of palanquin
+      for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they marched valorously forth into the
+      woods, to some given point; then they turned, marched back to the boats,
+      then rowed back to camp, and straightway went into the hospital.
+      Immediately upon this, the coast being clear, Baron and his rebels marched
+      out again, and proceeded to business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of years, these Maroons had acquired their own peculiar
+      tactics. They built stockaded fortresses on marshy islands, accessible by
+      fords which they alone could traverse. These they defended further by
+      sharp wooden pins, or crows'-feet, concealed beneath the surface of the
+      miry ground,&mdash;and, latterly, by the more substantial protection of
+      cannon, which they dragged into the woods, and learned to use. Their
+      bush-fighting was unique. Having always more men than weapons, they
+      arranged their warriors in threes,&mdash;one to use the musket, another to
+      take his place if wounded or slain, and a third to drag away the body.
+      They had Indian stealthiness and swiftness, with more than Indian
+      discipline; discharged their fire with some approach to regularity, in
+      three successive lines, the signals being given by the captain's horn.
+      They were full of ingenuity: marked their movements for each other by
+      scattered leaves and blazed trees; ran zigzag, to dodge bullets; gave
+      wooden guns to their unarmed men, to frighten the plantation negroes on
+      their guerrilla expeditions; and borrowed the red caps of the black
+      rangers whom they slew, to bewilder the aim of the others. One of them,
+      finding himself close to the muzzle of a ranger's gun, threw up his hand
+      hastily. "What!" he exclaimed, "will you fire on one of your own party?"
+      "God forbid!" cried the ranger, dropping his piece, and was instantly shot
+      through the body by the Maroon, who the next instant had disappeared in
+      the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women had
+      not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men drank
+      "kill-devil" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the difference
+      between the meaning of the word "good" in rebellious circles and in
+      reputable. "It must, however, be observed, that what we Europeans call a
+      good character was by the Africans looked upon as detestable, especially
+      by those born in the woods, whose only crime consisted in avenging the
+      wrongs done to their forefathers." But if martial virtues be virtues, such
+      were theirs. Not a rebel ever turned traitor or informer, ever flinched in
+      battle or under torture, ever violated a treaty or even a private promise.
+      But it was their power of endurance which was especially astounding;
+      Stedman is never weary of paying tribute to this, or of illustrating it in
+      sickening detail; indeed, the records of the world show nothing to surpass
+      it; "the lifted axe, the agonizing wheel," proved powerless to subdue it;
+      with every limb lopped, every bone broken, the victims yet defied their
+      tormentors, laughed, sang, and died triumphant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course they repaid these atrocities in kind. If they had not, it would
+      have demonstrated the absurd paradox, that slavery educates higher virtues
+      than freedom. It bewilders all the relations of human responsibility, if
+      we expect the insurrectionary slave to commit no outrages; if slavery has
+      not depraved him, it has done him little harm. If it be the normal
+      tendency of bondage to produce saints like Uncle Tom, let us all offer
+      ourselves at auction immediately. It is Cassy and Dred who are the normal
+      protest of human nature against systems which degrade it. Accordingly,
+      these poor, ignorant Maroons, who had seen their brothers and sisters
+      flogged, burned, mutilated, hanged on iron hooks, broken on the wheel, and
+      had been all the while solemnly assured that this was paternal government,
+      could only repay the paternalism in the same fashion, when they had the
+      power. Stedman saw a negro chained to a red-hot distillery-furnace; he saw
+      disobedient slaves, in repeated instances, punished by the amputation of a
+      leg, and sent to boat-service for the rest of their lives; and of course
+      the rebels borrowed these suggestions. They could bear to watch their
+      captives expire under the lash, for they had previously watched their
+      parents. If the government rangers received twenty-five florins for every
+      rebel right-hand which they brought in, of course they risked their own
+      right hands in the pursuit. The difference was, that the one brutality was
+      that of a mighty state, and the other was only the retaliation of the
+      victims. And after all, Stedman never ventures to assert that the
+      imitation equalled the original, or that the Maroons had inflicted nearly
+      so much as they had suffered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leaders of the rebels, especially, were men who had each his own story
+      of wrongs to tell. Baron, the most formidable, had been the slave of a
+      Swedish gentleman, who had taught him to read and write, taken him to
+      Europe, promised to manumit him on his return&mdash;and then, breaking his
+      word, sold him to a Jew. Baron refused to work for his new master, was
+      publicly flogged under the gallows, fled to the woods next day, and became
+      the terror of the colony. Joli Coeur, his first captain, was avenging the
+      cruel wrongs of his mother. Bonny, another leader, was born in the woods,
+      his mother having taken refuge there just previously, to escape from his
+      father, who was also his master. Cojo, another, had defended his master
+      against the insurgents until he was obliged by ill usage to take refuge
+      among them; and he still bore upon his wrist, when Stedman saw him, a
+      silver band, with the inscription,&mdash;"True to the Europeans." In
+      dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle would have found the despised
+      negroes quite as ready as himself to take the total-abstinence pledge
+      against rose-water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his first two-months' campaign, Stedman never saw the trace of a
+      Maroon; in the second, he once came upon their trail; in the third, one
+      captive was brought in, two surrendered themselves voluntarily, and a
+      large party was found to have crossed a river within a mile of the camp,
+      ferrying themselves on palm-trunks, according to their fashion. Deep
+      swamps and scorching sands, toiling through briers all day, and sleeping
+      at night in hammocks suspended over stagnant water, with weapons supported
+      on sticks crossed beneath,&mdash;all this was endured for two years and a
+      half, before Stedman personally came in sight of the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Aug. 20, 1775, the troops found themselves at last in the midst of the
+      rebel settlements. These villages and forts bore a variety of expressive
+      names, such as "Hide me, O thou surrounding verdure," "I shall be taken,"
+      "The woods lament for me," "Disturb me, if you dare," "Take a tasting, if
+      you like it," "Come, try me, if you be men," "God knows me, and none
+      else," "I shall moulder before I shall be taken." Some were only
+      plantation-grounds with a few huts, and were easily laid waste; but all
+      were protected more or less by their mere situations. Quagmires surrounded
+      them, covered by a thin crust of verdure, sometimes broken through by one
+      man's weight, when the victim sank hopelessly into the black and
+      bottomless depths below. In other directions there was a solid bottom, but
+      inconveniently covered by three or four feet of water, through which the
+      troops waded breast-deep, holding their muskets high in the air, unable to
+      reload them when once discharged, and liable to be picked off by rebel
+      scouts, who ingeniously posted themselves in the tops of palm-trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through this delectable region Col. Fougeaud and his followers slowly
+      advanced, drawing near the fatal shore where Capt. Meyland's detachment
+      had just been defeated, and where their mangled remains still polluted the
+      beach. Passing this point of danger without attack, they suddenly met a
+      small party of rebels, each bearing on his back a beautifully woven hamper
+      of snow-white rice: these loads they threw down, and disappeared. Next
+      appeared an armed body from the same direction, who fired upon them once,
+      and swiftly retreated; and in a few moments the soldiers came upon a large
+      field of standing rice, beyond which lay, like an amphitheatre, the rebel
+      village. But between the village and the field had been piled successive
+      defences of logs and branches, behind which simple redoubts the Maroons
+      lay concealed. A fight ensued, lasting forty minutes, during which nearly
+      every soldier and ranger was wounded; but, to their great amazement, not
+      one was killed. This was an enigma to them until after the skirmish, when
+      the surgeon found that most of them had been struck, not by bullets, but
+      by various substitutes, such as pebbles, coat-buttons, and bits of silver
+      coin, which had penetrated only skin deep. "We also observed that several
+      of the poor rebel negroes, who had been shot, had only the shards of
+      Spa-water cans instead of flints, which could seldom do execution; and it
+      was certainly owing to these circumstances that we came off so well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebels at length retreated, first setting fire to their village; a
+      hundred or more lightly built houses, some of them two stories high, were
+      soon in flames; and as this conflagration occupied the only neck of land
+      between two impassable morasses, the troops were unable to follow, and the
+      Maroons had left nothing but rice-fields to be pillaged. That night the
+      military force was encamped in the woods; their ammunition was almost
+      gone, so they were ordered to lie flat on the ground, even in case of
+      attack; they could not so much as build a fire. Before midnight an attack
+      was made on them, partly with bullets, and partly with words. The Maroons
+      were all around them in the forest, but their object was a puzzle; they
+      spent most of the night in bandying compliments with the black rangers,
+      whom they alternately denounced, ridiculed, and challenged to single
+      combat. At last Fougeaud and Stedman joined in the conversation, and
+      endeavored to make this midnight volley of talk the occasion for a treaty.
+      This was received with inextinguishable laughter, which echoed through the
+      woods like a concert of screech-owls, ending in a <i>charivari</i> of
+      horns and hallooing. The colonel, persisting, offered them "life, liberty,
+      victuals, drink, and all they wanted;" in return, they ridiculed him
+      unmercifully. He was a half-starved Frenchman, who had run away from his
+      own country, and would soon run away from theirs; they profoundly pitied
+      him and his soldiers; they would scorn to spend powder on such scarecrows;
+      they would rather feed and clothe them, as being poor white slaves, hired
+      to be shot at, and starved for fourpence a day. But as for the planters,
+      overseers, and rangers, they should die, every one of them, and Bonny
+      should be governor of the colony. "After this, they tinkled their
+      bill-hooks, fired a volley, and gave three cheers; which, being answered
+      by the rangers, the clamor ended, and the rebels dispersed with the rising
+      sun."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very aimless nonsense it certainly appeared. But the next day put a new
+      aspect on it; for it was found, that, under cover of all this noise, the
+      Maroons had been busily occupied all night, men, women, and children, in
+      preparing and filling great hampers of the finest rice, yams, and cassava,
+      from the adjacent provision-grounds, to be used for subsistence during
+      their escape, leaving only chaff and refuse for the hungry soldiers. "This
+      was certainly such a masterly trait of generalship in a savage people,
+      whom we affected to despise, as would have done honor to any European
+      commander."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this time the Maroons fulfilled their threats. Shooting down without
+      mercy every black ranger who came within their reach,&mdash;one of these
+      rangers being, in Stedman's estimate, worth six white soldiers,&mdash;they
+      left Col. Fougeaud and his regulars to die of starvation and fatigue. The
+      enraged colonel, "finding himself thus foiled by a naked negro, swore he
+      would pursue Bonny to the world's end." But he never got any nearer than
+      to Bonny's kitchen-gardens. He put the troops on half-allowance, sent back
+      for provisions and ammunition,&mdash;and within ten days changed his mind,
+      and retreated to the settlements in despair. Soon after, this very body of
+      rebels, under Bonny's leadership, plundered two plantations in the
+      vicinity, and nearly captured a powder-magazine, which was, however,
+      successfully defended by some armed slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a year longer these expeditions continued. The troops never gained a
+      victory, and they lost twenty men for every rebel killed; but they
+      gradually checked the plunder of plantations, destroyed villages and
+      planting-grounds, and drove the rebels, for the time at least, into the
+      deeper recesses of the woods, or into the adjacent province of Cayenne.
+      They had the slight satisfaction of burning Bonny's own house, a two-story
+      wooden hut, built in the fashion of our frontier guardhouses. They often
+      took single prisoners,&mdash;some child, born and bred in the woods, and
+      frightened equally by the first sight of a white man and of a cow,&mdash;or
+      some warrior, who, on being threatened with torture, stretched forth both
+      hands in disdain, and said, with Indian eloquence, "These hands have made
+      tigers tremble." As for Stedman, he still went barefooted, still
+      quarrelled with his colonel, still sketched the scenery and described the
+      reptiles, still reared greegree worms for his private kitchen, still
+      quoted good poetry and wrote execrable, still pitied all the sufferers
+      around him, black, white, and red, until finally he and his comrades were
+      ordered back to Holland in 1776.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among all that wasted regiment of weary and broken-down men, there was
+      probably no one but Stedman who looked backward with longing as they
+      sailed down the lovely Surinam. True, he bore all his precious collections
+      with him,&mdash;parrots and butterflies, drawings on the backs of old
+      letters, and journals kept on bones and cartridges. But he had left behind
+      him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his eccentric narrative
+      a single thread of pure romance, in his love for his beautiful quadroon
+      wife and his only son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within a month after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign
+      first saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate
+      friend. Her extreme beauty and modesty first fascinated him, and then her
+      piteous narrative,&mdash;for she was the daughter of a planter, who had
+      just gone mad and died in despair from the discovery that he could not
+      legally emancipate his own children from slavery. Soon after, Stedman was
+      dangerously ill, was neglected and alone; fruits and cordials were
+      anonymously sent to him, which proved at last to have come from Joanna;
+      and she came herself, ere long, and nursed him, grateful for the visible
+      sympathy he had shown to her. This completed the conquest; the passionate
+      young Englishman, once recovered, loaded her with presents which she
+      refused; talked of purchasing her, and educating her in Europe, which she
+      also declined as burdening him too greatly; and finally, amid the ridicule
+      of all good society in Paramaribo, surmounted all legal obstacles, and was
+      united to the beautiful girl in honorable marriage. He provided a cottage
+      for her, where he spent his furloughs, in perfect happiness, for four
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The simple idyl of their loves was unbroken by any stain or
+      disappointment, and yet always shadowed with the deepest anxiety for the
+      future. Though treated with the utmost indulgence, she was legally a
+      slave, and so was the boy of whom she became the mother. Cojo, her uncle,
+      was a captain among the rebels against whom her husband fought. And up to
+      the time when Stedman was ordered back to Holland, he was unable to
+      purchase her freedom; nor could he, until the very last moment, procure
+      the emancipation of his boy. His perfect delight at this last triumph,
+      when obtained, elicited some satire from his white friends. "While the
+      well-thinking few highly applauded my sensibility, many not only blamed
+      but publicly derided me for my paternal affection, which was called a
+      weakness, a whim." "Nearly forty beautiful boys and girls were left to
+      perpetual slavery by their parents of my acquaintance, and many of them
+      without being so much as once inquired after at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Stedman was a true-hearted fellow, if his sentiment did sometimes run
+      to rodomontade; he left his Joanna only in the hope that a year or two in
+      Europe would repair his ruined fortunes, and he could return to treat
+      himself to the purchase of his own wedded wife. He describes, with
+      unaffected pathos, their parting scene,&mdash;though, indeed, there were
+      several successive partings,&mdash;and closes the description in a
+      characteristic manner: "My melancholy having surpassed all description, I
+      at last determined to weather one or two painful years in her absence; and
+      in the afternoon went to dissipate my mind at a Mr. Roux' cabinet of
+      Indian curiosities; where, as my eye chanced to fall on a rattlesnake, I
+      will, before I leave the colony, describe this dangerous reptile."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was impossible to write the history of the Maroons of Surinam except
+      through the biography of our ensign (at last promoted captain), because
+      nearly all we know of them is through his quaint and picturesque
+      narrative, with its profuse illustrations by his own hand. It is not fair,
+      therefore, to end without chronicling his safe arrival in Holland, on June
+      3, 1777. It is a remarkable fact, that, after his life in the woods, even
+      the Dutch looked slovenly to his eyes. "The inhabitants, who crowded about
+      us, appeared but a disgusting assemblage of ill-formed and ill-dressed
+      rabble,&mdash;so much had my prejudices been changed by living among
+      Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to resemble those of a pig; their
+      complexions were like the color of foul linen; they seemed to have no
+      teeth, and to be covered over with rags and dirt. This prejudice, however,
+      was not against these people only, but against all Europeans in general,
+      when compared to the sparkling eyes, ivory teeth, shining skin, and
+      remarkable cleanliness of those I had left behind me." Yet, in spite of
+      these superior attractions, he never recrossed the Atlantic; for his
+      Joanna died soon after, and his promising son, being sent to the father,
+      was educated in England, became a midshipman in the navy, and was lost at
+      sea. With his elegy, in which the last depths of bathos are sadly sounded
+      by a mourning parent,&mdash;who is induced to print them only by "the
+      effect they had on the sympathetic and ingenious Mrs. Cowley,"&mdash;the
+      "Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition" closes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The war, which had cost the government forty thousand pounds a year, was
+      ended, and left both parties essentially as when it began. The Maroons
+      gradually returned to their old abodes, and, being unmolested themselves,
+      left others unmolested thenceforward. Originally three thousand,&mdash;in
+      Stedman's time, fifteen thousand,&mdash;they were estimated at seventy
+      thousand by Capt. Alexander, who saw Guiana in 1831; and a later American
+      scientific expedition, having visited them in their homes, reported them
+      as still enjoying their wild freedom, and multiplying, while the Indians
+      on the same soil decay. The beautiful forests of Surinam still make the
+      morning gorgeous with their beauty, and the night deadly with their chill;
+      the stately palm still rears, a hundred feet in air, its straight gray
+      shaft and its head of verdure; the mora builds its solid, buttressed
+      trunk, a pedestal for the eagle; the pine of the tropics holds out its
+      myriad hands with water-cups for the rain and dews, where all the birds
+      and the monkeys may drink their fill; the trees are garlanded with
+      epiphytes and convolvuli, and anchored to the earth by a thousand vines.
+      High among their branches, the red and yellow mocking-birds still build
+      their hanging nests, uncouth storks and tree-porcupines cling above, and
+      the spotted deer and the tapir drink from the sluggish stream below. The
+      night is still made noisy with a thousand cries of bird and beast; and the
+      stillness of the sultry noon is broken by the slow tolling of the <i>campañero</i>,
+      or bell-bird, far in the deep, dark woods, like the chime of some lost
+      convent. And as Nature is unchanged there, so apparently is man; the
+      Maroons still retain their savage freedom, still shoot their wild game and
+      trap their fish, still raise their rice and cassava, yams and plantains,&mdash;still
+      make cups from the gourd-tree and hammocks from the silk-grass plant, wine
+      from the palm-tree's sap, brooms from its leaves, fishing-lines from its
+      fibres, and salt from its ashes. Their life does not yield, indeed, the
+      very highest results of spiritual culture; its mental and moral results
+      may not come up to the level of civilization, but they rise far above the
+      level of slavery. In the changes of time, the Maroons may yet elevate
+      themselves into the one, but they will never relapse into the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true records of
+      Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a plot
+      perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain
+      obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the political
+      events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the scanty
+      traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in public
+      libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for American
+      history are vanishing,&mdash;since not one of our great institutions
+      possessed, a few years since, a file of any Southern newspaper of the year
+      1800,&mdash;yet the little which I have gained may have an interest that
+      makes it worth preserving. Three times, at intervals of thirty years, did
+      a wave of unutterable terror sweep across the Old Dominion, bringing
+      thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every
+      Virginian slave. Each time did one man's name become a spell of dismay and
+      a symbol of deliverance. Each time did that name eclipse its predecessor,
+      while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory: John Brown revived the
+      story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat Turner recalled the vaster schemes
+      of Gabriel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sept. 8, 1800, a Virginia correspondent wrote thus to the Philadelphia
+      <i>United-States Gazette:</i>&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "For the week past, we have been under momentary expectation of a
+    rising among the negroes, who have assembled to the number of
+    nine hundred or a thousand, and threatened to massacre all the
+    whites. They are armed with desperate weapons, and secrete
+    themselves in the woods. God only knows our fate: we have strong
+    guards every night under arms."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was no wonder, if there were foundation for such rumors. Liberty was
+      the creed or the cant of the day. France was being disturbed by
+      revolution, and England by Clarkson. In America, slavery was habitually
+      recognized as a misfortune and an error, only to be palliated by the
+      nearness of its expected end. How freely anti-slavery pamphlets had been
+      circulated in Virginia, we know from the priceless volumes collected and
+      annotated by Washington, and now preserved in the Boston Athenaeum.
+      Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," itself an anti-slavery tract, had passed
+      through seven editions. Judge St. George Tucker, law-professor in William
+      and Mary College, had recently published his noble work, "A Dissertation
+      on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State
+      of Virginia." From all this agitation, a slave insurrection was a mere
+      corollary. With so much electricity in the air, a single flash of
+      lightning foreboded all the terrors of the tempest. Let but a single armed
+      negro be seen or suspected, and at once, on many a lonely plantation,
+      there were trembling hands at work to bar doors and windows that seldom
+      had been even closed before, and there was shuddering when a gray squirrel
+      scrambled over the roof, or a shower of walnuts came down clattering from
+      the overhanging boughs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in September, 1800, as a certain Mr. Moseley Sheppard, of Henrico
+      County in Virginia, was one day sitting in his counting-room, two negroes
+      knocked at the door, and were let in. They shut the door themselves, and
+      began to unfold an insurrectionary plot, which was subsequently repeated
+      by one of them, named Ben Woodfolk or Woolfolk, in presence of the court,
+      on the 15th of the same month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stated, that about the first of the preceding June, he had been asked
+      by a negro named Colonel George whether he would like to be made a Mason.
+      He refused; but George ultimately prevailed on him to have an interview
+      with a certain leading man among the blacks, named Gabriel. Arrived at the
+      place of meeting, he found many persons assembled, to whom a preliminary
+      oath was administered, that they would keep secret all which they might
+      hear. The leaders then began, to the dismay of this witness, to allude to
+      a plan of insurrection, which, as they stated, was already far advanced
+      toward maturity. Presently a man named Martin, Gabriel's brother, proposed
+      religious services, caused the company to be duly seated, and began an
+      impassioned exposition of Scripture, bearing upon the perilous theme. The
+      Israelites were glowingly portrayed as a type of successful resistance to
+      tyranny; and it was argued, that now, as then, God would stretch forth his
+      arm to save, and would strengthen a hundred to overthrow a thousand. Thus
+      passed, the witness stated, this preparatory meeting. At a subsequent
+      gathering the affair was brought to a point; and the only difficult
+      question was, whether to rise in rebellion upon a certain Saturday, or
+      upon the Sunday following. Gabriel said that Saturday was the day already
+      fixed, and that it must not be altered; but George was for changing it to
+      Sunday, as being more convenient for the country negroes, who could travel
+      on that day without suspicion. Gabriel, however, said decisively that they
+      had enough to carry Richmond without them; and Saturday was therefore
+      retained as the momentous day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the confession, so far as it is now accessible; and on the
+      strength of it, Ben Woolfolk was promptly pardoned by the court for all
+      his sins, past, present, or to come, and they proceeded with their
+      investigation. Of Gabriel little appeared to be known, except that he had
+      been the property of Thomas Prosser, a young man who had recently
+      inherited a plantation a few miles from Richmond, and who had the
+      reputation among his neighbors of "behaving with great barbarity to his
+      slaves." Gabriel was, however, reported to be "a fellow of courage and
+      intellect above his rank in life," to be about twenty-five years of age,
+      and to be guiltless of the alphabet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further inquiry made it appear that the preparations of the insurgents
+      were hardly adequate to any grand revolutionary design,&mdash;at least, if
+      they proposed to begin with open warfare. The commissariat may have been
+      well organized, for black Virginians are apt to have a prudent eye to the
+      larder; but the ordnance department and the treasury were as low as if
+      Secretary Floyd had been in charge of them. A slave called "Prosser's Ben"
+      testified that he went with Gabriel to see Ben Woolfolk, who was going to
+      Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three shillings
+      for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in recruiting men."
+      Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted of a peck of
+      bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords, made by Gabriel's
+      brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel himself. "These
+      cutlasses," said subsequently a white eye-witness, "are made of scythes
+      cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have never seen arms so
+      murderous. Those who still doubt the importance of the conspiracy which
+      has been so fortunately frustrated would shudder with horror at the sight
+      of these instruments of death." And as it presently appeared that a
+      conspirator named Scott had astonished his master by accidentally pulling
+      ten dollars from a ragged pocket which seemed inadequate to the custody of
+      ten cents, it was agreed that the plot might still be dangerous, even
+      though the resources seemed limited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed, as was soon discovered, the effective weapon of the insurgents
+      lay in the very audacity of their plan. If the current statements of all
+      the Virginia letter-writers were true, "nothing could have been better
+      contrived." It was to have taken effect on the first day of September. The
+      rendezvous for the blacks was to be a brook six miles from Richmond.
+      Eleven hundred men were to assemble there, and were to be divided into
+      three columns, their officers having been designated in advance. All were
+      to march on Richmond,&mdash;then a town of eight thousand inhabitants,&mdash;under
+      cover of night. The right wing was instantly to seize upon the
+      penitentiary building, just converted into an arsenal; while the left wing
+      was to take possession of the powder-house. These two columns were to be
+      armed chiefly with clubs, as their undertaking depended for success upon
+      surprise, and was expected to prevail without hard fighting. But it was
+      the central force, armed with muskets, cutlasses, knives, and pikes, upon
+      which the chief responsibility rested; these men were to enter the town at
+      both ends simultaneously, and begin a general carnage, none being excepted
+      save the French inhabitants, who were supposed for some reason to be
+      friendly to the negroes. In a very few hours, it was thought, they would
+      have entire control of the metropolis. And that this hope was not in the
+      least unreasonable, was shown by the subsequent confessions of weakness
+      from the whites. "They could scarcely have failed of success," wrote the
+      Richmond correspondent of the Boston <i>Chronicle</i>; "for, after all, we
+      could only muster four or five hundred men, of whom not more than thirty
+      had muskets."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the insurgents, if successful, the penitentiary held several thousand
+      stand of arms; the powder-house was well stocked; the Capitol contained
+      the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of the
+      bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus secured
+      and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to their
+      standard "their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity throughout the
+      continent." In a week, it was estimated, they would have fifty thousand
+      men on their side, with which force they could easily possess themselves
+      of other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John Scott&mdash;possibly the
+      dangerous possessor of the ten dollars&mdash;was already appointed to head
+      the attack on Petersburg. But in case of final failure, the project
+      included a retreat to the mountains, with their new-found property. John
+      Brown was therefore anticipated by Gabriel, sixty years before, in
+      believing the Virginia mountains to have been "created, from the
+      foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the statements of the contemporary witnesses; they are repeated
+      in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear and
+      consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or under-stated, it
+      is now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of Sept. 12
+      (quoted in the New-York <i>Gazette</i> of Sept. 18) declares that "the
+      plot has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and, had the attempt
+      been made to carry it into execution, but little resistance would have
+      been required to render the scheme entirely abortive." But it is necessary
+      to remember that this is no more than the Charleston newspapers said at
+      the very crisis of Denmark Vesey's formidable plot. "Last evening," wrote
+      a lady from Charleston in 1822, "twenty-five hundred of our citizens were
+      under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a subject <i>not to
+      be mentioned</i> [so underscored]; and unless you hear of it elsewhere,
+      say nothing about it." Thus it is always hard to know whether to assume
+      the facts of an insurrection as above or below the estimates. This
+      Virginian excitement also happened at a period of intense political
+      agitation, and was seized upon as a boon by the Federalists. The very
+      article above quoted is ironically headed "Holy Insurrection," and takes
+      its motto from Jefferson, with profuse capital letters: "The Spirit of the
+      Master is abating, that of the Slave rising from the dust, his condition
+      mollifying."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In view of the political aspect thus given to the plot, and of its
+      ingenuity and thoroughness likewise, the Virginians were naturally
+      disposed to attribute to white men some share in it; and speculation
+      presently began to run wild. The newspapers were soon full of theories, no
+      two being alike, and no one credible. The plot originated, some said, in
+      certain handbills written by Jefferson's friend Callender, then in prison
+      at Richmond on a charge of sedition; these were circulated by two French
+      negroes, aided by a "United Irishman" calling himself a Methodist
+      preacher, and it was in consideration of these services that no Frenchman
+      was to be injured by the slaves. When Gabriel was arrested, the editor of
+      the <i>United-States Gazette</i> affected much diplomatic surprise that no
+      letters were <i>yet</i> found upon his person "from Fries, Gallatin, or
+      Duane, nor was he at the time of his capture accompanied by any United
+      Irishman." "He, however, acknowledges that there are others concerned, and
+      that he is not the principal instigator." All Federalists agreed that the
+      Southern Democratic talk was constructive insurrection,&mdash;which it
+      certainly was,&mdash;-and they painted graphic pictures of noisy
+      "Jacobins" over their wine, and eager dusky listeners behind their chairs.
+      "It is evident that the French principles of liberty and equality have
+      been effused into the minds of the negroes, and that the incautious and
+      intemperate use of the words by some whites among us have inspired them
+      with hopes of success." "While the fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate
+      their <i>French babble</i> of the natural equality of man, the insulted
+      negro will be constantly stimulated to cast away his cords, and to sharpen
+      his pike." "It is, moreover, believed, though not positively known, that a
+      great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished
+      by the burlesque appellation of <i>Democrats</i>) are implicated with the
+      blacks, and would have joined them if they had commenced their
+      operations.... The Jacobin printers and their friends are panic-struck.
+      Never was terror more strongly depicted in the countenances of men." These
+      extracts from three different Federalist newspapers show the amiable
+      emotions of that side of the house; while Democratic Duane, in the <i>Aurora</i>,
+      could find no better repartee than to attribute the whole trouble to the
+      policy of the administration in renewing commercial intercourse with San
+      Domingo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have discovered in the Norfolk <i>Epitome of the Times</i>, for Oct. 9,
+      1800, a remarkable epistle written from Richmond Jail by the unfortunate
+      Callender himself. He indignantly denies the charges against the
+      Democrats, of complicity in dangerous plots, boldly retorting them upon
+      the Federalists. "An insurrection at this critical moment by the negroes
+      of the Southern States would have thrown every thing into confusion, and
+      consequently it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole
+      or the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a
+      disaster must have tended directly to injure the interests of Mr.
+      Jefferson, and to promote the slender possibility of a second election of
+      Mr. Adams." And, to be sure, the <i>United-States Gazette</i> followed up
+      the thing with a good, single-minded party malice which cannot be
+      surpassed in these present days, ending in such altitudes of sublime
+      coolness as the following: "The insurrection of the negroes in the
+      Southern States, which appears to be organized on the true French plan,
+      must be decisive, with every reflecting man in those States, of the
+      election of Mr. Adams and Gen. Pinckney. The military skill and approved
+      bravery of the general must be peculiarly valuable to his countrymen at
+      these trying moments." Let us have a military Vice-President, by all
+      means, to meet this formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets, and
+      this unexplained three shillings in the pocket of "Prosser's Ben"!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Gabriel's campaign failed, like that of the Federalists; and the
+      appointed day brought disasters more fatal than even the sword of Gen.
+      Pinckney. The affrighted negroes declared that "the stars in their courses
+      fought against Sisera." The most furious tempest ever known in Virginia
+      burst upon the land that day, instead of an insurrection. Roads and
+      plantations were submerged. Bridges were carried away. The fords, which
+      then, as now, were the frequent substitutes for bridges in that region,
+      were rendered wholly impassable. The Brook Swamp, one of the most
+      important strategic points of the insurgents, was entirely inundated,
+      hopelessly dividing Prosser's farm from Richmond; the country negroes
+      could not get in, nor those from the city get out. The thousand men
+      dwindled to a few hundred, and these half paralyzed by superstition; there
+      was nothing to do but to dismiss them, and before they could re-assemble
+      they were betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the greatest alarm was instantly created throughout the community,
+      there is no question. All the city of Richmond was in arms, and in all
+      large towns of the State the night-patrol was doubled. It is a little
+      amusing to find it formally announced, that "the Governor, impressed with
+      the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three
+      aides-de-camp." A troop of United-States cavalry was ordered to Richmond.
+      Numerous arrests were made. Men were convicted on one day, and hanged on
+      the next,&mdash;five, six, ten, fifteen at a time, almost without
+      evidence. Three hundred dollars were offered by Gov. Monroe for the arrest
+      of Gabriel; as much more for another chief named Jack Bowler, <i>alias</i>
+      Ditcher; whereupon Bowler <i>alias</i> Ditcher surrendered himself, but it
+      took some weeks to get upon the track of Gabriel. He was finally captured
+      at Norfolk, on board a schooner just arrived from Richmond, in whose hold
+      he had concealed himself for eleven days, having thrown overboard a
+      bayonet and bludgeon, which were his only arms. Crowds of people collected
+      to see him, including many of his own color. He was arrested on Sept. 24,
+      convicted on Oct. 3, and executed on Oct. 7; and it is known of him
+      further, only, that, like almost all leaders of slave insurrections, he
+      showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay. "When he was
+      apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and confidence,
+      showing not the least disposition to equivocate, or screen himself from
+      justice,"&mdash;but making no confession that could implicate any one
+      else. "The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk <i>Epitome</i>
+      of Sept. 25, "was such as might be expected from a mind capable of forming
+      the daring project which he had conceived." The <i>United-States Gazette</i>
+      for Oct. 9 states, more sarcastically, that "the general is said to have
+      manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of heroism seems
+      ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather than gratify
+      the officious inquiries of the Governor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of these newspapers suggest that the authorities found it good policy
+      to omit the statement made by Gabriel, whatever it was. At any rate, he
+      assured them that he was by no means the sole instigator of the affair; he
+      could name many, even in Norfolk, who were more deeply concerned. To his
+      brother Solomon he is said to have stated that the real head of the plot
+      was Jack Bowler. Still another leader was "Gen. John Scott," already
+      mentioned, the slave of Mr. Greenhow, hired by Mr. McCrea. He was captured
+      by his employer in Norfolk, just as he was boldly entering a public
+      conveyance to escape; and the Baltimore <i>Telegraphe</i> declared that he
+      had a written paper directing him to apply to Alexander Biddenhurst or
+      Weddenhurst in Philadelphia, "corner of Coats Alley and Budd Street, who
+      would supply his needs." What became of this military individual, or of
+      his Philadelphia sympathizers, does not appear. But it was noticed, as
+      usually happens in such cases, that all the insurgents had previously
+      passed for saints. "It consists within my knowledge," says one
+      letter-writer, "that many of these wretches who were or would have been
+      partakers in the plot have been treated with the utmost tenderness by
+      their masters, and were more like children than slaves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These appear to be all the details now accessible of this once famous
+      plot. They were not very freely published, even at the time. "The minutiae
+      of the conspiracy have not been detailed to the public," said the Salem
+      (Mass.) <i>Gazette</i> of Oct. 7, "and perhaps, through a mistaken notion
+      of prudence and policy, will not be detailed in the Richmond papers." The
+      New-York <i>Commercial Advertiser</i> of Oct. 13 was still more explicit.
+      "The trials of the negroes concerned in the late insurrection are
+      suspended until the opinions of the Legislature can be had on the subject.
+      This measure is said to be owing to the immense numbers who are interested
+      in the plot, whose death, should they all be found guilty and be executed,
+      will nearly produce the annihilation of the blacks in this part of the
+      country." And in the next issue of the same journal a Richmond
+      correspondent makes a similar statement, with the following addition: "A
+      conditional amnesty is perhaps expected. At the next session of the
+      Legislature [of Virginia], they took into consideration the subject
+      referred to them, in secret session, with closed doors. The whole result
+      of their deliberations has never yet been made public, as the injunction
+      of secrecy has never been removed. To satisfy the court, the public, and
+      themselves, they had a task so difficult to perform, that it is not
+      surprising that their deliberations were in secret."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a matter of historical interest to know that in these mysterious
+      sessions lay the germs of the American Colonization Society. A
+      correspondence was at once secretly commenced between the Governor of
+      Virginia and the President of the United States, with a view to securing a
+      grant of land whither troublesome slaves might be banished. Nothing came
+      of it then; but in 1801, 1802, and 1804, these attempts were renewed. And
+      finally, on Jan. 22, 1805, the following vote was passed, still in secret
+      session: "<i>Resolved</i>, that the Senators of this State in the Congress
+      of the United States be instructed, and the Representatives be requested,
+      to use their best efforts for the obtaining from the General Government a
+      competent portion of territory in the State of Louisiana, to be
+      appropriated to the residence of such people of color as have been or
+      shall be emancipated, or hereafter may become dangerous to the public
+      safety," etc. But of all these efforts nothing was known till their record
+      was accidentally discovered by Charles Fenton Mercer in 1816. He at once
+      brought the matter to light, and moved a similar resolution in the
+      Virginia Legislature; it was almost unanimously adopted, and the first
+      formal meeting of the Colonization Society, in 1817, was called "in aid"
+      of this Virginia movement. But the whole correspondence was never made
+      public until the Nat Turner insurrection of 1831 recalled the previous
+      excitement; and these papers were demanded by Mr. Summers, a member of the
+      Legislature, who described them as "having originated in a convulsion
+      similar to that which had recently, but more terribly, occurred."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But neither these subsequent papers, nor any documents which now appear
+      accessible, can supply any authentic or trustworthy evidence as to the
+      real extent of the earlier plot. It certainly was not confined to the mere
+      environs of Richmond. The Norfolk <i>Epitome</i> of Oct. 6 states that on
+      the 6th and 7th of the previous month one hundred and fifty blacks,
+      including twenty from Norfolk, were assembled near Whitlock's Mills in
+      Suffolk County, and remained in the neighborhood till the failure of the
+      Richmond plan became known. Petersburg newspapers also had letters
+      containing similar tales. Then the alarm spread more widely. Near Edenton,
+      N.C., there was undoubtedly a real insurrection, though promptly
+      suppressed; and many families ultimately removed from that vicinity in
+      consequence. In Charleston, S.C., there was still greater excitement, if
+      the contemporary press may be trusted; it was reported that the
+      freeholders had been summoned to appear in arms, on penalty of a fine of
+      fifteen pounds, which many preferred to pay rather than risk taking the
+      fever which then prevailed. These reports were, however, zealously
+      contradicted in letters from Charleston, dated Oct. 8; and the Charleston
+      newspapers up to Sept. 17 had certainly contained no reference to any
+      especial excitement. This alone might not settle the fact, for reasons
+      already given. But the omission of any such affair from the valuable
+      pamphlet published in 1822 by Edwin C. Holland, containing reminiscences
+      of insurrections in South Carolina, is presumptive evidence that no very
+      extended agitation occurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But wherever there was a black population, slave or emancipated, men's
+      startled consciences made cowards of them all, and recognized the negro as
+      a dangerous man, because an injured one. In Philadelphia it was seriously
+      proposed to prohibit the use of sky-rockets for a time, because they had
+      been employed as signals in San Domingo. "Even in Boston," said the
+      New-York <i>Daily Advertiser</i> of Sept. 20, "fears are expressed, and
+      measures of prevention adopted." This probably refers to a singular
+      advertisement which appeared in some of the Boston newspapers on Sept. 16,
+      and runs as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "NOTICE TO BLACKS.
+
+    "The officers of the police having made returns to the subscriber
+    of the names of the following persons who are Africans or
+    negroes, not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of
+    any of the United States, the same are hereby warned and directed
+    to depart out of this Commonwealth before the tenth day of
+    October next, as they would avoid the pains and penalties of the
+    law in that case provided, which was passed by the Legislature
+    March 26, 1788.
+
+    "CHARLES BULFINCH, Superintendent.
+
+    "By order and direction of the Selectmen."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The names annexed are about three hundred, with the places of their
+      supposed origin, and they occupy a column of the paper. So at least
+      asserts the <i>United-States Gazette</i> of Sept. 23. "It seems probable,"
+      adds the editor, "from the nature of the notice, that some suspicion of
+      the design of the negroes is entertained; and we regret to say there is
+      too much cause." The law of 1788 above mentioned was "An Act for
+      suppressing rogues, vagabonds, and the like," which forbade all persons of
+      African descent, unless citizens of some one of the United States or
+      subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, from remaining more than two months
+      within the Commonwealth, on penalty of imprisonment and hard labor. This
+      singular statute remained unrepealed until 1834.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the general harmony in the contemporary narratives of Gabriel's
+      insurrection, it would be improper to pass by one exceptional legend,
+      which by some singular fatality has obtained more circulation than all the
+      true accounts put together. I can trace it no farther back than Nat
+      Turner's time, when it was published in the Albany <i>Evening Journal</i>;
+      thence transferred to the <i>Liberator</i> of Sept. 17, 1831, and many
+      other newspapers; then refuted in detail by the <i>Richmond Enquirer</i>
+      of Oct. 21; then resuscitated in the John-Brown epoch by the Philadelphia
+      <i>Press</i>, and extensively copied. It is fresh, spirited, and full of
+      graphic and interesting details, nearly every one of which is altogether
+      false.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gabriel in this narrative becomes a rather mythical being, of vast
+      abilities and life-long preparations. He bought his freedom, it is stated,
+      at the age of twenty-one, and then travelled all over the Southern States,
+      enlisting confederates and forming stores of arms. At length his plot was
+      discovered, in consequence of three negroes having been seen riding out of
+      a stable-yard together; and the Governor offered a reward of ten thousand
+      dollars for further information, to which a Richmond gentleman added as
+      much more. Gabriel concealed himself on board the "Sally Ann," a vessel
+      just sailing for San Domingo, and was revealed by his little nephew, whom
+      he had sent for a jug of rum. Finally, the narrative puts an eloquent
+      dying speech into Gabriel's mouth, and, to give a properly tragic
+      consummation, causes him to be torn to death by four wild horses. The last
+      item is, however, omitted in the more recent reprints of the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one of these statements appears to be absolutely erroneous. Gabriel
+      lived and died a slave, and was probably never out of Virginia. His plot
+      was voluntarily revealed by accomplices. The rewards offered for his
+      arrest amounted to three hundred dollars only. He concealed himself on
+      board the schooner "Mary," bound to Norfolk, and was discovered by the
+      police. He died on the gallows, with ten associates, having made no
+      address to the court or the people. All the errors of the statement were
+      contradicted when it was first made public, but they have proved very hard
+      to kill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with
+      this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both
+      being composed by a colored man. Several witnesses have assured me of
+      having heard this sung in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of the
+      white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It is surely one of
+      history's strange parallelisms, that this fatal enterprise, like that of
+      John Brown afterwards, should thus have embalmed itself in music. And
+      twenty-two years after these events, their impression still remained vivid
+      enough for Benjamin Lundy, in Tennessee, to write: "So well had they
+      matured their plot, and so completely had they organized their system of
+      operations, that nothing but a seemingly miraculous intervention of the
+      arm of Providence was supposed to have been capable of saving the city
+      from pillage and flames, and the inhabitants thereof from butchery. So
+      dreadful was the alarm and so great the consternation produced on this
+      occasion, that a member of Congress from that State was some time after
+      heard to express himself in his place as follows: 'The night-bell is never
+      heard to toll in the city of Richmond, but the anxious mother presses her
+      infant more closely to her bosom.'" The Congressman was John Randolph of
+      Roanoke, and it was Gabriel who had taught him the lesson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And longer than the melancholy life of that wayward statesman,&mdash;down
+      even to the beginning of the American civil war,&mdash;there lingered in
+      Richmond a memorial of those days, most peculiar and most instructive.
+      Before the days of secession, when the Northern traveller in Virginia,
+      after traversing for weary leagues its miry ways, its desolate fields, and
+      its flowery forests, rode at last into its metropolis, he was sure to be
+      guided ere long to visit its stately Capitol, modelled by Jefferson, when
+      French minister, from the Maison Carrée. Standing before it, he might
+      admire undisturbed the Grecian outline of its exterior; but he found
+      himself forbidden to enter, save by passing an armed and uniformed
+      sentinel at the doorway. No other State of the Union then found it
+      necessary to protect its State House by a permanent cordon of bayonets.
+      Yet there for half a century stood sentinel the "Public Guard" of
+      Virginia; and when the traveller asked the origin of the precaution, he
+      was told that it was the lasting memorial of Gabriel's Defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      DENMARK VESEY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On Saturday afternoon, May 25, 1822, a slave named Devany, belonging to
+      Col. Prioleau of Charleston, S.C., was sent to market by his mistress,&mdash;the
+      colonel being absent in the country. After doing his errands, he strolled
+      down upon the wharves in the enjoyment of that magnificent wealth of
+      leisure which usually characterized the former "house-servant" of the
+      South, when beyond hail of the street-door. He presently noticed a small
+      vessel lying in the stream, with a peculiar flag flying; and while looking
+      at it, he was accosted by a slave named William, belonging to Mr. John
+      Paul, who remarked to him, "I have often seen a flag with the number 76,
+      but never one with the number 96 upon it before." After some further
+      conversation on this trifling point, William suddenly inquired, "Do you
+      know that something serious is about to take place?" Devany disclaiming
+      the knowledge of any graver impending crisis than the family dinner, the
+      other went on to inform him that many of the slaves were "determined to
+      right themselves." "We are determined," he added, "to shake off our
+      bondage, and for that purpose we stand on a good foundation; many have
+      joined, and if you will go with me, I will show you the man who has the
+      list of names, and who will take yours down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This startling disclosure was quite too much for Devany: he was made of
+      the wrong material for so daring a project; his genius was culinary, not
+      revolutionary. Giving some excuse for breaking off the conversation, he
+      went forthwith to consult a free colored man, named Pensil or Pencell, who
+      advised him to warn his master instantly. So he lost no time in telling
+      the secret to his mistress and her young son; and on the return of Col.
+      Prioleau from the country, five days afterward, it was at once revealed to
+      him. Within an hour or two he stated the facts to Mr. Hamilton, the
+      intendant, or, as he would now be called, mayor; Mr. Hamilton at once
+      summoned the corporation, and by five o'clock Devany and William were
+      under examination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first warning of a plot which ultimately filled Charleston
+      with terror. And yet so thorough and so secret was the organization of the
+      negroes, that a fortnight passed without yielding the slightest
+      information beyond the very little which was obtained from these two.
+      William Paul was, indeed, put in confinement, and soon gave evidence
+      inculpating two slaves as his employers,&mdash;Mingo Harth and Peter
+      Poyas. But these men, when arrested, behaved with such perfect coolness,
+      and treated the charge with such entire levity;&mdash;their trunks and
+      premises, when searched, were so innocent of all alarming contents;&mdash;that
+      they were soon discharged by the wardens. William Paul at length became
+      alarmed for his own safety, and began to let out further facts piecemeal,
+      and to inculpate other men. But some of those very men came voluntarily to
+      the intendant, on hearing that they were suspected, and indignantly
+      offered themselves for examination. Puzzled and bewildered, the municipal
+      government kept the thing as secret as possible, placed the city guard in
+      an efficient condition, provided sixteen hundred rounds of ball
+      cartridges, and ordered the sentinels and patrols to be armed with loaded
+      muskets. "Such had been our fancied security, that the guard had
+      previously gone on duty without muskets, and with only sheathed bayonets
+      and bludgeons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has since been asserted, though perhaps on questionable authority, that
+      the Secretary of War was informed of the plot, even including some details
+      of the plan and the leader's name, before it was known in Charleston. If
+      so, he utterly disregarded it; and, indeed, so well did the negroes play
+      their part, that the whole report was eventually disbelieved, while&mdash;as
+      was afterwards proved&mdash;they went on to complete their secret
+      organization, and hastened by a fortnight the appointed day of attack.
+      Unfortunately for their plans, however, another betrayal took place at the
+      very last moment, from a different direction. A class-leader in a
+      Methodist church had been persuaded or bribed by his master to procure
+      further disclosures. He at length came and stated, that, about three
+      months before, a man named Rolla, slave of Gov. Bennett, had communicated
+      to a friend of his the fact of an intended insurrection, and had said that
+      the time fixed for the outbreak was the following Sunday night, June 16.
+      As this conversation took place on Friday, it gave but a very short time
+      for the city authorities to act, especially as they wished neither to
+      endanger the city nor to alarm it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet so cautiously was the game played on both sides that the whole thing
+      was still kept a secret from the Charleston public; and some members of
+      the city government did not fully appreciate their danger till they had
+      passed it. "The whole was concealed," wrote the governor afterwards,
+      "until the time came; but secret preparations were made. Saturday night
+      and Sunday morning passed without demonstrations; doubts were excited, and
+      counter orders issued for diminishing the guard." It afterwards proved
+      that these preparations showed to the slaves that their plot was betrayed,
+      and so saved the city without public alarm. Newspaper correspondence soon
+      was full of the story, each informant of course hinting plainly that he
+      had been behind the scenes all along, and had withheld it only to gratify
+      the authorities in their policy of silence. It was "now no longer a
+      secret," they wrote; adding, that, for five or six weeks, but little
+      attention had been paid by the community to these rumors, the city council
+      having kept it carefully to themselves until a number of suspicious slaves
+      had been arrested. This refers to ten prisoners who were seized on June
+      18, an arrest which killed the plot, and left only the terrors of what
+      might have been. The investigation, thus publicly commenced, soon revealed
+      a free colored man named Denmark Vesey as the leader of the enterprise,&mdash;among
+      his chief coadjutors being that innocent Peter and that unsuspecting Mingo
+      who had been examined and discharged nearly three weeks before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is matter of demonstration, that, but for the military preparations on
+      the appointed Sunday night, the attempt would have been made. The
+      ringleaders had actually met for their final arrangements, when, by
+      comparing notes, they found themselves foiled; and within another week
+      they were prisoners on trial. Nevertheless, the plot which they had laid
+      was the most elaborate insurrectionary project ever formed by American
+      slaves, and came the nearest to a terrible success. In boldness of
+      conception and thoroughness of organization there has been nothing to
+      compare with it; and it is worth while to dwell somewhat upon its details,
+      first introducing the <i>dramatis personae</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denmark Vesey had come very near figuring as a revolutionist in Hayti,
+      instead of South Carolina. Capt. Vesey, an old resident of Charleston,
+      commanded a ship that traded between St. Thomas and Cape Français, during
+      our Revolutionary War, in the slave-transportation line. In the year 1781
+      he took on board a cargo of three hundred and ninety slaves, and sailed
+      for the Cape. On the passage, he and his officers were much attracted by
+      the beauty and intelligence of a boy of fourteen, whom they unanimously
+      adopted into the cabin as a pet. They gave him new clothes, and a new
+      name, Télémaque, which was afterwards gradually corrupted into Telmak and
+      Denmark. They amused themselves with him until their arrival at Cape
+      Français, and then, "having no use for the boy," sold their pet as if he
+      had been a macaw or a monkey. Capt. Vesey sailed for St. Thomas; and,
+      presently making another trip to Cape Français, was surprised to hear from
+      his consignee that Télémaque would be returned on his hands as being
+      "unsound,"&mdash;not in theology nor in morals, but in body,&mdash;subject
+      to epileptic fits, in fact. According to the custom of that place, the boy
+      was examined by the city physician, who required Capt. Vesey to take him
+      back; and Denmark served him faithfully, with no trouble from epilepsy,
+      for twenty years, travelling all over the world with him, and learning to
+      speak various languages. In 1800 he drew a prize of fifteen hundred
+      dollars in the East Bay-street Lottery, with which he bought his freedom
+      from his master for six hundred dollars,&mdash;much less than his market
+      value. From that time, the official report says, he worked as a carpenter
+      in Charleston, distinguished for physical strength and energy. "Among
+      those of his color he was looked up to with awe and respect. His temper
+      was impetuous and domineering in the extreme, qualifying him for the
+      despotic rule of which he was ambitious. All his passions were
+      ungovernable and savage; and to his numerous wives and children he
+      displayed the haughty and capricious cruelty of an Eastern bashaw."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For several years before he disclosed his intentions to any one, he
+      appears to have been constantly and assiduously engaged in endeavoring to
+      imbitter the minds of the colored population against the white. He
+      rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of the Scriptures
+      which he thought he could pervert to his purpose, and would readily quote
+      them to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God; that slaves
+      were bound to attempt their emancipation, however shocking and bloody
+      might be the consequences; and that such efforts would not only be
+      pleasing to the Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined, and their success
+      predicted, in the Scriptures. His favorite texts when he addressed those
+      of his own color were Zech. xiv. 1-3, and Josh. vi. 21; and in all his
+      conversations he identified their situation with that of the Israelites.
+      The number of inflammatory pamphlets on slavery brought into Charleston
+      from some of our sister States within the last four years (and once from
+      Sierra Leone), and distributed amongst the colored population of the city,
+      for which there was a great facility, in consequence of the unrestricted
+      intercourse allowed to persons of color between the different States in
+      the Union, and the speeches in Congress of those opposed to the admission
+      of Missouri into the Union, perhaps garbled and misrepresented, furnished
+      him with ample means for inflaming the minds of the colored population of
+      the State; and by distorting certain parts of those speeches, or selecting
+      from them particular passages, he persuaded but too many that Congress had
+      actually declared them free, and that they were held in bondage contrary
+      to the laws of the land. Even whilst walking through the streets in
+      company with another, he was not idle; for if his companion bowed to a
+      white person, he would rebuke him, and observe that all men were born
+      equal, and that he was surprised that any one would degrade himself by
+      such conduct; that he would never cringe to the whites, nor ought any one
+      who had the feelings of a man. When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would
+      sarcastically and indignantly reply, 'You deserve to remain slaves;' and
+      if he were further asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, 'Go and buy a
+      spelling-book, and read the fable of Hercules and the Wagoner,' which he
+      would then repeat, and apply it to their situation. He also sought every
+      opportunity of entering into conversation with white persons, when they
+      could be overheard by negroes near by, especially in grog-shops,&mdash;during
+      which conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on
+      slavery; and sometimes, when, from the character he was conversing with,
+      he found he might still be bolder, he would go so far, that, had not his
+      declarations in such situations been clearly proved, they would scarcely
+      have been credited. He continued this course until some time after the
+      commencement of the last winter; by which time he had not only obtained
+      incredible influence amongst persons of color, but many feared him more
+      than their owners, and, one of them declared, even more than his God."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was proved against him, that his house had been the principal place of
+      meeting for the conspirators, that all the others habitually referred to
+      him as the leader, and that he had shown great address in dealing with
+      different temperaments and overcoming a variety of scruples. One witness
+      testified that Vesey had read to him from the Bible about the deliverance
+      of the children of Israel; another, that he had read to him a speech which
+      had been delivered "in Congress by a Mr. King" on the subject of slavery,
+      and Vesey had said that "this Mr. King was the black man's friend; that
+      he, Mr. King, had declared he would continue to speak, write, and publish
+      pamphlets against slavery the longest day he lived, until the Southern
+      States consented to emancipate their slaves, for that slavery was a great
+      disgrace to the country." But among all the reports there are only two
+      sentences which really reveal the secret soul of Denmark Vesey, and show
+      his impulses and motives. "He said he did not go with Creighton to Africa,
+      because he had not a will; he wanted to stay and see what he could do for
+      his fellow-creatures." The other takes us still nearer home. Monday Gell
+      stated in his confession, that Vesey, on first broaching the plan to him,
+      said "he was satisfied with his own condition, being free; but, as all his
+      children were slaves, he wished to see what could be done for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent
+      preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a
+      condition of freedom, to the <i>naïve</i> astonishment of his judges. "It
+      is difficult to imagine," says the sentence finally passed on Denmark
+      Vesey, "what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprise
+      so wild and visionary. You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and
+      enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation. You had, therefore,
+      much to risk and little to gain." Yet one witness testified: "Vesey said
+      the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise. I
+      said, I was living well; he said, though I was, others were not, and that
+      'twas such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and
+      that after all things were well he would mark me." "His general
+      conversation," said another witness, a white boy, "was about religion,
+      which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the
+      creation of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights,
+      blacks as well as whites, etc.; all his religious remarks were mingled
+      with slavery." And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even
+      after the betrayal of his cherished plans. "After the plot was
+      discovered," said Monday Gell, in his confession, "Vesey said it was all
+      over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned,
+      by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter
+      Poyas. Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the organizing
+      mind. He kept the register of "candidates," and decided who should or
+      should not be enrolled. "We can't live so," he often reminded his
+      confederates; "we must break the yoke." "God has a hand in it; we have
+      been meeting for four years, and are not yet betrayed." Peter was a
+      ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value. He was to be the military
+      leader. His plans showed some natural generalship: he arranged the
+      night-attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the
+      streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition were
+      kept for sale. He voluntarily undertook the management of the most
+      difficult part of the enterprise,&mdash;the capture of the main
+      guard-house,&mdash;and had pledged himself to advance alone and surprise
+      the sentinel. He was said to have a magnetism in his eyes, of which his
+      confederates stood in great awe; if he once got his eye upon a man, there
+      was no resisting it. A white witness has since narrated, that, after his
+      arrest, he was chained to the floor in a cell, with another of the
+      conspirators. Men in authority came, and sought by promises, threats, and
+      even tortures, to ascertain the names of other accomplices. His companion,
+      wearied out with pain and suffering, and stimulated by the hope of saving
+      his own life, at last began to yield. Peter raised himself, leaned upon
+      his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying quietly, "Die like a man,"
+      and instantly lay down again. It was enough; not another word was
+      extorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack
+      Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack,&mdash;Gullah signifying Angola, the
+      place of his origin. A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in
+      his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this side
+      the Atlantic. For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense
+      influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had the
+      reputation of being invulnerable, and of teaching invulnerability as an
+      art, he was very good at beating up recruits for insurrection. Over those
+      of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made them join
+      in the revolt as one man. They met him monthly at a place called Bulkley's
+      Farm, selected because the black overseer on that plantation was one of
+      the initiated, and because the farm was accessible by water, thus enabling
+      them to elude the patrol. There they prepared cartridges and pikes, and
+      had primitive banquets, which assumed a melodramatic character under the
+      inspiriting guidance of Jack. If a fowl was privately roasted, that mystic
+      individual muttered incantations over it; and then they all grasped at it,
+      exclaiming, "Thus we pull Buckra to pieces!" He gave them parched corn and
+      ground-nuts to be eaten as internal safeguards on the day before the
+      outbreak, and a consecrated <i>cullah</i>, or crab's claw, to be carried
+      in the mouth by each, as an amulet. These rather questionable means
+      secured him a power which was very unquestionable; the witnesses examined
+      in his presence all showed dread of his conjurations, and referred to him
+      indirectly, with a kind of awe, as "the little man who can't be shot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Gullah Jack was otherwise engaged, there seems to have been a sort of
+      deputy seer employed in the enterprise, a blind man named Philip. He was a
+      preacher; was said to have been born with a caul on his head, and so
+      claimed the gift of second-sight. Timid adherents were brought to his
+      house for ghostly counsel. "Why do you look so timorous?" he said to
+      William Garner, and then quoted Scripture, "Let not your heart be
+      troubled." That a blind man should know how he looked, was beyond the
+      philosophy of the visitor; and this piece of rather cheap ingenuity
+      carried the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other leaders were appointed also. Monday Gell was the scribe of the
+      enterprise; he was a native African, who had learned to read and write. He
+      was by trade a harness-maker, working chiefly on his own account. He
+      confessed that he had written a letter to President Boyer of the new black
+      republic; "the letter was about the sufferings of the blacks, and to know
+      if the people of St. Domingo would help them if they made an effort to
+      free themselves." This epistle was sent by the black cook of a Northern
+      schooner, and the envelope was addressed to a relative of the bearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom Russell was the armorer, and made pikes "on a very improved model,"
+      the official report admits. Polydore Faber fitted the weapons with
+      handles. Bacchus Hammett had charge of the fire-arms and ammunition, not
+      as yet a laborious duty. William Garner and Mingo Harth were to lead the
+      horse-company. Lot Forrester was the courier, and had done, no one ever
+      knew how much, in the way of enlisting country negroes, of whom Ned
+      Bennett was to take command when enlisted. Being the governor's servant,
+      Ned was probably credited with some official experience. These were the
+      officers: now for the plan of attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the custom then, as later, for the country negroes to flock largely
+      into Charleston on Sunday. More than a thousand came, on ordinary
+      occasions, and a far larger number might at any time make their appearance
+      without exciting any suspicion. They gathered in, especially by water,
+      from the opposite sides of Ashley and Cooper Rivers, and from the
+      neighboring islands; and they came in a great number of canoes of various
+      sizes,&mdash;many of which could carry a hundred men,&mdash;which were
+      ordinarily employed in bringing agricultural products to the Charleston
+      market. To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city government
+      once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,&mdash;and that
+      during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were rather
+      fearful of coming into town; and it was found, that, even then, there were
+      more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday. This fact, then, was
+      the essential point in the plan of insurrection. Whole plantations were
+      found to have been enlisted among the "candidates," as they were termed;
+      and it was proved that the city negroes, who lived nearest the place of
+      meeting, had agreed to conceal these confederates in their houses to a
+      large extent, on the night of the proposed outbreak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The details of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass of
+      the confederates; they were known only to a few, and were finally to be
+      announced only after the evening prayer-meetings on the appointed Sunday.
+      But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work marked out.
+      When the clock struck twelve, all were to move. Peter Poyas was to lead a
+      party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined by a force from
+      James's Island; he was then to march up and seize the arsenal and
+      guard-house opposite St. Michael's Church, and detach a sufficient number
+      to cut off all white citizens who should appear at the alarm-posts. A
+      second body of negroes, from the country and the Neck, headed by Ned
+      Bennett, was to assemble on the Neck, and seize the arsenal there. A third
+      was to meet at Gov. Bennett's Mills, under command of Rolla, and, after
+      putting the governor and intendant to death, to march through the city, or
+      be posted at Cannon's Bridge, thus preventing the inhabitants of
+      Cannonsborough from entering the city. A fourth, partly from the country,
+      and partly from the neighboring localities in the city, was to rendezvous
+      on Gadsden's Wharf, and attack the upper guard-house. A fifth, composed of
+      country and Neck negroes, was to assemble at Bulkley's Farm, two miles and
+      a half from the city, seize the upper powder-magazine, and then march
+      down; and a sixth was to assemble at Denmark Vesey's, and obey his orders.
+      A seventh detachment, under Gullah Jack, was to assemble in Boundary
+      Street, at the head of King Street, to capture the arms of the Neck
+      company of militia, and to take an additional supply from Mr. Duquercron's
+      shop. The naval stores on Mey's Wharf were also to be attacked. Meanwhile,
+      a horse-company, consisting of many draymen, hostlers, and butcher-boys,
+      was to meet at Lightwood's Alley, and then scour the streets to prevent
+      the whites from assembling. Every white man coming out of his own door was
+      to be killed; and, if necessary, the city was to be fired in several
+      places,&mdash;slow-match for this purpose having been purloined from the
+      public arsenal, and placed in an accessible position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond this, the plan of action was either unformed or undiscovered; some
+      slight reliance seems to have been placed on English aid,&mdash;more on
+      assistance from St. Domingo. At any rate, all the ships in the harbor were
+      to be seized; and in these, if the worst came to the worst, those most
+      deeply inculpated could set sail, bearing with them, perhaps, the spoils
+      of shops and of banks. It seems to be admitted by the official narrative,
+      that they might have been able, at that season of the year, and with the
+      aid of the fortifications on the Neck and around the harbor, to retain
+      possession of the city for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So unsuspicious were the authorities, so unprepared the citizens, so open
+      to attack lay the city, that nothing seemed necessary to the success of
+      the insurgents except organization and arms. Indeed, the plan of
+      organization easily covered a supply of arms. By their own contributions
+      they had secured enough to strike the first blow,&mdash;a few hundred
+      pikes and daggers, together with swords and guns for the leaders. But they
+      had carefully marked every place in the city where weapons were to be
+      obtained. On King-street Road, beyond the municipal limits, in a common
+      wooden shop, were left unguarded the arms of the Neck company of militia,
+      to the number of several hundred stand; and these were to be secured by
+      Bacchus Hammett, whose master kept the establishment. In Mr. Duquercron's
+      shop there were deposited for sale as many more weapons; and they had
+      noted Mr. Schirer's shop in Queen Street, and other gunsmiths'
+      establishments. Finally, the State arsenal in Meeting Street, a building
+      with no defences except ordinary wooden doors, was to be seized early in
+      the outbreak. Provided, therefore, that the first moves proved successful,
+      all the rest appeared sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very little seems to have been said among the conspirators in regard to
+      any plans of riot or debauchery, subsequent to the capture of the city.
+      Either their imaginations did not dwell on them, or the witnesses did not
+      dare to give testimony, or the authorities to print it. Death was to be
+      dealt out, comprehensive and terrible; but nothing more is mentioned. One
+      prisoner, Rolla, is reported in the evidence to have dropped hints in
+      regard to the destiny of the women; and there was a rumor in the
+      newspapers of the time, that he or some other of Gov. Bennett's slaves was
+      to have taken the governor's daughter, a young girl of sixteen, for his
+      wife, in the event of success; but this is all. On the other hand, Denmark
+      Vesey was known to be for a war of immediate and total extermination; and
+      when some of the company opposed killing "the ministers and the women and
+      children," Vesey read from the Scriptures that all should be cut off, and
+      said that "it was for their safety not to leave one white skin alive, for
+      this was the plan they pursued at St. Domingo." And all this was not a
+      mere dream of one lonely enthusiast, but a measure which had been maturing
+      for four full years among several confederates, and had been under
+      discussion for five months among multitudes of initiated "candidates."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual with slave-insurrections, the best men and those most trusted
+      were deepest in the plot. Rolla was the only prominent conspirator who was
+      not an active church-member. "Most of the ringleaders," says a Charleston
+      letter-writer of that day, "were the rulers or class-leaders in what is
+      called the African Society, and were considered faithful, honest fellows.
+      Indeed, many of the owners could not be convinced, till the fellows
+      confessed themselves, that they were concerned, and that the first object
+      of all was to kill their masters." And the first official report declares
+      that it would not be difficult to assign a motive for the
+      insurrectionists, "if it had not been distinctly proved, that, with
+      scarcely an exception, they had no individual hardship to complain of, and
+      were among the most humanely treated negroes in the city. The facilities
+      for combining and confederating in such a scheme were amply afforded by
+      the extreme indulgence and kindness which characterize the domestic
+      treatment of our slaves. Many slave-owners among us, not satisfied with
+      ministering to the wants of their domestics by all the comforts of
+      abundant food and excellent clothing, with a misguided benevolence have
+      not only permitted their instruction, but lent to such efforts their
+      approbation and applause."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I sympathize most sincerely," says the anonymous author of a pamphlet of
+      the period, "with the very respectable and pious clergyman whose heart
+      must still bleed at the recollection that his confidential class-leader,
+      but a week or two before his just conviction, had received the communion
+      of the Lord's Supper from his hand. This wretch had been brought up in his
+      pastor's family, and was treated with the same Christian attention as was
+      shown to their own children." "To us who are accustomed to the base and
+      proverbial ingratitude of these people, this ill return of kindness and
+      confidence is not surprising; but they who are ignorant of their real
+      character will read and wonder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One demonstration of this "Christian attention" had lately been the
+      closing of the African Church,&mdash;of which, as has been stated, most of
+      the leading revolutionists were members,&mdash;on the ground that it
+      tended to spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On Jan. 15,
+      1821, the city marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the
+      gospel and others who keep night&mdash;and Sunday-schools for slaves, that
+      the education of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city
+      government feel imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there
+      were some special as well as general grounds for disaffection among these
+      ungrateful favorites of fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied
+      dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen,&mdash;since you cannot keep
+      men ignorant without making them unreasonable also,&mdash;that on the
+      ensuing Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that
+      every black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them;" this
+      being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to be on
+      its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had ended the
+      Missouri Compromise discussion by making them all free, and that the law
+      would protect their liberty if they could only secure it. Others, again,
+      were threatened with the vengeance of the conspirators, unless they also
+      joined; on the night of attack, it was said, the initiated would have a
+      countersign, and all who did not know it would share the fate of the
+      whites. Add to this the reading of Congressional speeches, and of the
+      copious magazine of revolution to be found in the Bible,&mdash;and it was
+      no wonder, if they for the first time were roused, under the energetic
+      leadership of Vesey, to a full consciousness of their own condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by
+      their owners; but this was very generally the case with all who were
+      convicted,&mdash;many of them possessing the highest confidence of their
+      owners, and not one of bad character." In one case it was proved that
+      Vesey had forbidden his followers to trust a certain man, because he had
+      once been seen intoxicated. In another case it was shown that a slave
+      named George had made every effort to obtain their confidence, but was
+      constantly excluded from their meetings as a talkative fellow who could
+      not be trusted,&mdash;a policy which his levity of manner, when examined
+      in court, fully justified. They took no women into counsel,&mdash;not from
+      any distrust apparently, but in order that their children might not be
+      left uncared-for in case of defeat and destruction. House-servants were
+      rarely trusted, or only when they had been carefully sounded by the chief
+      leaders. Peter Poyas, in commissioning an agent to enlist men, gave him
+      excellent cautions: "Don't mention it to those waiting-men who receive
+      presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they'll betray us; I
+      will speak to them." When he did speak, if he did not convince them, he at
+      least frightened them. But the chief reliance was on those slaves who were
+      hired out, and therefore more uncontrolled,&mdash;and also upon the
+      country negroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same far-sighted policy directed the conspirators to disarm suspicion
+      by peculiarly obedient and orderly conduct. And it shows the precaution
+      with which the thing was carried on, that, although Peter Poyas was proved
+      to have had a list of some six hundred persons, yet not one of his
+      particular company was ever brought to trial. As each leader kept to
+      himself the names of his proselytes, and as Monday Gell was the only one
+      of these leaders who turned traitor, any opinion as to the numbers
+      actually engaged must be altogether conjectural. One witness said nine
+      thousand; another, six thousand six hundred. These statements were
+      probably extravagant, though not more so than Gov. Bennett's assertion, on
+      the other side, that "all who were actually concerned had been brought to
+      justice,"&mdash;unless by this phrase he designates only the ringleaders.
+      The avowed aim of the governor's letter, indeed, is to smooth the thing
+      over, for the credit and safety of the city; and its evasive tone
+      contrasts strongly with the more frank and thorough statements of the
+      judges, made after the thing could no longer be hushed up. These high
+      authorities explicitly acknowledge that they had failed to detect more
+      than a small minority of those concerned in the project, and seem to
+      admit, that, if it had once been brought to a head, the slaves generally
+      would have joined in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We cannot venture to say," says the intendant's pamphlet, "to how many
+      the knowledge of the intended effort was communicated, who without
+      signifying their assent, or attending any of the meetings, were yet
+      prepared to profit by events. That there are many who would not have
+      permitted the enterprise to have failed at a critical moment, for the want
+      of their co-operation, we have the best reason for believing." So believed
+      the community at large; and the panic was in proportion, when the whole
+      danger was finally made public. "The scenes I witnessed," says one who has
+      since narrated the circumstances, "and the declaration of the impending
+      danger that met us at all times and on all occasions, forced the
+      conviction that never were an entire people more thoroughly alarmed than
+      were the people of Charleston at that time.... During the excitement, and
+      the trial of the supposed conspirators, rumor proclaimed all, and
+      doubtless more than all, the horrors of the plot. The city was to be fired
+      in every quarter; the arsenal in the immediate vicinity was to be broken
+      open, and the arms distributed to the insurgents, and a universal massacre
+      of the white inhabitants to take place. Nor did there seem to be any doubt
+      in the mind of the people, that such would actually have been the result
+      had not the plot fortunately been detected before the time appointed for
+      the outbreak. It was believed, as a matter of course, that every black in
+      the city would join in the insurrection, and that if the original design
+      had been attempted, and the city taken by surprise, the negroes would have
+      achieved a complete and easy victory. Nor does it seem at all impossible
+      that such might have been, or yet may be, the case, if any well-arranged
+      and resolute rising should take place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, this universal admission, that all the slaves were ready to take
+      part in any desperate enterprise, was one of the most startling aspects of
+      the affair. The authorities say that the two principal State's evidence
+      declared that "they never spoke to any person of color on the subject, or
+      knew of any one who had been spoken to by the other leaders, who had
+      withheld his assent." And the conspirators seem to have been perfectly
+      satisfied that all the remaining slaves would enter their ranks upon the
+      slightest success. "Let us assemble a sufficient number to commence the
+      work with spirit, and we'll not want men; they'll fall in behind us fast
+      enough." And as an illustration of this readiness, the official report
+      mentions a slave who had belonged to one master for sixteen years,
+      sustaining a high character for fidelity and affection, who had twice
+      travelled with him through the Northern States, resisting every
+      solicitation to escape, and who yet was very deeply concerned in the
+      insurrection, though knowing it to involve the probable destruction of the
+      whole family with whom he lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One singular circumstance followed the first rumors of the plot. Several
+      white men, said to be of low and unprincipled character, at once began to
+      make interest with the supposed leaders among the slaves, either from
+      genuine sympathy, or with the intention of betraying them for money, or by
+      profiting by the insurrection, should it succeed. Four of these were
+      brought to trial; but the official report expresses the opinion that many
+      more might have been discovered but for the inadmissibility of slave
+      testimony against whites. Indeed, the evidence against even these four was
+      insufficient for a capital conviction, although one was overheard, through
+      stratagem, by the intendant himself, and arrested on the spot. This man
+      was a Scotchman, another a Spaniard, a third a German, and the fourth a
+      Carolinian. The last had for thirty years kept a shop in the neighborhood
+      of Charleston; he was proved to have asserted that "the negroes had as
+      much right to fight for their liberty as the white people," had offered to
+      head them in the enterprise, and had said that in three weeks he would
+      have two thousand men. But in no case, it appears, did these men obtain
+      the confidence of the slaves; and the whole plot was conceived and
+      organized, so far as appears, without the slightest co-operation from any
+      white man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trial of the conspirators began on Wednesday, June 19. At the request
+      of the intendant, Justices Kennedy and Parker summoned five freeholders
+      (Messrs. Drayton, Heyward, Pringle, Legaré, and Turnbull) to constitute a
+      court, under the provisions of the Act "for the better ordering and
+      governing negroes and other slaves." The intendant laid the case before
+      them, with a list of prisoners and witnesses. By a vote of the court, all
+      spectators were excluded, except the owners and counsel of the slaves
+      concerned. No other colored person was allowed to enter the jail, and a
+      strong guard of soldiers was kept always on duty around the building.
+      Under these general arrangements the trials proceeded with elaborate
+      formality, though with some variations from ordinary usage,&mdash;as was,
+      indeed, required by the statute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For instance, the law provided that the testimony of any Indian or slave
+      could be received, without oath, against a slave or free colored person,
+      although it was not valid, even under oath, against a white. But it is
+      best to quote the official language in respect to the rules adopted: "As
+      the court had been organized under a statute of a peculiar and local
+      character, and intended for the government of a distinct class of persons
+      in the community, they were bound to conform their proceedings to its
+      provisions, which depart in many essential features from the principles of
+      the common law and some of the settled rules of evidence. The court,
+      however, determined to adopt those rules, whenever they were not repugnant
+      to nor expressly excepted by that statute, nor inconsistent with the local
+      situation and policy of the State; and laid down for their own government
+      the following regulations: First, that no slave should be tried except in
+      the presence of his owner or his counsel, and that notice should be given
+      in every case at least one day before the trial; second, that the
+      testimony of one witness, unsupported by additional evidence or by
+      circumstances, should lead to no conviction of a capital nature; third,
+      that the witnesses should be confronted with the accused and with each
+      other in every case, except where testimony was given under a solemn
+      pledge that the names of the witnesses should not be divulged,&mdash;as
+      they declared, in some instances, that they apprehended being murdered by
+      the blacks, if it was known that they had volunteered their evidence;
+      fourth, that the prisoners might be represented by counsel, whenever this
+      was requested by the owners of the slaves, or by the prisoners themselves
+      if free; fifth, that the statements or defences of the accused should be
+      heard in every case, and they be permitted themselves to examine any
+      witness they thought proper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is singular to observe how entirely these rules seem to concede that a
+      slave's life has no sort of value to himself, but only to his master. His
+      master, not he himself, must choose whether it be worth while to employ
+      counsel. His master, not his mother or his wife, must be present at the
+      trial. So far is this carried, that the provision to exclude "persons who
+      had no particular interest in the slaves accused" seems to have excluded
+      every acknowledged relative they had in the world, and admitted only those
+      who had invested in them so many dollars. And yet the very first section
+      of that part of the statute under which they were tried lays down an
+      explicit recognition of their humanity: "And whereas natural justice
+      forbids that any <i>person</i>, of what condition soever, should be
+      condemned unheard." So thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of
+      person and chattel intermingled, that when Gov. Bennett petitions for
+      mitigation of sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I
+      ask this, gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing
+      loss," it is really impossible to decide whether the predominant emotion
+      be affectional or financial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a matter of painful necessity to acknowledge that the proceedings of
+      most slave-tribunals have justified the honest admission of Gov. Adams of
+      South Carolina, in his legislative message of 1855: "The administration of
+      our laws, in relation to our colored population, by our courts of
+      magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present constituted,
+      calls loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in conformity with
+      justice or humanity." This trial, as reported by the justices themselves,
+      seems to have been no worse than the average,&mdash;perhaps better. In
+      all, thirty-five were sentenced to death, thirty-four to transportation,
+      twenty-seven acquitted by the court, and twenty-five discharged without
+      trial, by the Committee of Vigilance,&mdash;making in all one hundred and
+      twenty-one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentences pronounced by Judge Kennedy upon the leading rebels, while
+      paying a high tribute to their previous character, of course bring all law
+      and all Scripture to prove the magnitude of their crime. "It is a
+      melancholy fact," he says, "that those servants in whom we reposed the
+      most unlimited confidence have been the principal actors in this wicked
+      scheme." Then he rises into earnest appeals. "Are you incapable of the
+      heavenly influence of that gospel, all whose paths are peace? It was to
+      reconcile us to our destiny on earth, and to enable us to discharge with
+      fidelity all our duties, whether as master or servant, that those inspired
+      precepts were imparted by Heaven to fallen man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these reasonings the prisoners had, of course, nothing to say; but the
+      official reports bear the strongest testimony to their fortitude. "Rolla,
+      when arraigned, affected not to understand the charge against him, and,
+      when it was at his request further explained to him, assumed, with
+      wonderful adroitness, astonishment and surprise. He was remarkable,
+      throughout his trial, for great presence and composure of mind. When he
+      was informed he was convicted, and was advised to prepare for death,
+      though he had previously (but after his trial) confessed his guilt, he
+      appeared perfectly confounded, but exhibited no signs of fear. In Ned's
+      behavior there was nothing remarkable; but his countenance was stern and
+      immovable, even whilst he was receiving the sentence of death: from his
+      looks it was impossible to discover or conjecture what were his feelings.
+      Not so with Peter: for in his countenance were strongly marked
+      disappointed ambition, revenge, indignation, and an anxiety to know how
+      far the discoveries had extended; and the same emotions were exhibited in
+      his conduct. He did not appear to fear personal consequences, for his
+      whole behavior indicated the reverse; but exhibited an evident anxiety for
+      the success of their plan, in which his whole soul was embarked. His
+      countenance and behavior were the same when he received his sentence; and
+      his only words were, on retiring, 'I suppose you'll let me see my wife and
+      family before I die?' and that not in a supplicating tone. When he was
+      asked, a day or two after, if it was possible he could wish to see his
+      master and family murdered, who had treated him so kindly, he only replied
+      to the question by a smile. Monday's behavior was not peculiar. When he
+      was before the court, his arms were folded; he heard the testimony given
+      against him, and received his sentence, with the utmost firmness and
+      composure. But no description can accurately convey to others the
+      impression which the trial, defence, and appearance of Gullah Jack made on
+      those who witnessed the workings of his cunning and rude address. When
+      arrested and brought before the court, in company with another African
+      named Jack, the property of the estate of Pritchard, he assumed so much
+      ignorance, and looked and acted the fool so well, that some of the court
+      could not believe that this was the necromancer who was sought after. This
+      conduct he continued when on his trial, until he saw the witnesses and
+      heard the testimony as it progressed against him; when, in an instant, his
+      countenance was lighted up as if by lightning, and his wildness and
+      vehemence of gesture, and the malignant glance with which he eyed the
+      witnesses who appeared against him, all indicated the savage, who indeed
+      had been <i>caught</i>, but not <i>tamed</i>. His courage, however, soon
+      forsook him. When he received sentence of death, he earnestly implored
+      that a fortnight longer might be allowed him, and then a week longer,
+      which he continued earnestly to solicit until he was taken from the
+      court-room to his cell; and when he was carried to execution, he gave up
+      his spirit without firmness or composure."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not so with Denmark Vesey. The plans of years were frustrated; his own
+      life and liberty were thrown away; many others were sacrificed through his
+      leadership; and one more was added to the list of unsuccessful
+      insurrections. All these disastrous certainties he faced calmly, and gave
+      his whole mind composedly to the conducting of his defence. With his arms
+      tightly folded, and his eyes fixed on the floor, he attentively followed
+      every item of the testimony. He heard the witnesses examined by the court,
+      and cross-examined by his own counsel; and it is evident from the
+      narrative of the presiding judge, that he showed no small skill and policy
+      in the searching cross-examination which he then applied. The fears, the
+      feelings, the consciences, of those who had betrayed him, all were in turn
+      appealed to; but the facts were quite overpowering, and it was too late to
+      aid his comrades or himself. Then turning to the court, he skilfully
+      availed himself of the point which had so much impressed the community:
+      the intrinsic improbability that a man in his position of freedom and
+      prosperity should sacrifice every thing to free other people. If they
+      thought it so incredible, why not give him the benefit of the
+      incredibility? The act being, as they stated, one of infatuation, why
+      convict him of it on the bare word of men who, by their own showing, had
+      not only shared the infatuation, but proved traitors to it? An ingenious
+      defence,&mdash;indeed, the only one which could by any possibility be
+      suggested, anterior to the days of Choate and somnambulism; but in vain.
+      He was sentenced; and it was not, apparently, till the judge reproached
+      him for the destruction he had brought on his followers, that he showed
+      any sign of emotion. Then the tears came into his eyes. But he said not
+      another word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The executions took place on five different days; and, bad as they were,
+      they might have been worse. After the imaginary Negro Plot of New York, in
+      1741, thirteen negroes had been judicially burned alive; two had suffered
+      the same sentence at Charleston in 1808; and it was undoubtedly some mark
+      of progress, that in this case the gallows took the place of the flames.
+      Six were hanged on July 2, upon Blake's lands, near Charleston,&mdash;Denmark
+      Vesey, Peter Poyas, Jesse, Ned, Rolla, and Batteau,&mdash;the last three
+      being slaves of the governor himself. Gullah Jack and John were executed
+      "on the Lines," near Charleston, on July 12; and twenty-two more on July
+      26. Four others suffered their fate on July 30; and one more, William
+      Garner, effected a temporary escape, was captured, and tried by a
+      different court, and was finally executed on Aug. 9.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The self-control of these men did not desert them at their execution. When
+      the six leaders suffered death, the report says, Peter Poyas repeated his
+      charge of secrecy: "Do not open your lips; die silent, as you shall see me
+      do;" and all obeyed. And though afterwards, as the particulars of the plot
+      became better known, there was less inducement to conceal, yet every one
+      of the thirty-five seems to have met his fate bravely, except the
+      conjurer. Gov. Bennett, in his letter, expresses much dissatisfaction at
+      the small amount learned from the participators. "To the last hour of the
+      existence of several who appeared to be conspicuous actors in the drama,
+      they were pressingly importuned to make further confessions,"&mdash;this
+      "importuning" being more clearly defined in a letter of Mr. Ferguson,
+      owner of two of the slaves, as "having them severely corrected." Yet so
+      little was obtained, that the governor was compelled to admit at last that
+      the really essential features of the plot were not known to any of the
+      informers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to be remembered, that the plot failed because a man unauthorized
+      and incompetent, William Paul, undertook to make enlistments on his own
+      account. He happened on one of precisely that class of men,&mdash;favored
+      house-servants,&mdash;whom his leaders had expressly reserved for more
+      skilful manipulations. He being thus detected, one would have supposed
+      that the discovery of many accomplices would at once have followed. The
+      number enlisted was counted by thousands; yet for twenty-nine days after
+      the first treachery, and during twenty days of official examination, only
+      fifteen of the conspirators were ferreted out. Meanwhile the informers'
+      names had to be concealed with the utmost secrecy; they were in peril of
+      their lives from the slaves,&mdash;William Paul scarcely dared to go
+      beyond the doorstep,&mdash;and the names of important witnesses examined
+      in June were still suppressed in the official report published in October.
+      That a conspiracy on so large a scale should have existed in embryo during
+      four years, and in an active form for several months, and yet have been so
+      well managed, that, after actual betrayal, the authorities were again
+      thrown off their guard, and the plot nearly brought to a head again,&mdash;this
+      certainly shows extraordinary ability in the leaders, and a talent for
+      concerted action on the part of slaves generally, with which they have
+      hardly been credited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it is also to be noted, that the range of the conspiracy extended far
+      beyond Charleston. It was proved that Frank, slave of Mr. Ferguson, living
+      nearly forty miles from the city, had boasted of having enlisted four
+      plantations in his immediate neighborhood. It was in evidence that the
+      insurgents "were trying all round the country, from Georgetown and Santee
+      round about to Combahee, to get people;" and, after the trials, it was
+      satisfactorily established that Vesey "had been in the country as far
+      north as South Santee, and southwardly as far as the Euhaws, which is
+      between seventy and eighty miles from the city." Mr. Ferguson himself
+      testified that the good order of any gang was no evidence of their
+      ignorance of the plot, since the behavior of his own initiated slaves had
+      been unexceptionable, in accordance with Vesey's directions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With such an organization and such materials, there was nothing in the
+      plan which could be pronounced incredible or impracticable. There is no
+      reason why they should not have taken the city. After all the governor's
+      entreaties as to moderate language, the authorities were obliged to admit
+      that South Carolina had been saved from a "horrible catastrophe." "For,
+      although success could not possibly have attended the conspirators, yet,
+      before their suppression, Charleston would probably have been wrapped in
+      flames, many valuable lives would have been sacrificed, and an immense
+      loss of property sustained by the citizens, even though no other
+      distressing occurrences were experienced by them; while the plantations in
+      the lower country would have been disorganized, and the agricultural
+      interests have sustained an enormous loss." The Northern journals had
+      already expressed still greater anxieties. "It appears," said the New-York
+      <i>Commercial Advertiser</i>, "that, but for the timely disclosure, the
+      whole of that State would in a few days have witnessed the horrid
+      spectacle once witnessed in St. Domingo."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My friend, David Lee Child, has kindly communicated to me a few memoranda
+      of a conversation held long since with a free colored man who had worked
+      in Vesey's shop during the time of the insurrection; and these generally
+      confirm the official narratives. "I was a young man then," he said; "and,
+      owing to the policy of preventing communication between free colored
+      people and slaves, I had little opportunity of ascertaining how the slaves
+      felt about it. I know that several of them were abused in the street, and
+      some put in prison, for appearing in sackcloth. There was an ordinance of
+      the city, that any slave who wore a badge of mourning should be imprisoned
+      and flogged. They generally got the law, which is thirty-nine lashes; but
+      sometimes it was according to the decision of the court." "I heard, at the
+      time, of arms being buried in coffins at Sullivan's Island." "In the time
+      of the insurrection, the slaves were tried in a small room in the jail
+      where they were confined. No colored person was allowed to go within two
+      squares of the prison. Those two squares were filled with troops, five
+      thousand of whom were on duty day and night. I was told, Vesey said to
+      those that tried him, that the work of insurrection would go on; but as
+      none but white persons were permitted to be present, I cannot tell whether
+      he said it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During all this time there was naturally a silence in the Charleston
+      journals, which strongly contrasts with the extreme publicity at last
+      given to the testimony. Even the <i>National Intelligencer</i>, at
+      Washington, passed lightly over the affair, and deprecated the publication
+      of particulars. The Northern editors, on the other hand, eager for items,
+      were constantly complaining of this reserve, and calling for further
+      intelligence. "The Charleston papers," said the Hartford <i>Courant</i> of
+      July 16, "have been silent on the subject of the insurrection; but letters
+      from this city state that it has created much alarm, and that two brigades
+      of troops were under arms for some time to suppress any risings that might
+      have taken place." "You will doubtless hear," wrote a Charleston
+      correspondent of the same paper, just before, "many reports, and some
+      exaggerated ones." "There was certainly a disposition to revolt, and some
+      preparations made, principally by the plantation negroes, to take the
+      city." "We hoped they would progress so far as to enable us to ascertain
+      and punish the ringleaders." "Assure my friends that we feel in perfect
+      security, although the number of nightly guards, and other demonstrations,
+      may induce a belief among strangers to the contrary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strangers would have been very blind strangers, if they had not been
+      more influenced by the actions of the Charleston citizens than by their
+      words. The original information was given on May 25, 1822. The time
+      passed, and the plot failed on June 16. A plan for its revival on July 2
+      proved abortive. Yet a letter from Charleston, in the Hartford <i>Courant</i>
+      of Aug. 6, represented the panic as unabated: "Great preparations are
+      making, and all the military are put in preparation to guard against any
+      attempt of the same kind again; but we have no apprehension of its being
+      repeated." On Aug. 10, Gov. Bennett wrote the letter already mentioned,
+      which was printed and distributed as a circular, its object being to
+      deprecate undue alarm. "Every individual in the State is interested,
+      whether in regard to his own property, or the reputation of the State, in
+      giving no more importance to the transaction than it justly merits." Yet,
+      five days after this,&mdash;two months after the first danger had passed,&mdash;a
+      re-enforcement of United-States troops arrived at Fort Moultrie; and,
+      during the same month, several different attempts were made by small
+      parties of armed negroes to capture the mails between Charleston and
+      Savannah, and a reward of two hundred dollars was offered for their
+      detection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first official report of the trials was prepared by the intendant, by
+      request of the city council. It passed through four editions in a few
+      months,&mdash;the first and fourth being published in Charleston, and the
+      second and third in Boston. Being, however, but a brief pamphlet, it did
+      not satisfy the public curiosity; and in October of the same year (1822),
+      a larger volume appeared at Charleston, edited by the magistrates who
+      presided at the trials,&mdash;Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker. It
+      contains the evidence in full, and a separate narrative of the whole
+      affair, more candid and lucid than any other which I have found in the
+      newspapers or pamphlets of the day. It exhibits that rarest of all
+      qualities in a slave-community, a willingness to look facts in the face.
+      This narrative has been faithfully followed, with the aid of such
+      cross-lights as could be secured from many other quarters, in preparing
+      the present history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The editor of the first official report racked his brains to discover the
+      special causes of the revolt, and never trusted himself to allude to the
+      general one. The negroes rebelled because they were deluded by
+      Congressional eloquence; or because they were excited by a church
+      squabble; or because they had been spoilt by mistaken indulgences, such as
+      being allowed to learn to read,&mdash;"a misguided benevolence," as he
+      pronounces it. So the Baptist Convention seems to have thought it was
+      because they were not Baptists; and an Episcopal pamphleteer, because they
+      were not Episcopalians. It never seems to occur to any of these
+      spectators, that these people rebelled simply because they were slaves,
+      and wished to be free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt, there were enough special torches with which a man so skilful as
+      Denmark Vesey could kindle up these dusky powder-magazines; but, after
+      all, the permanent peril lay in the powder. So long as that existed, every
+      thing was incendiary. Any torn scrap in the street might contain a
+      Missouri-Compromise speech, or a report of the last battle in St. Domingo,
+      or one of those able letters of Boyer's which were winning the praise of
+      all, or one of John Randolph's stirring speeches in England against the
+      slave-trade. The very newspapers which reported the happy extinction of
+      the insurrection by the hanging of the last conspirator, William Garner,
+      reported also, with enthusiastic indignation, the massacre of the Greeks
+      at Constantinople and at Scio; and then the Northern editors, breaking
+      from their usual reticence, pointed out the inconsistency of Southern
+      journals in printing, side by side, denunciations of Mohammedan
+      slave-sales, and advertisements of those of Christians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course the insurrection threw the whole slavery question open to the
+      public. "We are sorry to see," said the <i>National Intelligencer</i> of
+      Aug. 31, "that a discussion of the hateful Missouri question is likely to
+      be revived, in consequence of the allusions to its supposed effect in
+      producing the late servile insurrection in South Carolina." A member of
+      the Board of Public Works of South Carolina published in the Baltimore <i>American
+      Farmer</i> an essay urging the encouragement of white laborers, and
+      hinting at the ultimate abolition of slavery "if it should ever be thought
+      desirable." More boldly still, a pamphlet appeared in Charleston, under
+      the signature of "Achates," arguing with remarkable sagacity and force
+      against the whole system of slave-labor <i>in towns</i>; and proposing
+      that all slaves in Charleston should be sold or transferred to the
+      plantations, and their places supplied by white labor. It is interesting
+      to find many of the facts and arguments of Helper's "Impending Crisis"
+      anticipated in this courageous tract, written under the pressure of a
+      crisis which had just been so narrowly evaded. The author is described in
+      the preface as "a soldier and patriot of the Revolution, whose name, did
+      we feel ourselves at liberty to use it, would stamp a peculiar weight and
+      value on his opinions." It was commonly attributed to Gen. Thomas
+      Pinckney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pamphlet of the period, also published in Charleston, recommended
+      as a practical cure for insurrection the copious administration of
+      Episcopal-Church services, and the prohibition of negroes from attending
+      Fourth-of-July celebrations. On this last point it is more consistent than
+      most pro-slavery arguments. "The celebration of the Fourth of July belongs
+      <i>exclusively</i> to the white population of the United States. The
+      American Revolution was <i>a family quarrel among equals</i>. In this the
+      negroes had no concern; their condition remained, and must remain,
+      unchanged. They have no more to do with the celebration of that day than
+      with the landing of the Pilgrims on the rock at Plymouth. It therefore
+      seems to me improper to allow these people to be present on these
+      occasions. In our speeches and orations, much, and sometimes more than is
+      politically necessary, is said about personal liberty, which negro
+      auditors know not how to apply except by running the parallel with their
+      own condition. They therefore imbibe false notions of their own personal
+      rights, and give reality in their minds to what has no real existence. The
+      peculiar state of our community must be steadily kept in view. This, I am
+      gratified to learn, will in some measure be promoted by the institution of
+      the South Carolina Association."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, more stringent laws became obviously necessary to keep
+      down the advancing intelligence of the Charleston slaves. Dangerous
+      knowledge must be excluded from without and from within. For the first
+      purpose the South Carolina Legislature passed, in December, 1822, the Act
+      for the imprisonment of Northern colored seamen, which afterwards produced
+      so much excitement. For the second object, the Grand Jury, about the same
+      time, presented as a grievance "the number of schools which are kept
+      within the city by persons of color," and proposed their prohibition. This
+      was the encouragement given to the intellectual progress of the slaves;
+      while, as a reward for betraying them, Pensil, the free colored man who
+      advised with Devany, received a present of one thousand dollars; and
+      Devany himself had what was rightly judged to be the higher gift of
+      freedom, and was established in business, with liberal means, as a
+      drayman. He lived long in Charleston, thriving greatly in his vocation,
+      and, according to the newspapers, enjoyed the privilege of being the only
+      man of property in the State whom a special statute exempted from
+      taxation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than half a century has passed since the incidents of this true story
+      closed. It has not vanished from the memories of South Carolinians, though
+      the printed pages which once told it have gradually disappeared from
+      sight. The intense avidity which at first grasped at every incident of the
+      great insurrectionary plot was succeeded by a prolonged distaste for the
+      memory of the tale; and the official reports which told what slaves had
+      once planned and dared have now come to be among the rarest of American
+      historical documents. In 1841, a friend of the writer, then visiting South
+      Carolina, heard from her hostess, for the first time, the events which are
+      recounted here. On asking to see the reports of the trials, she was
+      cautiously told that the only copy in the house, after being carefully
+      kept for years under lock and key, had been burnt at last, lest it should
+      reach the dangerous eyes of the slaves. The same thing had happened, it
+      was added, in many other families. This partially accounts for the great
+      difficulty now to be found in obtaining a single copy of either
+      publication; and this is why, to the readers of American history, Denmark
+      Vesey and Peter Poyas have commonly been but the shadows of names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the year 1831, up to the 23d of August, the Virginia newspapers
+      seem to have been absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied
+      the minds of intelligent American citizens: What Gen. Jackson should do
+      with the scolds, and what with the disreputables? should South Carolina be
+      allowed to nullify? and would the wives of cabinet ministers call on Mrs.
+      Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of the
+      Richmond <i>Enquirer</i>, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages
+      are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner. Then the
+      terror flared on increasing, until the remotest Southern States were found
+      shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection; until far-off European
+      colonies&mdash;Antigua, Martinique, Caraccas, Tortola&mdash;recognized by
+      some secret sympathy the same epidemic alarms; until the very boldest
+      words of freedom were reported as uttered in the Virginia House of
+      Delegates with unclosed doors; until an obscure young man named Garrison
+      was indicted at common law in North Carolina, and had a price set upon his
+      head by the Legislature of Georgia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the south-eastern border of Virginia, in Southampton County, there is
+      a neighborhood known as "The Cross Keys." It lies fifteen miles from
+      Jerusalem, the county-town, or "court-house," seventy miles from Norfolk,
+      and about as far from Richmond. It is some ten or fifteen miles from
+      Murfreesborough in North Carolina, and about twenty-five from the Great
+      Dismal Swamp. Up to Sunday, the 21st of August, 1831, there was nothing to
+      distinguish it from any other rural, lethargic, slipshod Virginia
+      neighborhood, with the due allotment of mansion-houses and log huts,
+      tobacco-fields and "old-fields," horses, dogs, negroes, "poor white
+      folks," so called, and other white folks, poor without being called so.
+      One of these last was Joseph Travis, who had recently married the widow of
+      one Putnam Moore, and had unfortunately wedded to himself her negroes
+      also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the woods on the plantation of Joseph Travis, upon the Sunday just
+      named, six slaves met at noon for what is called in the Northern States a
+      picnic, and in the Southern a barbecue. The bill of fare was to be simple:
+      one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting an
+      aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be the
+      final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in
+      preparation. In this plot four of the men had been already initiated&mdash;Henry,
+      Hark or Hercules, Nelson, and Sam. Two others were novices, Will and Jack
+      by name. The party had remained together from twelve to three o'clock,
+      when a seventh man joined them,&mdash;a short, stout, powerfully built
+      person, of dark mulatto complexion, and strongly marked African features,
+      but with a face full of expression and resolution. This was Nat Turner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at this time nearly thirty-one years old, having been born on the
+      2d of October, 1800. He had belonged originally to Benjamin Turner,&mdash;from
+      whom he took his last name, slaves having usually no patronymic;&mdash;had
+      then been transferred to Putnam Moore, and then to his present owner. He
+      had, by his own account, felt himself singled out from childhood for some
+      great work; and he had some peculiar marks on his person, which, joined to
+      his mental precocity, were enough to occasion, among his youthful
+      companions, a superstitious faith in his gifts and destiny. He had some
+      mechanical ingenuity also; experimentalized very early in making paper,
+      gunpowder, pottery, and in other arts, which, in later life, he was found
+      thoroughly to understand. His moral faculties appeared strong, so that
+      white witnesses admitted that he had never been known to swear an oath, to
+      drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. And, in general, so marked
+      were his early peculiarities that people said "he had too much sense to be
+      raised; and, if he was, he would never be of any use as a slave." This
+      impression of personal destiny grew with his growth: he fasted, prayed,
+      preached, read the Bible, heard voices when he walked behind his plough,
+      and communicated his revelations to the awe-struck slaves. They told him,
+      in return, that, "if they had his sense, they would not serve any master
+      in the world."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The biographies of slaves can hardly be individualized; they belong to the
+      class. We know bare facts; it is only the general experience of human
+      beings in like condition which can clothe them with life. The outlines are
+      certain, the details are inferential. Thus, for instance, we know that Nat
+      Turner's young wife was a slave; we know that she belonged to a different
+      master from himself; we know little more than this, but this is much. For
+      this is equivalent to saying, that, by day or by night, her husband had no
+      more power to protect her than the man who lies bound upon a plundered
+      vessel's deck has power to protect his wife on board the pirate schooner
+      disappearing in the horizon. She may be well treated, she may be outraged;
+      it is in the powerlessness that the agony lies. There is, indeed, one
+      thing more which we do know of this young woman: the Virginia newspapers
+      state that she was tortured under the lash, after her husband's execution,
+      to make her produce his papers: this is all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What his private experiences and special privileges or wrongs may have
+      been, it is therefore now impossible to say. Travis was declared to be
+      "more humane and fatherly to his slaves than any man in the county;" but
+      it is astonishing how often this phenomenon occurs in the contemporary
+      annals of slave insurrections. The chairman of the county court also
+      stated, in pronouncing sentence, that Nat Turner had spoken of his master
+      as "only too indulgent;" but this, for some reason, does not appear in his
+      printed Confession, which only says, "He was a kind master, and placed the
+      greatest confidence in me." It is very possible that it may have been so,
+      but the printed accounts of Nat Turner's person look suspicious: he is
+      described in Gov. Floyd's proclamation as having a scar on one of his
+      temples, also one on the back of his neck, and a large knot on one of the
+      bones of his right arm, produced by a blow; and although these were
+      explained away in Virginia newspapers as having been produced by fights
+      with his companions, yet such affrays are entirely foreign to the admitted
+      habits of the man. It must therefore remain an open question, whether the
+      scars and the knot were produced by black hands or by white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever Nat Turner's experiences of slavery might have been, it is
+      certain that his plans were not suddenly adopted, but that he had brooded
+      over them for years. To this day there are traditions among the Virginia
+      slaves of the keen devices of "Prophet Nat." If he was caught with lime
+      and lampblack in hand, conning over a half-finished county-map on the
+      barn-door, he was always "planning what to do if he were blind"; or,
+      "studying how to get to Mr. Francis's house." When he had called a meeting
+      of slaves, and some poor whites came eavesdropping, the poor whites at
+      once became the subjects for discussion: he incidentally mentioned that
+      the masters had been heard threatening to drive them away; one slave had
+      been ordered to shoot Mr. Jones's pigs, another to tear down Mr. Johnson's
+      fences. The poor whites, Johnson and Jones, ran home to see to their
+      homesteads, and were better friends than ever to Prophet Nat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He never was a Baptist preacher, though such vocation has often been
+      attributed to him. The impression arose from his having immersed himself,
+      during one of his periods of special enthusiasm, together with a poor
+      white man named Brantley. "About this time," he says in his Confession, "I
+      told these things to a white man, on whom it had a wonderful effect; and
+      he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a
+      cutaneous eruption, and the blood oozed from the pores of his skin, and
+      after praying and fasting nine days he was healed. And the Spirit appeared
+      to me again, and said, as the Saviour had been baptized, so should we be
+      also; and when the white people would not let us be baptized by the
+      church, we went down into the water together, in the sight of many who
+      reviled us, and were baptized by the Spirit. After this I rejoiced
+      greatly, and gave thanks to God."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The religious hallucinations narrated in his Confession seem to have been
+      as genuine as the average of such things, and are very well expressed. The
+      account reads quite like Jacob Behmen. He saw white spirits and black
+      spirits contending in the skies; the sun was darkened, the thunder rolled.
+      "And the Holy Ghost was with me, and said, 'Behold me as I stand in the
+      heavens!' And I looked, and saw the forms of men in different attitudes.
+      And there were lights in the sky, to which the children of darkness gave
+      other names than what they really were; for they were the lights of the
+      Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west, even as they were
+      extended on the cross on Calvary, for the redemption of sinners." He saw
+      drops of blood on the corn: this was Christ's blood, shed for man. He saw
+      on the leaves in the woods letters and numbers and figures of men,&mdash;the
+      same symbols which he had seen in the skies. On May 12, 1828, the Holy
+      Spirit appeared to him, and proclaimed that the yoke of Jesus must fall on
+      him, and he must fight against the serpent when the sign appeared. Then
+      came an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831: this was the sign; then he
+      must arise and prepare himself, and slay his enemies with their own
+      weapons; then also the seal was removed from his lips, and then he
+      confided his plans to four associates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came, therefore, to the barbecue on the appointed Sunday, and
+      found not these four only, but two others, his first question to the
+      intruders was, how they came thither. To this Will answered manfully, that
+      his life was worth no more than the others, and "his liberty was as dear
+      to him." This admitted him to confidence; and as Jack was known to be
+      entirely under Hark's influence, the strangers were no bar to their
+      discussion. Eleven hours they remained there, in anxious consultation: one
+      can imagine those dusky faces, beneath the funereal woods, and amid the
+      flickering of pine-knot torches, preparing that stern revenge whose
+      shuddering echoes should ring through the land so long. Two things were at
+      last decided: to begin their work that night; and to begin it with a
+      massacre so swift and irresistible as to create in a few days more terror
+      than many battles, and so spare the need of future bloodshed. "It was
+      agreed that we should commence at home on that night, and, until we had
+      armed and equipped ourselves and gained sufficient force, neither age nor
+      sex was to be spared: which was invariably adhered to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Brown invaded Virginia with nineteen men, and with the avowed
+      resolution to take no life but in self-defence. Nat Turner attacked
+      Virginia from within, with six men, and with the determination to spare no
+      life until his power was established. John Brown intended to pass rapidly
+      through Virginia, and then retreat to the mountains. Nat Turner intended
+      to "conquer Southampton County as the white men did in the Revolution, and
+      then retreat, if necessary, to the Dismal Swamp." Each plan was
+      deliberately matured; each was in its way practicable; but each was
+      defeated by a single false step, as will soon appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must pass over the details of horror, as they occurred during the next
+      twenty-four hours. Swift and stealthy as Indians, the black men passed
+      from house to house,&mdash;not pausing, not hesitating, as their terrible
+      work went on. In one thing they were humaner than Indians, or than white
+      men fighting against Indians: there was no gratuitous outrage beyond the
+      death-blow itself, no insult, no mutilation; but in every house they
+      entered, that blow fell on man, woman, and child,&mdash;nothing that had a
+      white skin was spared. From every house they took arms and ammunition, and
+      from a few money. On every plantation they found recruits: those dusky
+      slaves, so obsequious to their master the day before, so prompt to sing
+      and dance before his Northern visitors, were all swift to transform
+      themselves into fiends of retribution now; show them sword or musket, and
+      they grasped it, though it were an heirloom from Washington himself. The
+      troop increased from house to house,&mdash;first to fifteen, then to
+      forty, then to sixty. Some were armed with muskets, some with axes, some
+      with scythes, some came on their masters' horses. As the numbers
+      increased, they could be divided, and the awful work was carried on more
+      rapidly still. The plan then was for an advanced guard of horsemen to
+      approach each house at a gallop, and surround it till the others came up.
+      Meanwhile, what agonies of terror must have taken place within, shared
+      alike by innocent and by guilty! what memories of wrongs inflicted on
+      those dusky creatures, by some,&mdash;what innocent participation, by
+      others, in the penance! The outbreak lasted for but forty-eight hours;
+      but, during that period, fifty-five whites were slain, without the loss of
+      a single slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One fear was needless, which to many a husband and father must have
+      intensified the last struggle. These negroes had been systematically
+      brutalized from childhood; they had been allowed no legalized or permanent
+      marriage; they had beheld around them an habitual licentiousness, such as
+      can scarcely exist except under slavery; some of them had seen their wives
+      and sisters habitually polluted by the husbands and the brothers of these
+      fair white women who were now absolutely in their power. Yet I have looked
+      through the Virginia newspapers of that time in vain for one charge of an
+      indecent outrage on a woman against these triumphant and terrible slaves.
+      Wherever they went, there went death, and that was all. It is reported by
+      some of the contemporary newspapers, that a portion of this abstinence was
+      the result of deliberate consultation among the insurrectionists; that
+      some of them were resolved on taking the white women for wives, but were
+      overruled by Nat Turner. If so, he is the only American slave-leader of
+      whom we know certainly that he rose above the ordinary level of slave
+      vengeance; and Mrs. Stowe's picture of Dred's purposes is then precisely
+      typical of his: "Whom the Lord saith unto us, 'Smite,' them will we smite.
+      We will not torment them with the scourge and fire, nor defile their women
+      as they have done with ours. But we will slay them utterly, and consume
+      them from off the face of the earth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the number of adherents had increased to fifty or sixty, Nat Turner
+      judged it time to strike at the county-seat, Jerusalem. Thither a few
+      white fugitives had already fled, and couriers might thence be despatched
+      for aid to Richmond and Petersburg, unless promptly intercepted. Besides,
+      he could there find arms, ammunition, and money; though they had already
+      obtained, it is dubiously reported, from eight hundred to one thousand
+      dollars. On the way it was necessary to pass the plantation of Mr. Parker,
+      three miles from Jerusalem. Some of the men wished to stop here and enlist
+      some of their friends. Nat Turner objected, as the delay might prove
+      dangerous; he yielded at last, and it proved fatal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained at the gate with six or eight men; thirty or forty went to the
+      house, half a mile distant. They remained too long, and he went alone to
+      hasten them. During his absence a party of eighteen white men came up
+      suddenly, dispersing the small guard left at the gate; and when the main
+      body of slaves emerged from the house, they encountered, for the first
+      time, their armed masters. The blacks halted; the whites advanced
+      cautiously within a hundred yards, and fired a volley; on its being
+      returned, they broke into disorder, and hurriedly retreated, leaving some
+      wounded on the ground. The retreating whites were pursued, and were saved
+      only by falling in with another band of fresh men from Jerusalem, with
+      whose aid they turned upon the slaves, who in their turn fell into
+      confusion. Turner, Hark, and about twenty men on horseback retreated in
+      some order; the rest were scattered. The leader still planned to reach
+      Jerusalem by a private way, thus evading pursuit; but at last decided to
+      stop for the night, in the hope of enlisting additional recruits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the night the number increased again to forty, and they encamped on
+      Major Ridley's plantation. An alarm took place during the darkness,&mdash;whether
+      real or imaginary, does not appear,&mdash;and the men became scattered
+      again. Proceeding to make fresh enlistments with the daylight, they were
+      resisted at Dr. Blunt's house, where his slaves, under his orders, fired
+      upon them; and this, with a later attack from a party of white men near
+      Capt. Harris's, so broke up the whole force that they never re-united. The
+      few who remained together agreed to separate for a few hours to see if any
+      thing could be done to revive the insurrection, and meet again that
+      evening at their original rendezvous. But they never reached it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gloomily came Nat Turner at nightfall into those gloomy woods where
+      forty-eight hours before he had revealed the details of his terrible plot
+      to his companions. At the outset all his plans had succeeded; every thing
+      was as he predicted: the slaves had come readily at his call; the masters
+      had proved perfectly defenceless. Had he not been persuaded to pause at
+      Parker's plantation, he would have been master before now of the arms and
+      ammunition at Jerusalem; and with these to aid, and the Dismal Swamp for a
+      refuge, he might have sustained himself indefinitely against his pursuers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the blood was shed, the risk was incurred, his friends were killed or
+      captured, and all for what? Lasting memories of terror, to be sure, for
+      his oppressors; but, on the other hand, hopeless failure for the
+      insurrection, and certain death for him. What a watch he must have kept
+      that night! To that excited imagination, which had always seen spirits in
+      the sky and blood-drops on the corn and hieroglyphic marks on the dry
+      leaves, how full the lonely forest must have been of signs and solemn
+      warnings! Alone with the fox's bark, the rabbit's rustle, and the
+      screech-owl's scream, the self-appointed prophet brooded over his despair.
+      Once creeping to the edge of the wood, he saw men stealthily approach on
+      horseback. He fancied them some of his companions; but before he dared to
+      whisper their ominous names, "Hark" or "Dred,"&mdash;for the latter was
+      the name, since famous, of one of his more recent recruits,&mdash;he saw
+      them to be white men, and shrank back stealthily beneath his covert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There he waited two days and two nights,&mdash;long enough to satisfy
+      himself that no one would rejoin him, and that the insurrection had
+      hopelessly failed. The determined, desperate spirits who had shared his
+      plans were scattered forever, and longer delay would be destruction for
+      him also. He found a spot which he judged safe, dug a hole under a pile of
+      fence-rails in a field, and lay there for six weeks, only leaving it for a
+      few moments at midnight to obtain water from a neighboring spring. Food he
+      had previously provided, without discovery, from a house near by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile an unbounded variety of rumors went flying through the State.
+      The express which first reached the governor announced that the militia
+      were retreating before the slaves. An express to Petersburg further fixed
+      the number of militia at three hundred, and of blacks at eight hundred,
+      and invented a convenient shower of rain to explain the dampened ardor of
+      the whites. Later reports described the slaves as making three desperate
+      attempts to cross the bridge over the Nottoway between Cross Keys and
+      Jerusalem, and stated that the leader had been shot in the attempt. Other
+      accounts put the number of negroes at three hundred, all well mounted and
+      armed, with two or three white men as leaders. Their intention was
+      supposed to be to reach the Dismal Swamp, and they must be hemmed in from
+      that side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, the most formidable weapon in the hands of slave insurgents is
+      always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which
+      follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted.
+      Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even
+      after it had commenced operations; but it is the fatal weakness of a rural
+      slaveholding community, that it can never furnish men promptly for such a
+      purpose. "My first intention was," says one of the most intelligent
+      newspaper narrators of the affair, "to have attacked them with thirty or
+      forty men; but those who had families here were strongly opposed to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual, each man was pinioned to his own hearth-stone. As usual, aid had
+      to be summoned from a distance; and, as usual, the United-States troops
+      were the chief reliance. Col. House, commanding at Fort Monroe, sent at
+      once three companies of artillery under Lieut.-Col. Worth, and embarked
+      them on board the steamer "Hampton" for Suffolk. These were joined by
+      detachments from the United States ships "Warren" and "Natchez," the whole
+      amounting to nearly eight hundred men. Two volunteer companies went from
+      Richmond, four from Petersburg, one from Norfolk, one from Portsmouth, and
+      several from North Carolina. The militia of Norfolk, Nansemond, and
+      Princess Anne Counties, and the United States troops at Old Point Comfort,
+      were ordered to scour the Dismal Swamp, where it was believed that two or
+      three thousand fugitives were preparing to join the insurgents. It was
+      even proposed to send two companies from New York and one from New London
+      to the same point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When these various forces reached Southampton County, they found all labor
+      paralyzed and whole plantations abandoned. A letter from Jerusalem, dated
+      Aug. 24, says, "The oldest inhabitant of our county has never experienced
+      such a distressing time as we have had since Sunday night last.... Every
+      house, room, and corner in this place is full of women and children,
+      driven from home, who had to take the woods until they could get to this
+      place." "For many miles around their track," says another "the county is
+      deserted by women and children." Still another writes, "Jerusalem is full
+      of women, most of them from the other side of the river,&mdash;about two
+      hundred at Vix's." Then follow descriptions of the sufferings of these
+      persons, many of whom had lain night after night in the woods. But the
+      immediate danger was at an end, the short-lived insurrection was finished,
+      and now the work of vengeance was to begin. In the frank phrase of a North
+      Carolina correspondent, "The massacre of the whites was over, and the
+      white people had commenced the destruction of the negroes, which was
+      continued after our men got there, from time to time, as they could fall
+      in with them, all day yesterday." A postscript adds, that "passengers by
+      the Fayetteville stage say, that, by the latest accounts, one hundred and
+      twenty negroes had been killed,"&mdash;this being little more than one
+      day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These murders were defended as Nat Turner defended his: a fearful blow
+      must be struck. In shuddering at the horrors of the insurrection, we have
+      forgotten the far greater horrors of its suppression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newspapers of the day contain many indignant protests against the
+      cruelties which took place. "It is with pain," says a correspondent of the
+      <i>National Intelligencer</i>, Sept. 7, 1831, "that we speak of another
+      feature of the Southampton Rebellion; for we have been most unwilling to
+      have our sympathies for the sufferers diminished or affected by their
+      misconduct. We allude to the slaughter of many blacks without trial and
+      under circumstances of great barbarity.... We met with an individual of
+      intelligence who told us that he himself had killed between ten and
+      fifteen.... We [the Richmond troop] witnessed with surprise the sanguinary
+      temper of the population, who evinced a strong disposition to inflict
+      immediate death on every prisoner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a remarkable official document from Gen. Eppes, the officer in
+      command, to be found in the Richmond <i>Enquirer</i> for Sept. 6, 1831. It
+      is an indignant denunciation of precisely these outrages; and though he
+      refuses to give details, he supplies their place by epithets: "revolting,"&mdash;"inhuman
+      and not to be justified,"&mdash;"acts of barbarity and cruelty,"&mdash;"acts
+      of atrocity,"&mdash;"this course of proceeding dignifies the rebel and the
+      assassin with the sanctity of martyrdom." And he ends by threatening
+      martial law upon all future transgressors. Such general orders are not
+      issued except in rather extreme cases. And in the parallel columns of the
+      newspaper the innocent editor prints equally indignant descriptions of
+      Russian atrocities in Lithuania, where the Poles were engaged in active
+      insurrection, amid profuse sympathy from Virginia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is, it was a Reign of Terror. Volunteer patrols rode in all
+      directions, visiting plantations. "It was with the greatest difficulty,"
+      said Gen. Brodnax before the House of Delegates, "and at the hazard of
+      personal popularity and esteem, that the coolest and most judicious among
+      us could exert an influence sufficient to restrain an indiscriminate
+      slaughter of the blacks who were suspected." A letter from the Rev. G. W.
+      Powell declares, "There are thousands of troops searching in every
+      direction, and many negroes are killed every day: the exact number will
+      never be ascertained." Petition after petition was subsequently presented
+      to the Legislature, asking compensation for slaves thus assassinated
+      without trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men were tortured to death, burned, maimed, and subjected to nameless
+      atrocities. The overseers were called on to point out any slaves whom they
+      distrusted, and if any tried to escape they were shot down. Nay, worse
+      than this. "A party of horsemen started from Richmond with the intention
+      of killing every colored person they saw in Southampton County. They
+      stopped opposite the cabin of a free colored man, who was hoeing in his
+      little field. They called out, 'Is this Southampton County?' He replied,
+      'Yes, sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree.' They shot him
+      dead, and rode on." This is from the narrative of the editor of the
+      Richmond <i>Whig</i>, who was then on duty in the militia, and protested
+      manfully against these outrages. "Some of these scenes," he adds, "are
+      hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the masters' stories. If even these conceded so much, it would
+      be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report. I am indebted to my
+      honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this
+      terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman, once
+      well known in New York, Charity Bowery. "At the time of the old Prophet
+      Nat," she said, "the colored folks was afraid to pray loud; for the whites
+      threatened to punish 'em dreadfully, if the least noise was heard. The
+      patrols was low drunken whites; and in Nat's time, if they heard any of
+      the colored folks praying, or singing a hymn, they would fall upon 'em and
+      abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em, afore master or missis could get to
+      'em. The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time. The whites always
+      suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place called Duplon. They
+      killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot; then they
+      pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about the insurrection.
+      He told 'em he didn't know any thing about any insurrection. They shot
+      several balls through him, quartered him, and put his head on a pole at
+      the fork of the road leading to the court." (This is no exaggeration, if
+      the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.) "It was there but a
+      short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat's time, the patrols
+      would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try to make 'em lie
+      against one another, and often killed them before anybody could interfere.
+      Mr. James Cole, high sheriff, said, if any of the patrols came on his
+      plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his people. One day he
+      heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had killed. Mr. Cole said,
+      'If you don't pack up, as quick as God Almighty will let you, and get out
+      of this town, and never be seen in it again, I'll put you where dogs won't
+      bark at you.' He went off, and wasn't seen in them parts again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These outrages were not limited to the colored population; but other
+      instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times. An
+      Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg. An
+      alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching
+      towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge. After the
+      panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that "the blacks, as
+      men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated." This
+      led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town. He took passage
+      in the stage, but the stage was intercepted. He then fled to a friend's
+      house; the house was broken open, and he was dragged forth. The civil
+      authorities, being applied to, refused to interfere. The mob stripped him,
+      gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked, under a
+      hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage to New
+      York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the capture or escape of most of that small band who met with Nat
+      Turner in the woods upon the Travis plantation, little can now be known.
+      All appear among the list of convicted, except Henry and Will. Gen. Moore,
+      who occasionally figures as second in command, in the newspaper narratives
+      of that day, was probably the Hark or Hercules before mentioned; as no
+      other of the confederates had belonged to Mrs. Travis, or would have been
+      likely to bear her previous name of Moore. As usual, the newspapers state
+      that most, if not all the slaves, were "the property of kind and indulgent
+      masters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subordinate insurgents sought safety as they could. A free colored
+      man, named Will Artist, shot himself in the woods, where his hat was found
+      on a stake and his pistol lying by him; another was found drowned; others
+      were traced to the Dismal Swamp; others returned to their homes, and tried
+      to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their masters that
+      they had been forced, against their will, to join,&mdash;the usual defence
+      in such cases. The number shot down at random must, by all accounts, have
+      amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human registration now. The
+      number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is officially stated at
+      fifty-five; of these, seventeen were convicted and hanged, twelve
+      convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free colored men
+      sent on for further trial and finally acquitted. "Not one of those known
+      to be concerned escaped." Of those executed, one only was a woman, "Lucy,
+      slave of John T. Barrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one touching story, in connection with these terrible
+      retaliations, which rests on good authority, that of the Rev. M. B. Cox, a
+      Liberian missionary, then in Virginia. In the hunt which followed the
+      massacre, a slaveholder went into the woods, accompanied by a faithful
+      slave, who had been the means of saving his life during the insurrection.
+      When they had reached a retired place in the forest, the man handed his
+      gun to his master, informing him that he could not live a slave any
+      longer, and requesting him either to free him or shoot him on the spot.
+      The master took the gun, in some trepidation, levelled it at the faithful
+      negro, and shot him through the heart. It is probable that this
+      slaveholder was a Dr. Blunt,&mdash;his being the only plantation where the
+      slaves were reported as thus defending their masters. "If this be true,"
+      said the Richmond <i>Enquirer</i>, when it first narrated this instance of
+      loyalty, "great will be the desert of these noble-minded Africans."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might
+      be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence
+      of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made to
+      represent it as a trifling affair. A distinguished citizen of Virginia
+      wrote, three months later, to the Hon. W. B. Seabrook of South Carolina,
+      "From all that has come to my knowledge during and since that affair, I am
+      convinced most fully that every black preacher in the country east of the
+      Blue Ridge was in the secret." "There is much reason to believe," says the
+      Governor's Message on Dec. 6, "that the spirit of insurrection was not
+      confined to Southampton. Many convictions have taken place elsewhere, and
+      some few in distant counties." The withdrawal of the United States troops,
+      after some ten days' service, was a signal for fresh excitement; and an
+      address, numerously signed, was presented to the United States Government,
+      imploring their continued stay. More than three weeks after the first
+      alarm, the governor sent a supply of arms into Prince William, Fauquier,
+      and Orange Counties. "From examinations which have taken place in other
+      counties," says one of the best newspaper historians of the affair (in the
+      Richmond <i>Enquirer</i> of Sept. 6), "I fear that the scheme embraced a
+      wider sphere than I at first supposed." Nat Turner himself, intentionally
+      or otherwise, increased the confusion by denying all knowledge of the
+      North Carolina outbreak, and declaring that he had communicated his plans
+      to his four confederates within six months; while, on the other hand, a
+      slave-girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, belonging to Solomon Parker,
+      testified that she had heard the subject discussed for eighteen months,
+      and that at a meeting held during the previous May some eight or ten had
+      joined the plot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing to discover, by laborious comparison of newspaper files,
+      how vast was the immediate range of these insurrectionary alarms. Every
+      Southern State seems to have borne its harvest of terror. On the eastern
+      shore of Maryland, great alarm was at once manifested, especially in the
+      neighborhood of Easton and Snowhill; and the houses of colored men were
+      searched for arms even in Baltimore. In Delaware, there were similar
+      rumors through Sussex and Dover Counties; there were arrests and
+      executions; and in Somerset County great public meetings were held, to
+      demand additional safeguards. On election-day in Seaford, Del., some young
+      men, going out to hunt rabbits, discharged their guns in sport; the men
+      being absent, all the women in the vicinity took to flight; the alarm
+      spread like the "Ipswich Fright"; soon Seaford was thronged with armed
+      men; and when the boys returned from hunting, they found cannon drawn out
+      to receive them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In North Carolina, Raleigh and Fayetteville were put under military
+      defence, and women and children concealed themselves in the swamps for
+      many days. The rebel organization was supposed to include two thousand.
+      Forty-six slaves were imprisoned in Union County, twenty-five in Sampson
+      County, and twenty-three at least in Duplin County, some of whom were
+      executed. The panic also extended into Wayne, New Hanover, and Lenoir
+      Counties. Four men were shot without trial in Wilmington,&mdash;Nimrod,
+      Abraham, Prince, and "Dan the Drayman," the latter a man of seventy,&mdash;and
+      their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. Nearly two
+      months afterwards the trials were still continuing; and at a still later
+      day, the governor in his proclamation recommended the formation of
+      companies of volunteers in every county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In South Carolina, Gen. Hayne issued a proclamation "to prove the
+      groundlessness of the existing alarms,"&mdash;thus implying that serious
+      alarms existed. In Macon, Ga., the whole population were roused from their
+      beds at midnight by a report of a large force of armed negroes five miles
+      off. In an hour, every woman and child was deposited in the largest
+      building of the town, and a military force hastily collected in front. The
+      editor of the Macon <i>Messenger</i> excused the poor condition of his
+      paper, a few days afterwards, by the absorption of his workmen in patrol
+      duties and describes "dismay and terror" as the condition of the people of
+      "all ages and sexes." In Jones, Twiggs, and Monroe Counties, the same
+      alarms were reported; and in one place "several slaves were tied to a
+      tree, while a militia captain hacked at them with his sword."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Alabama, at Columbus and Fort Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint
+      conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still
+      greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that part
+      of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being
+      apparently founded on one stray copy of the Boston <i>Liberator</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Tennessee, the Shelbyville <i>Freeman</i> announced that an
+      insurrectionary plot had just been discovered, barely in time for its
+      defeat, through the treachery of a female slave. In Louisville, Ky., a
+      similar organization was discovered or imagined, and arrests were made in
+      consequence. "The papers, from motives of policy, do not notice the
+      disturbance," wrote one correspondent to the Portland <i>Courier</i>.
+      "Pity us!" he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the greatest bubble burst in Louisiana. Capt. Alexander, an English
+      tourist, arriving in New Orleans at the beginning of September, found the
+      whole city in tumult. Handbills had been issued, appealing to the slaves
+      to rise against their masters, saying that all men were born equal,
+      declaring that Hannibal was a black man, and that they also might have
+      great leaders among them. Twelve hundred stand of weapons were said to
+      have been found in a black man's house; five hundred citizens were under
+      arms, and four companies of regulars were ordered to the city, whose
+      barracks Alexander himself visited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If such was the alarm in New Orleans, the story, of course, lost nothing
+      by transmission to other slave States. A rumor reached Frankfort, Ky.,
+      that the slaves already had possession of the coast, both above and below
+      New Orleans. But the most remarkable circumstance is, that all this seems
+      to have been a mere revival of an old terror once before excited and
+      exploded. The following paragraph had appeared in the Jacksonville, Ga.,
+      <i>Observer</i>, during the spring previous:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "FEARFUL DISCOVERY.&mdash;We were favored, by yesterday's mail, with a
+    letter from New Orleans, of May 1, in which we find that an
+    important discovery had been made a few days previous in that
+    city. The following is an extract: 'Four days ago, as some
+    planters were digging under ground, they found a square room
+    containing eleven thousand stand of arms and fifteen thousand
+    cartridges, each of the cartridges containing a bullet.' It is
+    said the negroes intended to rise as soon as the sickly season
+    began, and obtain possession of the city by massacring the white
+    population. The same letter states that the mayor had prohibited
+    the opening of Sunday schools for the instruction of blacks,
+    under a penalty of five hundred dollars for the first offence,
+    and, for the second, death."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Such were the terrors that came back from nine other slave States, as the
+      echo of the voice of Nat Turner. And when it is also known that the
+      subject was at once taken up by the legislatures of other States, where
+      there was no public panic, as in Missouri and Tennessee; and when,
+      finally, it is added that reports of insurrection had been arriving all
+      that year from Rio Janeiro, Martinique, St. Jago, Antigua, Caraccas, and
+      Tortola,&mdash;it is easy to see with what prolonged distress the
+      accumulated terror must have weighed down upon Virginia during the two
+      months that Nat Turner lay hid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True, there were a thousand men in arms in Southampton County, to inspire
+      security. But the blow had been struck by only seven men before; and
+      unless there were an armed guard in every house, who could tell but any
+      house might at any moment be the scene of new horrors? They might kill or
+      imprison negroes by day, but could they resist their avengers by night?
+      "The half cannot be told," wrote a lady from another part of Virginia, at
+      this time, "of the distresses of the people. In Southampton County, the
+      scene of the insurrection, the distress beggars description. A gentleman
+      who has been there says that even here, where there has been great alarm,
+      we have no idea of the situation of those in that county.... I do not
+      hesitate to believe that many negroes around us would join in a massacre
+      as horrible as that which has taken place, if an opportunity should
+      offer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the cause of all this terror was made the object of desperate
+      search. On Sept. 17 the governor offered a reward of five hundred dollars
+      for his capture; and there were other rewards, swelling the amount to
+      eleven hundred dollars,&mdash;but in vain. No one could track or trap him.
+      On Sept. 30 a minute account of his capture appeared in the newspapers,
+      but it was wholly false. On Oct. 7 there was another, and on Oct. 18
+      another; yet all without foundation. Worn out by confinement in his little
+      cave, Nat Turner grew more adventurous, and began to move about stealthily
+      by night, afraid to speak to any human being, but hoping to obtain some
+      information that might aid his escape. Returning regularly to his retreat
+      before daybreak, he might possibly have continued this mode of life until
+      pursuit had ceased, had not a dog succeeded where men had failed. The
+      creature accidentally smelt out the provisions hid in the cave, and
+      finally led thither his masters, two negroes, one of whom was named
+      Nelson. On discovering the formidable fugitive, they fled precipitately,
+      when he hastened to retreat in an opposite direction. This was on Oct. 15;
+      and from this moment the neighborhood was all alive with excitement, and
+      five or six hundred men undertook the pursuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It shows a more than Indian adroitness in Nat Turner to have escaped
+      capture any longer. The cave, the arms, the provisions, were found; and,
+      lying among them, the notched stick of this miserable Robinson Crusoe,
+      marked with five weary weeks and six days. But the man was gone. For ten
+      days more he concealed himself among the wheat-stacks on Mr. Francis's
+      plantation, and during this time was reduced almost to despair. Once he
+      decided to surrender himself, and walked by night within two miles of
+      Jerusalem before his purpose failed him. Three times he tried to get out
+      of that neighborhood, but in vain: travelling by day was of course out of
+      the question, and by night he found it impossible to elude the patrol.
+      Again and again, therefore, he returned to his hiding-place; and, during
+      his whole two months' liberty, never went five miles from the Cross Keys.
+      On the 25th of October, he was at last discovered by Mr. Francis as he was
+      emerging from a stack. A load of buckshot was instantly discharged at him,
+      twelve of which passed through his hat as he fell to the ground. He
+      escaped even then; but his pursuers were rapidly concentrating upon him,
+      and it is perfectly astonishing that he could have eluded them for five
+      days more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sunday, Oct. 30, a man named Benjamin Phipps, going out for the first
+      time on patrol duty, was passing at noon a clearing in the woods where a
+      number of pine-trees had long since been felled. There was a motion among
+      their boughs; he stopped to watch it; and through a gap in the branches he
+      saw, emerging from a hole in the earth beneath, the face of Nat Turner.
+      Aiming his gun instantly, Phipps called on him to surrender. The fugitive,
+      exhausted with watching and privation, entangled in the branches, armed
+      only with a sword, had nothing to do but to yield,&mdash;sagaciously
+      reflecting, also, as he afterwards explained, that the woods were full of
+      armed men, and that he had better trust fortune for some later chance of
+      escape, instead of desperately attempting it then. He was correct in the
+      first impression, since there were fifty armed scouts within a circuit of
+      two miles. His insurrection ended where it began; for this spot was only a
+      mile and a half from the house of Joseph Travis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom, emaciated, ragged, "a mere scarecrow," still wearing the hat
+      perforated with buckshot, with his arms bound to his sides, he was driven
+      before the levelled gun to the nearest house, that of a Mr. Edwards. He
+      was confined there that night; but the news had spread so rapidly that
+      within an hour after his arrival a hundred persons had collected, and the
+      excitement became so intense "that it was with difficulty he could be
+      conveyed alive to Jerusalem." The enthusiasm spread instantly through
+      Virginia; M. Trezvant, the Jerusalem postmaster, sent notices of it far
+      and near; and Gov. Floyd himself wrote a letter to the Richmond <i>Enquirer</i>
+      to give official announcement of the momentous capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Nat Turner was asked by Mr. T. R. Gray, the counsel assigned him,
+      whether, although defeated, he still believed in his own Providential
+      mission, he answered, as simply as one who came thirty years after him,
+      "Was not Christ crucified?" In the same spirit, when arraigned before the
+      court, "he answered, 'Not guilty,' saying to his counsel that he did not
+      feel so." But apparently no argument was made in his favor by his counsel,
+      nor were any witnesses called,&mdash;he being convicted on the testimony
+      of Levi Waller, and upon his own confession, which was put in by Mr. Gray,
+      and acknowledged by the prisoner before the six justices composing the
+      court, as being "full, free, and voluntary." He was therefore placed in
+      the paradoxical position of conviction by his own confession, under a plea
+      of "Not guilty." The arrest took place on the 30th of October, 1831, the
+      confession on the 1st of November, the trial and conviction on the 5th,
+      and the execution on the following Friday, the 11th of November, precisely
+      at noon. He met his death with perfect composure, declined addressing the
+      multitude assembled, and told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was
+      ready. Another account says that he "betrayed no emotion, and even hurried
+      the executioner in the performance of his duty." "Not a limb nor a muscle
+      was observed to move. His body, after his death, was given over to the
+      surgeons for dissection."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The confession of the captive was published under authority of Mr. Gray,
+      in a pamphlet, at Baltimore. Fifty thousand copies of it are said to have
+      been printed; and it was "embellished with an accurate likeness of the
+      brigand, taken by Mr. John Crawley, portrait-painter, and lithographed by
+      Endicott &amp; Swett, at Baltimore." The newly established <i>Liberator</i>
+      said of it, at the time, that it would "only serve to rouse up other
+      leaders, and hasten other insurrections," and advised grand juries to
+      indict Mr. Gray. I have never seen a copy of the original pamphlet; it is
+      not easily to be found in any of our public libraries; and I have heard of
+      but one as still existing, although the Confession itself has been
+      repeatedly reprinted. Another small pamphlet, containing the main features
+      of the outbreak, was published at New York during the same year, and this
+      is in my possession. But the greater part of the facts which I have given
+      were gleaned from the contemporary newspapers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who now shall go back thirty years, and read the heart of this
+      extraordinary man, who, by the admission of his captors, "never was known
+      to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits"; who, on the same authority,
+      "for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension was surpassed by
+      few men," "with a mind capable of attaining any thing"; who knew no book
+      but his Bible, and that by heart; who devoted himself soul and body to the
+      cause of his race, without a trace of personal hope or fear; who laid his
+      plans so shrewdly that they came at last with less warning than any
+      earthquake on the doomed community around; and who, when that time
+      arrived, took the life of man, woman, and child, without a throb of
+      compunction, a word of exultation, or an act of superfluous outrage? Mrs.
+      Stowe's "Dred" seems dim and melodramatic beside the actual Nat Turner,
+      and De Quincey's "Avenger" is his only parallel in imaginative literature.
+      Mr. Gray, his counsel, rises into a sort of bewildered enthusiasm with the
+      prisoner before him. "I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his
+      narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned-hole of
+      the prison. The calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late
+      deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited
+      by enthusiasm, still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence
+      about him, clothed with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise
+      his manacled hands to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes
+      of man,&mdash;I looked on him, and the blood curdled in my veins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, the more remarkable the personal character of Nat Turner, the greater
+      the amazement felt that he should not have appreciated the extreme
+      felicity of his position as a slave. In all insurrections, the standing
+      wonder seems to be that the slaves most trusted and best used should be
+      most deeply involved. So in this case, as usual, men resorted to the most
+      astonishing theories of the origin of the affair. One attributed it to
+      Free-Masonry, and another to free whiskey,&mdash;liberty appearing
+      dangerous, even in these forms. The poor whites charged it upon the free
+      colored people, and urged their expulsion; forgetting that in North
+      Carolina the plot was betrayed by one of this class, and that in Virginia
+      there were but two engaged, both of whom had slave wives. The slaveholding
+      clergymen traced it to want of knowledge of the Bible, forgetting that Nat
+      Turner knew scarcely any thing else. On the other hand, "a distinguished
+      citizen of Virginia" combined in one sweeping denunciation "Northern
+      incendiaries, tracts, Sunday schools, religion, reading, and writing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whether the theories of its origin were wise or foolish, the
+      insurrection made its mark; and the famous band of Virginia
+      emancipationists, who all that winter made the House of Delegates ring
+      with unavailing eloquence,&mdash;till the rise of slave-exportation to new
+      cotton regions stopped their voices,&mdash;were but the unconscious
+      mouthpieces of Nat Turner. In January, 1832, in reply to a member who had
+      called the outbreak a "petty affair," the eloquent James McDowell thus
+      described the impression it left behind:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "Now, sir, I ask you, I ask gentlemen in conscience to say, was
+    that a 'petty affair' which startled the feelings of your whole
+    population; which threw a portion of it into alarm, a portion of
+    it into panic; which wrung out from an affrighted people the
+    thrilling cry, day after day, conveyed to your executive, '<i>We
+    are in peril of our lives; send us an army for defence</i>'? Was
+    that a 'petty affair' which drove families from their
+    homes,&mdash;which assembled women and children in crowds, without
+    shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition of
+    weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and
+    terror could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet
+    death from famine, death from climate, death from hardships,
+    preferring any thing rather than the horrors of meeting it from a
+    domestic assassin? Was that a 'petty affair' which erected a
+    peaceful and confiding portion of the State into a military camp;
+    which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers
+    had offended; which barred every door, penetrated every bosom
+    with fear or suspicion; which so banished every sense of security
+    from every man's dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break
+    upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be
+    driven to the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and
+    the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle? Was it the
+    fear of Nat Turner, and his deluded, drunken handful of
+    followers, which produced such effects? Was it this that induced
+    distant counties, where the very name of Southampton was strange,
+    to arm and equip for a struggle? No, sir: it was the suspicion
+    eternally attached to the slave himself,&mdash;the suspicion that a
+    Nat Turner might be in every family; that the same bloody deed
+    might be acted over at any time and in any place; that the
+    materials for it were spread through the land, and were always
+    ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this
+    withering apprehension,&mdash;nothing but the paralyzing and deadening
+    weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every
+    man who has helpless dependants to protect,&mdash;nothing but this
+    could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could
+    have made any portion of this powerful Commonwealth, for a single
+    instant, to have quailed and trembled."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While these things were going on, the enthusiasm for the Polish Revolution
+      was rising to its height. The nation was ringing with a peal of joy, on
+      hearing that at Frankfort the Poles had killed fourteen thousand Russians.
+      The <i>Southern Religious Telegraph</i> was publishing an impassioned
+      address to Kosciuszko; standards were being consecrated for Poland in the
+      larger cities; heroes like Skrzynecki, Czartoryski, Rozyski, Raminski,
+      were choking the trump of Fame with their complicated patronymics. These
+      are all forgotten now; and this poor negro, who did not even possess a
+      name, beyond one abrupt monosyllable,&mdash;for even the name of Turner
+      was the master's property,&mdash;still lives, a memory of terror, and a
+      symbol of wild retribution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_APPE" id="link2H_APPE"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      1. Dallas, R. C. "The History of the Maroons, from their origin to the
+      establishment of their chief tribe at Sierra Leone: including the
+      expedition to Cuba, for the purpose of procuring Spanish chasseurs; and
+      the state of the Island of Jamaica for the last ten years, with a succinct
+      history of the island previous to that period." In two volumes. London,
+      1803. [8vo.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Edwards, Bryan. "The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British
+      Colonies in the West Indies. To which is added a general description of
+      the Bahama Islands, by Daniel M'Kinnen, Esq." In four volumes.
+      Philadelphia, 1806. [8vo.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. Edwards, Bryan. "Proceedings of the Governor and Associates of Jamaica
+      in regard to the Maroon Negroes, with an account of the Maroons." London,
+      1796. 8vo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. Edwards, Bryan. "Historical Survey of St. Domingo, with an account of
+      the Maroon Negroes, a history of the war in the West Indies, 1793-94"
+      [etc.]. London, 1801. 4to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, ii. 376. [Review of Dallas and Edwards, by
+      Henry Lord Brougham.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also Annual Register, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [There appeared in <i>Once a Week</i> (1865) a paper entitled "The Maroons
+      of Jamaica," and reprinted in <i>Every Saturday</i> (i. 50, Jan. 31,
+      1866), in which Gov. Eyre is quoted as having said, in the London <i>Times</i>,
+      "To the fidelity and loyalty of the Maroons it is due that the negroes did
+      not commit greater devastation" in the recent insurrection; thus curiously
+      repeating the encomium given by Lord Balcarres seventy years before.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      THE MAROONS OF SURINAM
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      1. "Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the revolted negroes of
+      Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America, from the year 1772
+      to 1777 ... by Capt. J. G. Stedman." London. Printed for J. Johnson, St.
+      Paul's Churchyard, and J. Edwards, Pall Mall. 1790. [2 vols. 4to.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. "Transatlantic Sketches, comprising visits to the most interesting
+      scenes in North and South America and the West Indies. With notes on negro
+      slavery and Canadian emigration. By Capt. J. E. Alexander, 42 Royal
+      Highlanders." London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington St., 1833. [2 vols.
+      8vo.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also Annual Register, etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The best account of the present condition of the Maroons, or, as they are
+      now called, bush-negroes, of Surinam, is to be found in a graphic
+      narrative of a visit to Dutch Guiana, by W. G. Palgrave, in the <i>Fortnightly
+      Review</i>, xxiv. 801; xxv. 194, 536. These papers are reprinted in <i>Littell's
+      Living Age</i>, cxxviii. 154, cxxix. 409. He estimates the present numbers
+      of these people as approaching thirty thousand. The "Encyclopaedia
+      Britannica" gives the names of several publications relating to their
+      peculiar dialect, popularly known as Negro-English, but including many
+      Dutch words.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The materials for the history of Gabriel's revolt are still very
+      fragmentary, and must be sought in the contemporary newspapers. No
+      continuous file of Southern newspapers for the year 1800 was to be found,
+      when this narrative was written, in any Boston or New-York library, though
+      the Harvard-College Library contained a few numbers of the Baltimore <i>Telegraphe</i>
+      and the Norfolk <i>Epitome of the Times</i>. My chief reliance has
+      therefore been the Southern correspondence of the Northern newspapers,
+      with the copious extracts there given from Virginian journals. I am
+      chiefly indebted to the Philadelphia <i>United-States Gazette</i>, the
+      Boston <i>Independent Chronicle</i>, the Salem <i>Gazette</i> and <i>Register</i>,
+      the New-York <i>Daily Advertiser</i>, and the Connecticut <i>Courant</i>.
+      The best continuous narratives that I have found are in the <i>Courant</i>
+      of Sept. 29, 1800, and the Salem <i>Gazette</i> of Oct. 7, 1800; but even
+      these are very incomplete. Several important documents I have been unable
+      to discover,&mdash;the official proclamation of the governor, the
+      description of Gabriel's person, and the original confession of the slaves
+      as given to Mr. Sheppard. The discovery of these would no doubt have
+      enlarged, and very probably corrected, my narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DENMARK VESEY
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      1. "Negro Plot. An Account of the late intended insurrection among a
+      portion of the blacks of the city of Charleston, S.C. Published by the
+      Authority of the Corporation of Charleston." Second edition. Boston:
+      printed and published by Joseph W. Ingraham. 1822. 8vo, pp. 50.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [A third edition was printed at Boston during the same year, a copy of
+      which is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The first
+      and fourth editions, which were printed at Charleston, S.C., I have never
+      seen.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. "An Official Report of the trials of sundry negroes, charged with an
+      attempt to raise an insurrection in the State of South Carolina: preceded
+      by an introduction and narrative; and in an appendix, a report of the
+      trials of four white persons, on indictments for attempting to excite the
+      slaves to insurrection. Prepared and published at the request of the
+      court. By Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker, members of the Charleston
+      bar, and the presiding magistrates of the court." Charleston: printed by
+      James R. Schenck, 23 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 188x4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. "Reflections occasioned by the late disturbances in Charleston, by
+      Achates." Charleston: printed and sold by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St.
+      1822. 8vo, pp. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and
+      Western States, respecting the institution and existence of slavery among
+      them. To which is added a minute and particular account of the actual
+      state and condition of their Negro Population, together with Historical
+      Notices of all the Insurrections that have taken place since the
+      settlement of the country.&mdash;Facts are stubborn things.&mdash;<i>Shakspeare</i>.
+      By a South Carolinian." [Edwin C. Holland.] Charleston: printed by A. E.
+      Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 86.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. "Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the views of the Baptists
+      relative to the colored population in the United States, in a
+      communication to the Governor of South Carolina." Second edition.
+      Charleston: printed by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1833. 8vo, pp. 16.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The first edition appeared in 1823. It relates to a petition offered by a
+      Baptist Convention for a day of thanksgiving and humiliation, in reference
+      to the insurrection, and to a violent hurricane which had just occurred.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. "Practical Considerations, founded on the Scriptures, relative to the
+      Slave Population of South Carolina. Respectfully dedicated to the South
+      Carolina Association. By a South Carolinian." Charleston: printed and sold
+      by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1823. 8vo, pp. 38.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. [The letter of Gov. Bennett, dated Aug. 10, 1822, was evidently printed
+      originally as a pamphlet or circular, though I have not been able to find
+      it in that form. It may be found reprinted in the <i>Columbian Centinel</i>
+      (Aug. 31, 1822), <i>Connecticut Courant</i> (Sept. 3), and Worcester <i>Spy</i>
+      (Sept. 18). It is also printed in Lundy's <i>Genius of Universal
+      Emancipation</i> for September, 1822 (ii. 42), and reviewed in subsequent
+      numbers (pp. 81, 131, 142).]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8. "The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom. Boston: Anti-Slavery Bazaar.
+      1841. 12mo." [This contains an article on p. 158, entitled "Servile
+      Insurrections," by Edmund Jackson, including brief personal reminiscences
+      of the Charleston insurrection, during which he resided in that city.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [Of the above-named pamphlets, all now rare, Nos. 1 and 2 are in my own
+      possession. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, are in the Wendell Phillips collection of
+      pamphlets in the Boston Public Library.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      1. "The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late Insurrection in
+      Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, in the
+      prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when read
+      before the Court of Southampton, with the certificate under seal of the
+      court convened at Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1831, for this trial. Also an
+      authentic account of the whole insurrection, with lists of the whites who
+      were murdered, and of the negroes brought before the Court of Southampton,
+      and there sentenced, etc." New York: printed and published by C. Brown,
+      211 Water Street, 1831.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [This pamphlet was reprinted in the <i>Anglo-African Magazine</i> (New
+      York), December, 1859. Whether it is identical with the work said by the
+      newspapers of the period to have been published at Baltimore, I have been
+      unable to ascertain. But if, as was alleged, forty thousand copies of the
+      Baltimore pamphlet were issued, it seems impossible that they should have
+      become so scarce. The first reprint of the Confession, so far as I know,
+      was a partial one in Abdy's "Journal in the United States." London. 1835.
+      3 vols. 8vo.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was
+      witnessed in Southhampton County (Va.), on Monday, the 22d of August last,
+      when Fifty-five of its inhabitants (mostly women and children) were
+      inhumanly massacred by the blacks! Communicated by those who were
+      eye-witnesses of the bloody scene, and confirmed by the confessions of
+      several of the Blacks, while under Sentence of Death." [By Samuel Warner,
+      New York.] Printed for Warner &amp; West. 1831. 12mo, pp. 36 [or more,
+      copy incomplete. With a frontispiece]. Among the Wendell Phillips tracts
+      in the Boston Public Library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. "Slave Insurrection in 1831, in Southampton County, Va., headed by Nat
+      Turner. Also a conspiracy of slaves in Charleston, S.C., in 1822." New
+      York: compiled and published by Henry Bibb, 9 Spruce St. 1849. 12mo, pp.
+      12.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The contemporary newspaper narratives may be found largely quoted in the
+      first volume of the <i>Liberator</i> (1831), and in Lundy's <i>Genius of
+      Universal Emancipation</i> (September, 1831). The files of the Richmond <i>Enquirer</i>
+      have also much information on the subject.]
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Rebellion, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Rebellion
+       Five Slave Revolts
+
+Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8432]
+This file was first posted on July 9, 2003
+Last updated: April 29, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK REBELLION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, Thomas Berger, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACK REBELLION: FIVE SLAVE REVOLTS
+
+From Travellers and Outlaws
+
+Episodes In American History
+
+
+By Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+With An Appendix Of Authorities
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: This text contains five chapters of T.W. Higgison's
+'Travellers and Outlaws'. This collection is commonly referred to as
+'Black Rebellion: five slave revolts'.]
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE:
+
+The author would express his thanks to the proprietors and editors of the
+_Atlantic Monthly_, _Harper's Magazine_, and the _Century_, for their
+permission to reprint such portions of this volume as were originally
+published in those periodicals.
+
+CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+
+The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the
+skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica when some fresh foray of those
+unconquered guerrillas swept down from the outlying plantations, startled
+the Assembly from its order, Gen. Williamson from his billiards, and Lord
+Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,--endangering, according to the
+official statement, "public credit," "civil rights," and "the prosperity,
+if not the very existence, of the country," until they were "persuaded to
+make peace" at last. They were the Circassians of the New World, but they
+were black, instead of white; and as the Circassians refused to be
+transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so the Maroons refused to be
+transferred from Spanish dominion to English, and thus their revolt
+began. The difference is, that while the white mountaineers numbered four
+hundred thousand, and only defied Nicholas, the black mountaineers
+numbered less than two thousand, and defied Cromwell; and while the
+Circassians, after years of revolt, were at last subdued, the Maroons, on
+the other hand, who rebelled in 1655, were never conquered, but only made
+a compromise of allegiance, and exist as a separate race to-day.
+
+When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was not
+a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had found
+there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only by
+those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of human
+skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign races,--an
+effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen hundred, with a
+black slave population quite as large and infinitely more hardy and
+energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the English: the negroes
+remained unsubdued. The slaveholders were banished from the island: the
+slaves only exiled themselves to the mountains; thence the English could
+not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers whom the English employed. And when
+Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and peace was made with Spain,
+and the children of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were beginning to grow
+rich by importing slaves for Roman-Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still
+held their own wild empire in the mountains, and, being sturdy heathens
+every one, practised Obeah rites in approved pagan fashion.
+
+The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the Spanish
+word _Marrano_, a wild boar,--these fugitives being all boar-hunters;
+according to another, from _Marony_, a river separating French and Dutch
+Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells; and by another
+still, from _Cimarron_, a word meaning untamable, and used alike for apes
+and runaway slaves. But whether these rebel marauders were regarded as
+monkeys or men, they made themselves equally formidable. As early as
+1663, the Governor and Council of Jamaica offered to each Maroon, who
+should surrender, his freedom and twenty acres of land; but not one
+accepted the terms. During forty years, forty-four Acts of Assembly were
+passed in respect to them, and at least a quarter of a million pounds
+sterling were expended in the warfare against them. In 1733, the force
+employed in this service consisted of two regiments of regular troops,
+and the whole militia of the island; but the Assembly said that "the
+Maroons had within a few years greatly increased, notwithstanding all the
+measures that had been concerted for their suppression," "to the great
+terror of his Majesty's subjects," and "to the manifest weakening and
+preventing the further increase of strength and inhabitants of the
+island."
+
+The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was
+called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and
+blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn
+Dallas's History of the Maroons; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as
+Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were
+consolidated into one force, and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like
+Schamyl, was religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah
+influence he established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and
+insurgents; no party could be sent forth, by the government, but he knew
+it in time to lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region
+left unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition;
+and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot, and never
+risked a battle, his forces naturally increased, while those of his
+opponents were decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a
+prisoner; it was impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing
+with them, as Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by
+victory;" and the only men who could obtain the slightest advantage
+against them were the imported Mosquito Indians, or the "Black Shot," a
+company of Government negroes. For nine full years this particular war
+continued unchecked, Gen. Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by
+night.
+
+The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession of
+the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as by
+an earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the
+California canyons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the
+Atlantic States, known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or
+symbolically as purgatories. These Jamaica chasms vary from two hundred
+yards to a mile in length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet
+high, and often absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end
+admit but one man at a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can
+grow; water flows within them; and they often communicate with one
+another, forming a series of traps for an invading force. Tired and
+thirsty with climbing, the weary soldiers toil on, in single file,
+without seeing or hearing an enemy, up the steep and winding path they
+traverse one "cockpit," then enter another. Suddenly a shot is fired from
+the dense and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each
+dropping its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction,
+when a more murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights
+above flash with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came
+seems to close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in
+some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and
+their agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again,
+farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is
+usually sufficient; disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with
+them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and
+carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, and the Government
+House.
+
+It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period,
+should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more
+difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover,
+these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of
+warfare seemed to them unjustifiable; and the description given by
+Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,--"the grandest
+of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of
+a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a
+provision-ground, or cut them off from water. But there was little
+satisfaction in this: the wild-pine leaves and the grapevine-withes
+supplied the rebels with water; and their plantation-grounds were the
+wild pineapple and the plantain-groves, and the forests, where the wild
+boars harbored, and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were
+militiamen. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought
+about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting
+parties, Cudjoe and Gen. Williamson.
+
+But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and
+respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations
+without the medium of a preliminary bullet, required some ingenuity of
+manoeuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious: he would
+not come halfway to meet any one; nothing would content him but an
+interview in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most
+difficult passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties, to
+signal with their horns, one by one, the approach of the
+plenipotentiaries, and then to retire on the main body. Through this line
+of dangerous sentinels, therefore, Col. Guthrie and his handful of men
+bravely advanced; horn after horn they heard sounded, but there was no
+other human noise in the woods, and they had advanced till they saw the
+smoke of the Maroon huts before they caught a glimpse of a human form.
+
+A conversation was at last opened with the invisible rebels. On their
+promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them; then
+several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable
+chief was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat,
+humpbacked, dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves,
+and an old felt hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental
+scarlet, he could not have been treated with more distinguished
+consideration; indeed, in that case, "the exchange of hats" with which
+Dr. Russell finally volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify
+negotiations, might have been a less severe test of good fellowship. This
+fine stroke of diplomacy had its effect, however; the rebel captains
+agreed to a formal interview with Col. Guthrie and Capt. Sadler, and a
+treaty was at last executed with all due solemnity, under a large
+cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. This treaty recognized
+the military rank of "Capt. Cudjoe," "Capt. Accompong," and the rest;
+gave assurance that the Maroons should be "forever hereafter in a perfect
+state of freedom and liberty;" ceded to them fifteen hundred acres of
+land; and stipulated only that they should keep the peace, should harbor
+no fugitive from justice or from slavery, and should allow two white
+commissioners to remain among them, simply to represent the British
+Government.
+
+During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large
+body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected,
+however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the
+mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,--a few fires
+left burning with old women to watch them,--a few provision-grounds
+exposed by clearing away the bushes,--they lured the troops far up among
+the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all
+fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream, where
+they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until finally they
+forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss. Three months after
+this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable interview, exchanging
+hostages first. The position of the white hostage, at least, was not the
+most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by the women and children
+with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while the little boys pointed
+their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and that with evident relish.
+However, Capt. Quao, like Capt. Cudjoe, made a treaty at last; and hats
+were interchanged, instead of hostages.
+
+Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of
+hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the
+Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the
+situation of their chief town, that the English Government has erected
+barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on
+the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by
+the white population below; and they lived on a daintier diet, so that
+the English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The
+mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of
+millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to
+mountain again. They hunted the wild boars, and prepared the flesh by
+salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious
+"jerked hog" of buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry,
+cultivated corn and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas, and papaws and
+mameys, and avocados, and all luxurious West-Indian fruits; the very
+weeds of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in
+their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked
+across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and
+over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter
+ocean-horizon, and the illimitable sky.
+
+They had senses like those of American Indians; tracked each other by the
+smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called to each other by
+horns, using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and
+distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke
+English diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah rites
+quite undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated largely with
+the slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty stipulations;
+sometimes brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed them; left their
+towns and settled on the planters lands when they preferred them: but
+were quite orderly and luxuriously happy. During the formidable
+insurrection of the Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a dubious
+part. When left to go on their own way, they did something towards
+suppressing it; but when placed under the guns of the troops, and ordered
+to fire on those of their own color, they threw themselves on the ground
+without discharging a shot. Nevertheless, they gradually came up into
+reputable standing; they grew more and more industrious and steady; and
+after they had joined very heartily in resisting D'Estaing's threatened
+invasion of the island in 1779, it became the fashion to speak of "our
+faithful and affectionate Maroons."
+
+In 1795, their position was as follows: Their numbers had not materially
+increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the outskirts of
+plantations; nor materially diminished, for many runaway slaves had
+joined them; while there were also separate settlements of fugitives, who
+had maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white superintendents
+had lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without the slightest
+official authority, but with a great deal of actual influence. But there
+was an "irrepressible conflict" behind all this apparent peace, and the
+slightest occasion might, at any moment, revive all the old terror. That
+occasion was close at hand.
+
+Capt. Cudjoe and Capt. Accompong, and the other founders of Maroon
+independence, had passed away; and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead,
+in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of
+Maroon majesty: he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with gold lace
+and plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he was helped
+first at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he presided at
+councils as magnificently as at table, though with less appetite; and
+possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human
+being. The real power lay entirely with Major James, the white
+superintendent, who had been brought up among the Maroons by his father
+(and predecessor), and who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil
+hour, the Government removed him, and put a certain unpopular Capt.
+Craskell in his place; and as there happened to be, about the same time,
+a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons, who had
+been seized and publicly whipped on a charge of hog-stealing, their
+kindred refused to allow the new superintendent to remain in the town. A
+few attempts at negotiation only brought them to a higher pitch of wrath,
+which ended in their despatching the following peculiar diplomatic note
+to the Earl of Balcarres: "The Maroons wishes nothing else from the
+country but battle, and they desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at
+all. So they are waiting every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David
+Schaw will see you on Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till
+Monday, nine o'clock, and if they don't come up, they will come down
+themselves." Signed, "Col. Montagu and all the rest."
+
+It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were
+concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect.
+Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so favorably
+impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of money for
+their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Col. Gallimore," a Jamaica
+Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing some bullets into the
+contribution-box. And it was probably in accordance with his view of the
+subject, that, when the Maroons sent ambassadors in return, they were at
+once imprisoned, most injudiciously and unjustly; and when Old Montagu
+himself and thirty-seven others, following, were seized and imprisoned
+also, it is not strange that the Maroons, joined by many slaves, were
+soon in open insurrection.
+
+Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The fighting
+men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five hundred;
+against whom the Government could bring nearly fifteen hundred regular
+troops and several thousand militiamen. Lord Balcarres himself took the
+command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a large force
+up to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as expeditiously
+as possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably defeated, and had
+to fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the troops, in which some
+forty or fifty were killed,--including Col. Sandford, commanding the
+regulars, and the bullet-loving Col. Gallimore, in command of the
+militia,--while not a single Maroon was even wounded, so far as could be
+ascertained.
+
+After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually
+got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had
+been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season; and,
+between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous.
+Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all
+their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their
+lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations far below. The
+only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the
+superintendent just removed by Government; and his services were not
+employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a
+volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants had
+yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the smell
+of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march, including a
+climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought
+them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he,
+pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can
+enter here; no white man except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon
+establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I
+have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far
+as that. There are two other ways of getting into the defile, practicable
+for the Maroons, but not for any one of you. In neither of them can I
+ascend or descend with my arms, which must be handed to me, step by step,
+as practised by the Maroons themselves. One of the ways lies to the
+eastward, and the other to the westward; and they will take care to have
+both guarded, if they suspect that I am with you; which, from the route
+you have come to-day, they will. They now see you, and if you advance
+fifty paces more, they will convince you of it." At this moment a Maroon
+horn sounded the notes indicating his name; and, as he made no answer, a
+voice was heard, inquiring if he were among them. "If he is," said the
+voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to hurt him, but as for the rest
+of you, come on and try battle if you choose." But the gentlemen did not
+choose.
+
+In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and
+worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the
+whole force of the island, and they were defending their liberty by
+precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half
+a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the
+enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from
+their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an
+eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at
+large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a
+country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and
+prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers
+had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen;
+while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them
+was known to have been killed. Capt. Craskell, the banished
+superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole
+slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and
+would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of
+French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained
+away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the lieutenant-governor
+announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the
+French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner, named
+Murenson, had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet)
+had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and
+threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it
+all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three
+hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred
+and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined
+them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong
+tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and
+various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different
+parishes, with the same object of self-protection.
+
+The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Col. Walpole was promoted
+in his stead, and brevetted as general, by way of incentive. He found a
+people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury not
+empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the
+Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his
+opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his
+efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water, and, most effectual
+move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a
+howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a
+visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint
+compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little
+buckra!" they said, "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new
+fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top,
+de damn sunting [something] fire arter you again." With which Parthian
+arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.
+
+But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the
+way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was
+deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the
+purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as
+yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought
+best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Col.
+Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men,
+however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a
+Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in
+some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had
+always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down
+the natives of that very soil with hounds; and should England now follow
+the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly
+quoted all known instances of zooelogical warfare: all Oriental nations,
+for instance, used elephants in war, and, no doubt, would gladly use
+lions and tigers also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their
+painful indifference to the distinction between friend and foe; why not,
+then, use these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any
+rate, "something must be done;" the final argument always used, when a
+bad or desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last
+to send to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying
+chasseurs; and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till
+the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Col. Quarrell
+finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples
+of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of
+popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice they were
+armed who knew their Quarrell just.
+
+But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the
+commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He
+sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who
+insisted on fighting every thing that came in their way,--first a Spanish
+schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the
+mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy
+Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and
+chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas,
+who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court
+against admitting foreigners within his government; "the only accustomed
+exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of
+foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner
+had not brought any of these commodities; but then he had come to obtain
+the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular
+practitioner of the privileged profession.
+
+Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no
+difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs
+as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of
+taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,--this being,
+after all, the essential part of his expedition,--Don Luis de las Casas
+put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the
+entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service.
+Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs.
+Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he
+got them safe to Batabano; but at the last moment, learning the state of
+affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he
+had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed
+objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and
+silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don
+Guillermo sent a messenger after him, and bribed him too; and thus at
+length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last
+evening at a puppet-show in which the principal figure was a burlesque on
+his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of
+renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four
+muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.
+
+These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the
+pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall,
+meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and
+drawers, with broad straw hat, and moccasins of raw-hide; his belt
+sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or _machete_, like an iron bar
+sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes
+for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a fierce
+breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for attack,
+and accompanied by smaller dogs called _finders_. It is no wonder, when
+these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay, that terror
+ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed, and windows crowded;
+not a negro dared to stir; and the muzzled dogs, infuriated by
+confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with their noisy
+barking and the rattling of their chains.
+
+How much would have come of all this in actual conflict, does not appear.
+The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain
+conditions and guaranties,--a decision probably accelerated by the
+terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was
+the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of Gen. Walpole,
+that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the
+island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender."
+Nevertheless, a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention
+of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to
+treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets
+interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed
+Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part
+of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the
+suspicious Maroons. Gen. Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that
+no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the
+hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons; nor should any
+attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add,
+that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial Government,
+to the lasting grief of Gen. Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had
+violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its
+terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken
+refuge among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were
+at once placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to
+Halifax, to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the
+credit of English honor, we rejoice to know that Gen. Walpole not merely
+protested against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined
+the sword of honor which the Assembly had voted him, in its gratitude,
+and then retired from military service forever.
+
+The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They
+were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax, then welcomed when
+seen, and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of
+reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,--their only
+visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the
+redoubtable Col. Quarrell; and twenty-five thousand pounds were
+appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper;
+pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of
+industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it
+seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,--for theirs was
+such that two previous colonies had deserted it,--and in a climate where
+winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he
+was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of
+civilization, utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake
+polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal
+discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked
+their pipes during service time, and left Old Montagu, who still
+survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon. One discourse he
+briefly reported as follows, very much to the point: "Massa parson say no
+mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus quarrel, mus set down
+softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme
+unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race,--at
+least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,--they soon
+grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious
+of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by
+the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they
+finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the
+authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly
+responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a
+century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were
+reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers,
+shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate
+lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra
+Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds; since which they disappear from
+history.
+
+It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which
+had kept aloof from the late outbreak, at the Accompong settlement, and
+elsewhere. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and
+retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in
+Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at
+Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten
+families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two
+hundred and seventy families in all,--each station being, as of old,
+under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt,
+that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling
+with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.
+
+The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in
+its time: the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by
+Sheridan, and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds
+against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the
+Colonial Government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards.
+This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in
+Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be
+cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia,
+they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not
+venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his
+injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the
+indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards,
+the public indignation ran quite high in England, against the bloodhounds
+and their employers, so that the home ministry found it necessary to send
+a severe reproof to the Colonial Government. For a few years the tales of
+the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals, and found their way
+into annual registers and parliamentary debates; but they have long since
+vanished from popular memory. Their record still retains its interest,
+however, as that of one of the heroic races of the world; and all the
+more, because it is with their kindred that the American nation has to
+deal, in solving one of the most momentous problems of its future career.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM.
+
+
+When that eccentric individual, Capt. John Gabriel Stedman, resigned his
+commission in the English Navy, took the oath of abjuration, and was
+appointed ensign in the Scots brigade employed for two centuries by
+Holland, he little knew that "their High Mightinesses the States of the
+United Provinces" would send him out, within a year, to the forests of
+Guiana, to subdue rebel negroes. He never imagined that the year 1773
+would behold him beneath the rainy season in a tropical country, wading
+through marshes and splashing through lakes, exploring with his feet for
+submerged paths, commanding impracticable troops, and commanded by an
+insufferable colonel, feeding on greegree worms and fed upon by
+mosquitos, howled at by jaguars, hissed at by serpents, and shot at by
+those exceedingly unattainable gentlemen, "still longed for, never seen,"
+the Maroons of Surinam.
+
+Yet, as our young ensign sailed up the Surinam River, the world of tropic
+beauty came upon him with enchantment. Dark, moist verdure was close
+around him, rippling waters below; the tall trees of the jungle and the
+low mangroves beneath were all hung with long vines and lianas, a maze of
+cordage, like a fleet at anchor; lithe monkeys travelled ceaselessly up
+and down these airy paths, in armies, bearing their young, like
+knapsacks, on their backs; macaws and humming-birds, winged jewels, flew
+from tree to tree. As they neared Paramaribo, the river became a smooth
+canal among luxuriant plantations; the air was perfumed music, redolent
+of orange-blossoms and echoing with the songs of birds and the sweet
+plash of oars; gay barges came forth to meet them; "while groups of naked
+boys and girls were promiscuously playing and flouncing, like so many
+tritons and mermaids, in the water." And when the troops
+disembarked,--five hundred fine young men, the oldest not thirty, all
+arrayed in new uniforms and bearing orange-flowers in their caps, a
+bridal wreath for beautiful Guiana,--it is no wonder that the Creole
+ladies were in ecstasy; and the boyish recruits little foresaw the day,
+when, reduced to a few dozens, barefooted and ragged as filibusters,
+their last survivors would gladly re-embark from a country beside which
+even Holland looked dry and even Scotland comfortable.
+
+For over all that earthly paradise there brooded not alone its terrible
+malaria, its days of fever and its nights of deadly chill, but the worse
+shadows of oppression and of sin, which neither day nor night could
+banish. The first object which met Stedman's eye, as he stepped on shore,
+was the figure of a young girl stripped to receive two hundred lashes,
+and chained to a hundred-pound weight. And the few first days gave a
+glimpse into a state of society worthy of this exhibition,--men without
+mercy, women without modesty, the black man a slave to the white man's
+passions, and the white man a slave to his own. The later West-Indian
+society in its worst forms is probably a mere dilution of the utter
+profligacy of those early days. Greek or Roman decline produced nothing
+more debilitating or destructive than the ordinary life of a Surinam
+planter, and his one virtue of hospitality only led to more unbridled
+excesses and completed the work of vice. No wonder that Stedman himself,
+who, with all his peculiarities, was essentially simple and manly, soon
+became disgusted, and made haste to get into the woods and cultivate the
+society of the Maroons.
+
+The rebels against whom this expedition was sent were not the original
+Maroons of Surinam, but a later generation. The originals had long since
+established their independence, and their leaders were flourishing their
+honorary silver-mounted canes in the streets of Paramaribo. Fugitive
+negroes had begun to establish themselves in the woods from the time when
+the colony was finally ceded by the English to the Dutch, in 1674. The
+first open outbreak occurred in 1726, when the plantations on the
+Seramica River revolted; it was found impossible to subdue them, and the
+government very imprudently resolved to make an example of eleven
+captives, and thus terrify the rest of the rebels. They were tortured to
+death, eight of the eleven being women: this drove the others to madness,
+and plantation after plantation was visited with fire and sword. After a
+long conflict, their chief, Adoe, was induced to make a treaty, in 1749.
+The rebels promised to keep the peace, and in turn were promised freedom,
+money, tools, clothes, and, finally, arms and ammunition.
+
+But no permanent peace was ever made upon a barrel of gunpowder as a
+basis; and, of course, an explosion followed this one. The colonists
+naturally evaded the last item of the bargain; and the rebels, receiving
+the gifts, and remarking the omission of the part of Hamlet, asked
+contemptuously if the Europeans expected negroes to subsist on combs and
+looking-glasses? New hostilities at once began; a new body of slaves on
+the Ouca River revolted; the colonial government was changed in
+consequence, and fresh troops shipped from Holland; and after four
+different embassies had been sent into the woods, the rebels began to
+listen to reason. The black generals, Capt. Araby and Capt. Boston,
+agreed upon a truce for a year, during which the colonial government
+might decide for peace or war, the Maroons declaring themselves
+indifferent. Finally the government chose peace, delivered ammunition,
+and made a treaty, in 1761; the white and black plenipotentiaries
+exchanged English oaths and then negro oaths, each tasting a drop of the
+other's blood during the latter ceremony, amid a volley of remarkable
+incantations from the black _gadoman_ or priest. After some final
+skirmishes, in which the rebels almost always triumphed, the treaty was
+at length accepted by all the various villages of Maroons. Had they known
+that at this very time five thousand slaves in Berbice were just rising
+against their masters, and were looking to them for assistance, the
+result might have been different; but this fact had not reached them, nor
+had the rumors of insurrection in Brazil among negro and Indian slaves.
+They consented, therefore, to the peace. "They write from Surinam," says
+the "Annual Register" for Jan. 23, 1761, "that the Dutch governor,
+finding himself unable to subdue the rebel negroes of that country by
+force, hath wisely followed the example of Gov. Trelawney at Jamaica, and
+concluded an amicable treaty with them; in consequence of which, all the
+negroes of the woods are acknowledged to be free, and all that is passed
+is buried in oblivion." So ended a war of thirty-six years; and in
+Stedman's day the original three thousand Ouca and Seramica Maroons had
+multiplied, almost incredibly, to fifteen thousand.
+
+But for those slaves not sharing in this revolt it was not so easy to
+"bury the whole past in oblivion." The Maroons had told some very plain
+truths to the white ambassadors, and had frankly advised them, if they
+wished for peace, to mend their own manners and treat their chattels
+humanely. But the planters learned nothing by experience,--and, indeed,
+the terrible narrations of Stedman were confirmed by those of Alexander,
+so lately as 1831. Of course, therefore, in a colony comprising eighty
+thousand blacks to four thousand whites, other revolts were stimulated by
+the success of this one. They reached their highest point in 1772, when
+an insurrection on the Cottica River, led by a negro named Baron, almost
+gave the finishing blow to the colony; the only adequate protection being
+found in a body of slaves liberated expressly for that purpose,--a
+dangerous and humiliating precedent. "We have been obliged to set three
+or four hundred of our stoutest negroes free to defend us," says an
+honest letter from Surinam, in the "Annual Register" for Sept. 5, 1772.
+Fortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron presumed too much upon
+his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too near the seacoast, in a
+marshy fastness, from which he was finally ejected by twelve hundred
+Dutch troops, though the chief work was done, Stedman thinks, by the
+"black rangers" or liberated slaves. Checked by this defeat, he again
+drew back into the forests, resuming his guerrilla warfare against the
+plantations. Nothing could dislodge him; blood-hounds were proposed, but
+the moisture of the country made them useless: and thus matters stood
+when Stedman came sailing, amid orange-blossoms and music, up the winding
+Surinam.
+
+Our young officer went into the woods in the condition of Falstaff,
+"heinously unprovided." Coming from the unbounded luxury of the
+plantations, he found himself entering "the most horrid and impenetrable
+forests, where no kind of refreshment was to be had,"--he being
+provisioned only with salt pork and pease. After a wail of sorrow for
+this inhuman neglect, he bursts into a gush of gratitude for the private
+generosity which relieved his wants at the last moment by the following
+list of supplies: "24 bottles best claret, 12 ditto Madeira, 12 ditto
+porter, 12 ditto cider, 12 ditto rum, 2 large loaves white sugar, 2
+gallons brandy, 6 bottles muscadel, 2 gallons lemon-juice, 2 gallons
+ground coffee, 2 large Westphalia hams, 2 salted bullocks' tongues, 1
+bottle Durham mustard, 6 dozen spermaceti candles." The hams and tongues
+seem, indeed, rather a poor halfpennyworth to this intolerable deal of
+sack; but this instance of Surinam privation in those days may open some
+glimpse at the colonial standards of comfort. "From this specimen,"
+moralizes our hero, "the reader will easily perceive, that, if some of
+the inhabitants of Surinam show themselves the disgrace of the creation
+by their cruelties and brutality, others, by their social feelings,
+approve themselves an ornament to the human species. With this instance
+of virtue and generosity I therefore conclude this chapter."
+
+But the troops soon had to undergo worse troubles than those of the
+commissariat. The rainy season had just set in. "As for the negroes,"
+said Mr. Klynhaus, the last planter with whom they parted, "you may
+depend on never seeing a soul of them, unless they attack you off guard;
+but the climate, the climate, will murder you all." Bringing with them
+constitutions already impaired by the fevers and dissipation of
+Paramaribo, the poor boys began to perish long before they began to
+fight. Wading in water all day, hanging their hammocks over water at
+night, it seemed a moist existence, even compared with the climate of
+England and the soil of Holland. It was a case of "Invent a shovel, and
+be a magistrate," even more than Andrew Marvell found it in the United
+Provinces. In fact, Raynal evidently thinks that nothing but Dutch
+experience in hydraulics could ever have cultivated Surinam.
+
+The two gunboats which held one division of the expedition were merely
+old sugar-barges, roofed over with boards, and looking like coffins. They
+were pleasantly named the "Charon" and the "Cerberus," but Stedman
+thought that the "Sudden Death" and the "Wilful Murder" would have been
+titles more appropriate. The chief duty of the troops consisted in lying
+at anchor at the intersections of wooded streams, waiting for rebels who
+never came. It was dismal work, and the raw recruits were full of the
+same imaginary terrors which have haunted other heroes less severely
+tested: the monkeys never rattled the cocoa-nuts against the trees, but
+they all heard the axes of Maroon wood-choppers; and when a sentinel
+declared, one night, that he had seen a negro go down the river in a
+canoe, with his pipe lighted, the whole force was called to arms--against
+a firefly. In fact, the insect race brought by far the most substantial
+dangers. The rebels eluded the military, but the chigres, locusts,
+scorpions, and bush-spiders were ever ready to come half-way to meet
+them; likewise serpents and alligators proffered them the freedom of the
+forests, and exhibited a hospitality almost excessive. Snakes twenty feet
+long hung their seductive length from the trees; jaguars volunteered
+their society through almost impenetrable marshes; vampire bats perched
+by night with lulling endearments upon the toes of the soldiers. When
+Stedman describes himself as killing thirty-eight mosquitoes at one
+stroke, we must perhaps pardon something to the spirit of martyrdom. But
+when we add to these the other woes of his catalogue,--prickly-heat,
+ringworm, putrid-fever, "the growling of Col. Fougeaud, dry sandy
+savannas, unfordable marshes, burning hot days, cold and damp nights,
+heavy rains, and short allowance,"--we can hardly wonder that three
+captains died in a month, and that in two months his detachment of
+forty-two was reduced to a miserable seven.
+
+Yet, through all this, Stedman himself kept his health. His theory of the
+matter almost recalls the time-honored prescription of "A light heart and
+a thin pair of breeches," for he attributes his good condition to his
+keeping up his spirits and kicking off his shoes. Daily bathing in the
+river had also something to do with it; and, indeed, hydropathy was first
+learned of the West-India Maroons,--who did their "packing" in wet
+clay,--and was carried by Dr. Wright to England. But his extraordinary
+personal qualities must have contributed most to his preservation. Never
+did a "meagre, starved, black, burnt, and ragged tatterdemalion," as he
+calls himself, carry about him such a fund of sentiment, philosophy,
+poetry, and art. He had a great faculty for sketching, as the engravings
+in his volumes, with all their odd peculiarities, show; his deepest woes
+he coined always into couplets, and fortified himself against hopeless
+despair with Ovid and Valerius Flaccus, Pope's Homer and Thomson's
+"Seasons." Above all reigned his passion for natural history, a ready
+balm for every ill. Here he was never wanting to the occasion; and, to do
+justice to Dutch Guiana, the occasion never was wanting to him. Were his
+men sickening, the peccaries were always healthy without the camp, and
+the cockroaches within; just escaping from a she-jaguar, he satisfies
+himself, ere he flees, that the print of her claws on the sand is
+precisely the size of a pewter dinner-plate; bitten by a scorpion, he
+makes sure of a scientific description in case he should expire of the
+bite; is the water undrinkable, there is at least some rational interest
+in the number of legs possessed by the centipedes which pre-occupy it.
+This is the highest triumph of man over his accidents, when he thus turns
+his pains to gains, and becomes an entomologist in the tropics.
+
+Meanwhile the rebels kept their own course in the forests, and
+occasionally descended upon plantations beside the very river on whose
+upper waters the useless troops were sickening and dying. Stedman himself
+made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before he came
+any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or destroy a
+rice-field. Sometimes they left the "Charon" and the "Cerberus" moored by
+grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the woods,
+single file. Our ensign, true to himself, gives the minutest schedule of
+the order of march, and the oddest little diagram of manikins with cocked
+hats, and blacker manikins bearing burdens. First, negroes with
+bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body,
+interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the
+rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions,
+and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort
+of palanquin for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they marched valorously
+forth into the woods, to some given point; then they turned, marched back
+to the boats, then rowed back to camp, and straightway went into the
+hospital. Immediately upon this, the coast being clear, Baron and his
+rebels marched out again, and proceeded to business.
+
+In the course of years, these Maroons had acquired their own peculiar
+tactics. They built stockaded fortresses on marshy islands, accessible by
+fords which they alone could traverse. These they defended further by
+sharp wooden pins, or crows'-feet, concealed beneath the surface of the
+miry ground,--and, latterly, by the more substantial protection of
+cannon, which they dragged into the woods, and learned to use. Their
+bush-fighting was unique. Having always more men than weapons, they
+arranged their warriors in threes,--one to use the musket, another to
+take his place if wounded or slain, and a third to drag away the body.
+They had Indian stealthiness and swiftness, with more than Indian
+discipline; discharged their fire with some approach to regularity, in
+three successive lines, the signals being given by the captain's horn.
+They were full of ingenuity: marked their movements for each other by
+scattered leaves and blazed trees; ran zigzag, to dodge bullets; gave
+wooden guns to their unarmed men, to frighten the plantation negroes on
+their guerrilla expeditions; and borrowed the red caps of the black
+rangers whom they slew, to bewilder the aim of the others. One of them,
+finding himself close to the muzzle of a ranger's gun, threw up his hand
+hastily. "What!" he exclaimed, "will you fire on one of your own party?"
+"God forbid!" cried the ranger, dropping his piece, and was instantly
+shot through the body by the Maroon, who the next instant had disappeared
+in the woods.
+
+These rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women had
+not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men drank
+"kill-devil" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the difference
+between the meaning of the word "good" in rebellious circles and in
+reputable. "It must, however, be observed, that what we Europeans call a
+good character was by the Africans looked upon as detestable, especially
+by those born in the woods, whose only crime consisted in avenging the
+wrongs done to their forefathers." But if martial virtues be virtues,
+such were theirs. Not a rebel ever turned traitor or informer, ever
+flinched in battle or under torture, ever violated a treaty or even a
+private promise. But it was their power of endurance which was especially
+astounding; Stedman is never weary of paying tribute to this, or of
+illustrating it in sickening detail; indeed, the records of the world
+show nothing to surpass it; "the lifted axe, the agonizing wheel," proved
+powerless to subdue it; with every limb lopped, every bone broken, the
+victims yet defied their tormentors, laughed, sang, and died triumphant.
+
+Of course they repaid these atrocities in kind. If they had not, it would
+have demonstrated the absurd paradox, that slavery educates higher
+virtues than freedom. It bewilders all the relations of human
+responsibility, if we expect the insurrectionary slave to commit no
+outrages; if slavery has not depraved him, it has done him little harm.
+If it be the normal tendency of bondage to produce saints like Uncle Tom,
+let us all offer ourselves at auction immediately. It is Cassy and Dred
+who are the normal protest of human nature against systems which degrade
+it. Accordingly, these poor, ignorant Maroons, who had seen their
+brothers and sisters flogged, burned, mutilated, hanged on iron hooks,
+broken on the wheel, and had been all the while solemnly assured that
+this was paternal government, could only repay the paternalism in the
+same fashion, when they had the power. Stedman saw a negro chained to a
+red-hot distillery-furnace; he saw disobedient slaves, in repeated
+instances, punished by the amputation of a leg, and sent to boat-service
+for the rest of their lives; and of course the rebels borrowed these
+suggestions. They could bear to watch their captives expire under the
+lash, for they had previously watched their parents. If the government
+rangers received twenty-five florins for every rebel right-hand which
+they brought in, of course they risked their own right hands in the
+pursuit. The difference was, that the one brutality was that of a mighty
+state, and the other was only the retaliation of the victims. And after
+all, Stedman never ventures to assert that the imitation equalled the
+original, or that the Maroons had inflicted nearly so much as they had
+suffered.
+
+The leaders of the rebels, especially, were men who had each his own
+story of wrongs to tell. Baron, the most formidable, had been the slave
+of a Swedish gentleman, who had taught him to read and write, taken him
+to Europe, promised to manumit him on his return--and then, breaking his
+word, sold him to a Jew. Baron refused to work for his new master, was
+publicly flogged under the gallows, fled to the woods next day, and
+became the terror of the colony. Joli Coeur, his first captain, was
+avenging the cruel wrongs of his mother. Bonny, another leader, was born
+in the woods, his mother having taken refuge there just previously, to
+escape from his father, who was also his master. Cojo, another, had
+defended his master against the insurgents until he was obliged by ill
+usage to take refuge among them; and he still bore upon his wrist, when
+Stedman saw him, a silver band, with the inscription,--"True to the
+Europeans." In dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle would have
+found the despised negroes quite as ready as himself to take the
+total-abstinence pledge against rose-water.
+
+In his first two-months' campaign, Stedman never saw the trace of a
+Maroon; in the second, he once came upon their trail; in the third, one
+captive was brought in, two surrendered themselves voluntarily, and a
+large party was found to have crossed a river within a mile of the camp,
+ferrying themselves on palm-trunks, according to their fashion. Deep
+swamps and scorching sands, toiling through briers all day, and sleeping
+at night in hammocks suspended over stagnant water, with weapons
+supported on sticks crossed beneath,--all this was endured for two years
+and a half, before Stedman personally came in sight of the enemy.
+
+On Aug. 20, 1775, the troops found themselves at last in the midst of the
+rebel settlements. These villages and forts bore a variety of expressive
+names, such as "Hide me, O thou surrounding verdure," "I shall be taken,"
+"The woods lament for me," "Disturb me, if you dare," "Take a tasting, if
+you like it," "Come, try me, if you be men," "God knows me, and none
+else," "I shall moulder before I shall be taken." Some were only
+plantation-grounds with a few huts, and were easily laid waste; but all
+were protected more or less by their mere situations. Quagmires
+surrounded them, covered by a thin crust of verdure, sometimes broken
+through by one man's weight, when the victim sank hopelessly into the
+black and bottomless depths below. In other directions there was a solid
+bottom, but inconveniently covered by three or four feet of water,
+through which the troops waded breast-deep, holding their muskets high in
+the air, unable to reload them when once discharged, and liable to be
+picked off by rebel scouts, who ingeniously posted themselves in the tops
+of palm-trees.
+
+Through this delectable region Col. Fougeaud and his followers slowly
+advanced, drawing near the fatal shore where Capt. Meyland's detachment
+had just been defeated, and where their mangled remains still polluted
+the beach. Passing this point of danger without attack, they suddenly met
+a small party of rebels, each bearing on his back a beautifully woven
+hamper of snow-white rice: these loads they threw down, and disappeared.
+Next appeared an armed body from the same direction, who fired upon them
+once, and swiftly retreated; and in a few moments the soldiers came upon
+a large field of standing rice, beyond which lay, like an amphitheatre,
+the rebel village. But between the village and the field had been piled
+successive defences of logs and branches, behind which simple redoubts
+the Maroons lay concealed. A fight ensued, lasting forty minutes, during
+which nearly every soldier and ranger was wounded; but, to their great
+amazement, not one was killed. This was an enigma to them until after the
+skirmish, when the surgeon found that most of them had been struck, not
+by bullets, but by various substitutes, such as pebbles, coat-buttons,
+and bits of silver coin, which had penetrated only skin deep. "We also
+observed that several of the poor rebel negroes, who had been shot, had
+only the shards of Spa-water cans instead of flints, which could seldom
+do execution; and it was certainly owing to these circumstances that we
+came off so well."
+
+The rebels at length retreated, first setting fire to their village; a
+hundred or more lightly built houses, some of them two stories high, were
+soon in flames; and as this conflagration occupied the only neck of land
+between two impassable morasses, the troops were unable to follow, and
+the Maroons had left nothing but rice-fields to be pillaged. That night
+the military force was encamped in the woods; their ammunition was almost
+gone, so they were ordered to lie flat on the ground, even in case of
+attack; they could not so much as build a fire. Before midnight an attack
+was made on them, partly with bullets, and partly with words. The Maroons
+were all around them in the forest, but their object was a puzzle; they
+spent most of the night in bandying compliments with the black rangers,
+whom they alternately denounced, ridiculed, and challenged to single
+combat. At last Fougeaud and Stedman joined in the conversation, and
+endeavored to make this midnight volley of talk the occasion for a
+treaty. This was received with inextinguishable laughter, which echoed
+through the woods like a concert of screech-owls, ending in a _charivari_
+of horns and hallooing. The colonel, persisting, offered them "life,
+liberty, victuals, drink, and all they wanted;" in return, they ridiculed
+him unmercifully. He was a half-starved Frenchman, who had run away from
+his own country, and would soon run away from theirs; they profoundly
+pitied him and his soldiers; they would scorn to spend powder on such
+scarecrows; they would rather feed and clothe them, as being poor white
+slaves, hired to be shot at, and starved for fourpence a day. But as for
+the planters, overseers, and rangers, they should die, every one of them,
+and Bonny should be governor of the colony. "After this, they tinkled
+their bill-hooks, fired a volley, and gave three cheers; which, being
+answered by the rangers, the clamor ended, and the rebels dispersed with
+the rising sun."
+
+Very aimless nonsense it certainly appeared. But the next day put a new
+aspect on it; for it was found, that, under cover of all this noise, the
+Maroons had been busily occupied all night, men, women, and children, in
+preparing and filling great hampers of the finest rice, yams, and
+cassava, from the adjacent provision-grounds, to be used for subsistence
+during their escape, leaving only chaff and refuse for the hungry
+soldiers. "This was certainly such a masterly trait of generalship in a
+savage people, whom we affected to despise, as would have done honor to
+any European commander."
+
+From this time the Maroons fulfilled their threats. Shooting down without
+mercy every black ranger who came within their reach,--one of these
+rangers being, in Stedman's estimate, worth six white soldiers,--they
+left Col. Fougeaud and his regulars to die of starvation and fatigue. The
+enraged colonel, "finding himself thus foiled by a naked negro, swore he
+would pursue Bonny to the world's end." But he never got any nearer than
+to Bonny's kitchen-gardens. He put the troops on half-allowance, sent
+back for provisions and ammunition,--and within ten days changed his
+mind, and retreated to the settlements in despair. Soon after, this very
+body of rebels, under Bonny's leadership, plundered two plantations in
+the vicinity, and nearly captured a powder-magazine, which was, however,
+successfully defended by some armed slaves.
+
+For a year longer these expeditions continued. The troops never gained a
+victory, and they lost twenty men for every rebel killed; but they
+gradually checked the plunder of plantations, destroyed villages and
+planting-grounds, and drove the rebels, for the time at least, into the
+deeper recesses of the woods, or into the adjacent province of Cayenne.
+They had the slight satisfaction of burning Bonny's own house, a
+two-story wooden hut, built in the fashion of our frontier guardhouses.
+They often took single prisoners,--some child, born and bred in the
+woods, and frightened equally by the first sight of a white man and of a
+cow,--or some warrior, who, on being threatened with torture, stretched
+forth both hands in disdain, and said, with Indian eloquence, "These
+hands have made tigers tremble." As for Stedman, he still went
+barefooted, still quarrelled with his colonel, still sketched the scenery
+and described the reptiles, still reared greegree worms for his private
+kitchen, still quoted good poetry and wrote execrable, still pitied all
+the sufferers around him, black, white, and red, until finally he and his
+comrades were ordered back to Holland in 1776.
+
+Among all that wasted regiment of weary and broken-down men, there was
+probably no one but Stedman who looked backward with longing as they
+sailed down the lovely Surinam. True, he bore all his precious
+collections with him,--parrots and butterflies, drawings on the backs of
+old letters, and journals kept on bones and cartridges. But he had left
+behind him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his eccentric
+narrative a single thread of pure romance, in his love for his beautiful
+quadroon wife and his only son.
+
+Within a month after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign
+first saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate
+friend. Her extreme beauty and modesty first fascinated him, and then her
+piteous narrative,--for she was the daughter of a planter, who had just
+gone mad and died in despair from the discovery that he could not legally
+emancipate his own children from slavery. Soon after, Stedman was
+dangerously ill, was neglected and alone; fruits and cordials were
+anonymously sent to him, which proved at last to have come from Joanna;
+and she came herself, ere long, and nursed him, grateful for the visible
+sympathy he had shown to her. This completed the conquest; the passionate
+young Englishman, once recovered, loaded her with presents which she
+refused; talked of purchasing her, and educating her in Europe, which she
+also declined as burdening him too greatly; and finally, amid the
+ridicule of all good society in Paramaribo, surmounted all legal
+obstacles, and was united to the beautiful girl in honorable marriage. He
+provided a cottage for her, where he spent his furloughs, in perfect
+happiness, for four years.
+
+The simple idyl of their loves was unbroken by any stain or
+disappointment, and yet always shadowed with the deepest anxiety for the
+future. Though treated with the utmost indulgence, she was legally a
+slave, and so was the boy of whom she became the mother. Cojo, her uncle,
+was a captain among the rebels against whom her husband fought. And up to
+the time when Stedman was ordered back to Holland, he was unable to
+purchase her freedom; nor could he, until the very last moment, procure
+the emancipation of his boy. His perfect delight at this last triumph,
+when obtained, elicited some satire from his white friends. "While the
+well-thinking few highly applauded my sensibility, many not only blamed
+but publicly derided me for my paternal affection, which was called a
+weakness, a whim." "Nearly forty beautiful boys and girls were left to
+perpetual slavery by their parents of my acquaintance, and many of them
+without being so much as once inquired after at all."
+
+But Stedman was a true-hearted fellow, if his sentiment did sometimes run
+to rodomontade; he left his Joanna only in the hope that a year or two in
+Europe would repair his ruined fortunes, and he could return to treat
+himself to the purchase of his own wedded wife. He describes, with
+unaffected pathos, their parting scene,--though, indeed, there were
+several successive partings,--and closes the description in a
+characteristic manner: "My melancholy having surpassed all description, I
+at last determined to weather one or two painful years in her absence;
+and in the afternoon went to dissipate my mind at a Mr. Roux' cabinet of
+Indian curiosities; where, as my eye chanced to fall on a rattlesnake, I
+will, before I leave the colony, describe this dangerous reptile."
+
+It was impossible to write the history of the Maroons of Surinam except
+through the biography of our ensign (at last promoted captain), because
+nearly all we know of them is through his quaint and picturesque
+narrative, with its profuse illustrations by his own hand. It is not
+fair, therefore, to end without chronicling his safe arrival in Holland,
+on June 3, 1777. It is a remarkable fact, that, after his life in the
+woods, even the Dutch looked slovenly to his eyes. "The inhabitants, who
+crowded about us, appeared but a disgusting assemblage of ill-formed and
+ill-dressed rabble,--so much had my prejudices been changed by living
+among Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to resemble those of a pig;
+their complexions were like the color of foul linen; they seemed to have
+no teeth, and to be covered over with rags and dirt. This prejudice,
+however, was not against these people only, but against all Europeans in
+general, when compared to the sparkling eyes, ivory teeth, shining skin,
+and remarkable cleanliness of those I had left behind me." Yet, in spite
+of these superior attractions, he never recrossed the Atlantic; for his
+Joanna died soon after, and his promising son, being sent to the father,
+was educated in England, became a midshipman in the navy, and was lost at
+sea. With his elegy, in which the last depths of bathos are sadly sounded
+by a mourning parent,--who is induced to print them only by "the effect
+they had on the sympathetic and ingenious Mrs. Cowley,"--the "Narrative
+of a Five Years' Expedition" closes.
+
+The war, which had cost the government forty thousand pounds a year, was
+ended, and left both parties essentially as when it began. The Maroons
+gradually returned to their old abodes, and, being unmolested themselves,
+left others unmolested thenceforward. Originally three thousand,--in
+Stedman's time, fifteen thousand,--they were estimated at seventy
+thousand by Capt. Alexander, who saw Guiana in 1831; and a later American
+scientific expedition, having visited them in their homes, reported them
+as still enjoying their wild freedom, and multiplying, while the Indians
+on the same soil decay. The beautiful forests of Surinam still make the
+morning gorgeous with their beauty, and the night deadly with their
+chill; the stately palm still rears, a hundred feet in air, its straight
+gray shaft and its head of verdure; the mora builds its solid, buttressed
+trunk, a pedestal for the eagle; the pine of the tropics holds out its
+myriad hands with water-cups for the rain and dews, where all the birds
+and the monkeys may drink their fill; the trees are garlanded with
+epiphytes and convolvuli, and anchored to the earth by a thousand vines.
+High among their branches, the red and yellow mocking-birds still build
+their hanging nests, uncouth storks and tree-porcupines cling above, and
+the spotted deer and the tapir drink from the sluggish stream below. The
+night is still made noisy with a thousand cries of bird and beast; and
+the stillness of the sultry noon is broken by the slow tolling of the
+_campanero_, or bell-bird, far in the deep, dark woods, like the chime of
+some lost convent. And as Nature is unchanged there, so apparently is
+man; the Maroons still retain their savage freedom, still shoot their
+wild game and trap their fish, still raise their rice and cassava, yams
+and plantains,--still make cups from the gourd-tree and hammocks from the
+silk-grass plant, wine from the palm-tree's sap, brooms from its leaves,
+fishing-lines from its fibres, and salt from its ashes. Their life does
+not yield, indeed, the very highest results of spiritual culture; its
+mental and moral results may not come up to the level of civilization,
+but they rise far above the level of slavery. In the changes of time, the
+Maroons may yet elevate themselves into the one, but they will never
+relapse into the other.
+
+
+
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+
+In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true records of
+Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a plot
+perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain
+obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the
+political events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the
+scanty traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in
+public libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for
+American history are vanishing,--since not one of our great institutions
+possessed, a few years since, a file of any Southern newspaper of the
+year 1800,--yet the little which I have gained may have an interest that
+makes it worth preserving. Three times, at intervals of thirty years, did
+a wave of unutterable terror sweep across the Old Dominion, bringing
+thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every
+Virginian slave. Each time did one man's name become a spell of dismay
+and a symbol of deliverance. Each time did that name eclipse its
+predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory: John
+Brown revived the story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat Turner recalled
+the vaster schemes of Gabriel.
+
+On Sept. 8, 1800, a Virginia correspondent wrote thus to the Philadelphia
+_United-States Gazette:_--
+
+    "For the week past, we have been under momentary expectation of a
+    rising among the negroes, who have assembled to the number of
+    nine hundred or a thousand, and threatened to massacre all the
+    whites. They are armed with desperate weapons, and secrete
+    themselves in the woods. God only knows our fate: we have strong
+    guards every night under arms."
+
+It was no wonder, if there were foundation for such rumors. Liberty was
+the creed or the cant of the day. France was being disturbed by
+revolution, and England by Clarkson. In America, slavery was habitually
+recognized as a misfortune and an error, only to be palliated by the
+nearness of its expected end. How freely anti-slavery pamphlets had been
+circulated in Virginia, we know from the priceless volumes collected and
+annotated by Washington, and now preserved in the Boston Athenaeum.
+Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," itself an anti-slavery tract, had passed
+through seven editions. Judge St. George Tucker, law-professor in William
+and Mary College, had recently published his noble work, "A Dissertation
+on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State
+of Virginia." From all this agitation, a slave insurrection was a mere
+corollary. With so much electricity in the air, a single flash of
+lightning foreboded all the terrors of the tempest. Let but a single
+armed negro be seen or suspected, and at once, on many a lonely
+plantation, there were trembling hands at work to bar doors and windows
+that seldom had been even closed before, and there was shuddering when a
+gray squirrel scrambled over the roof, or a shower of walnuts came down
+clattering from the overhanging boughs.
+
+Early in September, 1800, as a certain Mr. Moseley Sheppard, of Henrico
+County in Virginia, was one day sitting in his counting-room, two negroes
+knocked at the door, and were let in. They shut the door themselves, and
+began to unfold an insurrectionary plot, which was subsequently repeated
+by one of them, named Ben Woodfolk or Woolfolk, in presence of the court,
+on the 15th of the same month.
+
+He stated, that about the first of the preceding June, he had been asked
+by a negro named Colonel George whether he would like to be made a Mason.
+He refused; but George ultimately prevailed on him to have an interview
+with a certain leading man among the blacks, named Gabriel. Arrived at
+the place of meeting, he found many persons assembled, to whom a
+preliminary oath was administered, that they would keep secret all which
+they might hear. The leaders then began, to the dismay of this witness,
+to allude to a plan of insurrection, which, as they stated, was already
+far advanced toward maturity. Presently a man named Martin, Gabriel's
+brother, proposed religious services, caused the company to be duly
+seated, and began an impassioned exposition of Scripture, bearing upon
+the perilous theme. The Israelites were glowingly portrayed as a type of
+successful resistance to tyranny; and it was argued, that now, as then,
+God would stretch forth his arm to save, and would strengthen a hundred
+to overthrow a thousand. Thus passed, the witness stated, this
+preparatory meeting. At a subsequent gathering the affair was brought to
+a point; and the only difficult question was, whether to rise in
+rebellion upon a certain Saturday, or upon the Sunday following. Gabriel
+said that Saturday was the day already fixed, and that it must not be
+altered; but George was for changing it to Sunday, as being more
+convenient for the country negroes, who could travel on that day without
+suspicion. Gabriel, however, said decisively that they had enough to
+carry Richmond without them; and Saturday was therefore retained as the
+momentous day.
+
+This was the confession, so far as it is now accessible; and on the
+strength of it, Ben Woolfolk was promptly pardoned by the court for all
+his sins, past, present, or to come, and they proceeded with their
+investigation. Of Gabriel little appeared to be known, except that he had
+been the property of Thomas Prosser, a young man who had recently
+inherited a plantation a few miles from Richmond, and who had the
+reputation among his neighbors of "behaving with great barbarity to his
+slaves." Gabriel was, however, reported to be "a fellow of courage and
+intellect above his rank in life," to be about twenty-five years of age,
+and to be guiltless of the alphabet.
+
+Further inquiry made it appear that the preparations of the insurgents
+were hardly adequate to any grand revolutionary design,--at least, if
+they proposed to begin with open warfare. The commissariat may have been
+well organized, for black Virginians are apt to have a prudent eye to the
+larder; but the ordnance department and the treasury were as low as if
+Secretary Floyd had been in charge of them. A slave called "Prosser's
+Ben" testified that he went with Gabriel to see Ben Woolfolk, who was
+going to Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three
+shillings for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in
+recruiting men." Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted
+of a peck of bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords,
+made by Gabriel's brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel
+himself. "These cutlasses," said subsequently a white eye-witness, "are
+made of scythes cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have
+never seen arms so murderous. Those who still doubt the importance of the
+conspiracy which has been so fortunately frustrated would shudder with
+horror at the sight of these instruments of death." And as it presently
+appeared that a conspirator named Scott had astonished his master by
+accidentally pulling ten dollars from a ragged pocket which seemed
+inadequate to the custody of ten cents, it was agreed that the plot might
+still be dangerous, even though the resources seemed limited.
+
+And indeed, as was soon discovered, the effective weapon of the
+insurgents lay in the very audacity of their plan. If the current
+statements of all the Virginia letter-writers were true, "nothing could
+have been better contrived." It was to have taken effect on the first day
+of September. The rendezvous for the blacks was to be a brook six miles
+from Richmond. Eleven hundred men were to assemble there, and were to be
+divided into three columns, their officers having been designated in
+advance. All were to march on Richmond,--then a town of eight thousand
+inhabitants,--under cover of night. The right wing was instantly to seize
+upon the penitentiary building, just converted into an arsenal; while the
+left wing was to take possession of the powder-house. These two columns
+were to be armed chiefly with clubs, as their undertaking depended for
+success upon surprise, and was expected to prevail without hard fighting.
+But it was the central force, armed with muskets, cutlasses, knives, and
+pikes, upon which the chief responsibility rested; these men were to
+enter the town at both ends simultaneously, and begin a general carnage,
+none being excepted save the French inhabitants, who were supposed for
+some reason to be friendly to the negroes. In a very few hours, it was
+thought, they would have entire control of the metropolis. And that this
+hope was not in the least unreasonable, was shown by the subsequent
+confessions of weakness from the whites. "They could scarcely have failed
+of success," wrote the Richmond correspondent of the Boston _Chronicle_;
+"for, after all, we could only muster four or five hundred men, of whom
+not more than thirty had muskets."
+
+For the insurgents, if successful, the penitentiary held several thousand
+stand of arms; the powder-house was well stocked; the Capitol contained
+the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of the
+bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus
+secured and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to
+their standard "their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity
+throughout the continent." In a week, it was estimated, they would have
+fifty thousand men on their side, with which force they could easily
+possess themselves of other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John
+Scott--possibly the dangerous possessor of the ten dollars--was already
+appointed to head the attack on Petersburg. But in case of final failure,
+the project included a retreat to the mountains, with their new-found
+property. John Brown was therefore anticipated by Gabriel, sixty years
+before, in believing the Virginia mountains to have been "created, from
+the foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves."
+
+These are the statements of the contemporary witnesses; they are repeated
+in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear and
+consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or under-stated, it
+is now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of Sept. 12
+(quoted in the New-York _Gazette_ of Sept. 18) declares that "the plot
+has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and, had the attempt been
+made to carry it into execution, but little resistance would have been
+required to render the scheme entirely abortive." But it is necessary to
+remember that this is no more than the Charleston newspapers said at the
+very crisis of Denmark Vesey's formidable plot. "Last evening," wrote a
+lady from Charleston in 1822, "twenty-five hundred of our citizens were
+under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a subject _not to
+be mentioned_ [so underscored]; and unless you hear of it elsewhere, say
+nothing about it." Thus it is always hard to know whether to assume the
+facts of an insurrection as above or below the estimates. This Virginian
+excitement also happened at a period of intense political agitation, and
+was seized upon as a boon by the Federalists. The very article above
+quoted is ironically headed "Holy Insurrection," and takes its motto from
+Jefferson, with profuse capital letters: "The Spirit of the Master is
+abating, that of the Slave rising from the dust, his condition
+mollifying."
+
+In view of the political aspect thus given to the plot, and of its
+ingenuity and thoroughness likewise, the Virginians were naturally
+disposed to attribute to white men some share in it; and speculation
+presently began to run wild. The newspapers were soon full of theories,
+no two being alike, and no one credible. The plot originated, some said,
+in certain handbills written by Jefferson's friend Callender, then in
+prison at Richmond on a charge of sedition; these were circulated by two
+French negroes, aided by a "United Irishman" calling himself a Methodist
+preacher, and it was in consideration of these services that no Frenchman
+was to be injured by the slaves. When Gabriel was arrested, the editor of
+the _United-States Gazette_ affected much diplomatic surprise that no
+letters were _yet_ found upon his person "from Fries, Gallatin, or Duane,
+nor was he at the time of his capture accompanied by any United
+Irishman." "He, however, acknowledges that there are others concerned,
+and that he is not the principal instigator." All Federalists agreed that
+the Southern Democratic talk was constructive insurrection,--which it
+certainly was,---and they painted graphic pictures of noisy "Jacobins"
+over their wine, and eager dusky listeners behind their chairs. "It is
+evident that the French principles of liberty and equality have been
+effused into the minds of the negroes, and that the incautious and
+intemperate use of the words by some whites among us have inspired them
+with hopes of success." "While the fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate
+their _French babble_ of the natural equality of man, the insulted negro
+will be constantly stimulated to cast away his cords, and to sharpen his
+pike." "It is, moreover, believed, though not positively known, that a
+great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished
+by the burlesque appellation of _Democrats_) are implicated with the
+blacks, and would have joined them if they had commenced their
+operations.... The Jacobin printers and their friends are panic-struck.
+Never was terror more strongly depicted in the countenances of men."
+These extracts from three different Federalist newspapers show the
+amiable emotions of that side of the house; while Democratic Duane, in
+the _Aurora_, could find no better repartee than to attribute the whole
+trouble to the policy of the administration in renewing commercial
+intercourse with San Domingo.
+
+I have discovered in the Norfolk _Epitome of the Times_, for Oct. 9,
+1800, a remarkable epistle written from Richmond Jail by the unfortunate
+Callender himself. He indignantly denies the charges against the
+Democrats, of complicity in dangerous plots, boldly retorting them upon
+the Federalists. "An insurrection at this critical moment by the negroes
+of the Southern States would have thrown every thing into confusion, and
+consequently it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole
+or the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a
+disaster must have tended directly to injure the interests of Mr.
+Jefferson, and to promote the slender possibility of a second election of
+Mr. Adams." And, to be sure, the _United-States Gazette_ followed up the
+thing with a good, single-minded party malice which cannot be surpassed
+in these present days, ending in such altitudes of sublime coolness as
+the following: "The insurrection of the negroes in the Southern States,
+which appears to be organized on the true French plan, must be decisive,
+with every reflecting man in those States, of the election of Mr. Adams
+and Gen. Pinckney. The military skill and approved bravery of the general
+must be peculiarly valuable to his countrymen at these trying moments."
+Let us have a military Vice-President, by all means, to meet this
+formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets, and this unexplained
+three shillings in the pocket of "Prosser's Ben"!
+
+But Gabriel's campaign failed, like that of the Federalists; and the
+appointed day brought disasters more fatal than even the sword of Gen.
+Pinckney. The affrighted negroes declared that "the stars in their
+courses fought against Sisera." The most furious tempest ever known in
+Virginia burst upon the land that day, instead of an insurrection. Roads
+and plantations were submerged. Bridges were carried away. The fords,
+which then, as now, were the frequent substitutes for bridges in that
+region, were rendered wholly impassable. The Brook Swamp, one of the most
+important strategic points of the insurgents, was entirely inundated,
+hopelessly dividing Prosser's farm from Richmond; the country negroes
+could not get in, nor those from the city get out. The thousand men
+dwindled to a few hundred, and these half paralyzed by superstition;
+there was nothing to do but to dismiss them, and before they could
+re-assemble they were betrayed.
+
+That the greatest alarm was instantly created throughout the community,
+there is no question. All the city of Richmond was in arms, and in all
+large towns of the State the night-patrol was doubled. It is a little
+amusing to find it formally announced, that "the Governor, impressed with
+the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three
+aides-de-camp." A troop of United-States cavalry was ordered to Richmond.
+Numerous arrests were made. Men were convicted on one day, and hanged on
+the next,--five, six, ten, fifteen at a time, almost without evidence.
+Three hundred dollars were offered by Gov. Monroe for the arrest of
+Gabriel; as much more for another chief named Jack Bowler, _alias_
+Ditcher; whereupon Bowler _alias_ Ditcher surrendered himself, but it
+took some weeks to get upon the track of Gabriel. He was finally captured
+at Norfolk, on board a schooner just arrived from Richmond, in whose hold
+he had concealed himself for eleven days, having thrown overboard a
+bayonet and bludgeon, which were his only arms. Crowds of people
+collected to see him, including many of his own color. He was arrested on
+Sept. 24, convicted on Oct. 3, and executed on Oct. 7; and it is known of
+him further, only, that, like almost all leaders of slave insurrections,
+he showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay. "When he was
+apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and confidence,
+showing not the least disposition to equivocate, or screen himself from
+justice,"--but making no confession that could implicate any one else.
+"The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk
+_Epitome_ of Sept. 25, "was such as might be expected from a mind capable
+of forming the daring project which he had conceived." The _United-States
+Gazette_ for Oct. 9 states, more sarcastically, that "the general is said
+to have manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of
+heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather
+than gratify the officious inquiries of the Governor."
+
+Some of these newspapers suggest that the authorities found it good
+policy to omit the statement made by Gabriel, whatever it was. At any
+rate, he assured them that he was by no means the sole instigator of the
+affair; he could name many, even in Norfolk, who were more deeply
+concerned. To his brother Solomon he is said to have stated that the real
+head of the plot was Jack Bowler. Still another leader was "Gen. John
+Scott," already mentioned, the slave of Mr. Greenhow, hired by Mr.
+McCrea. He was captured by his employer in Norfolk, just as he was boldly
+entering a public conveyance to escape; and the Baltimore _Telegraphe_
+declared that he had a written paper directing him to apply to Alexander
+Biddenhurst or Weddenhurst in Philadelphia, "corner of Coats Alley and
+Budd Street, who would supply his needs." What became of this military
+individual, or of his Philadelphia sympathizers, does not appear. But it
+was noticed, as usually happens in such cases, that all the insurgents
+had previously passed for saints. "It consists within my knowledge," says
+one letter-writer, "that many of these wretches who were or would have
+been partakers in the plot have been treated with the utmost tenderness
+by their masters, and were more like children than slaves."
+
+These appear to be all the details now accessible of this once famous
+plot. They were not very freely published, even at the time. "The
+minutiae of the conspiracy have not been detailed to the public," said
+the Salem (Mass.) _Gazette_ of Oct. 7, "and perhaps, through a mistaken
+notion of prudence and policy, will not be detailed in the Richmond
+papers." The New-York _Commercial Advertiser_ of Oct. 13 was still more
+explicit. "The trials of the negroes concerned in the late insurrection
+are suspended until the opinions of the Legislature can be had on the
+subject. This measure is said to be owing to the immense numbers who are
+interested in the plot, whose death, should they all be found guilty and
+be executed, will nearly produce the annihilation of the blacks in this
+part of the country." And in the next issue of the same journal a
+Richmond correspondent makes a similar statement, with the following
+addition: "A conditional amnesty is perhaps expected. At the next session
+of the Legislature [of Virginia], they took into consideration the
+subject referred to them, in secret session, with closed doors. The whole
+result of their deliberations has never yet been made public, as the
+injunction of secrecy has never been removed. To satisfy the court, the
+public, and themselves, they had a task so difficult to perform, that it
+is not surprising that their deliberations were in secret."
+
+It is a matter of historical interest to know that in these mysterious
+sessions lay the germs of the American Colonization Society. A
+correspondence was at once secretly commenced between the Governor of
+Virginia and the President of the United States, with a view to securing
+a grant of land whither troublesome slaves might be banished. Nothing
+came of it then; but in 1801, 1802, and 1804, these attempts were
+renewed. And finally, on Jan. 22, 1805, the following vote was passed,
+still in secret session: "_Resolved_, that the Senators of this State in
+the Congress of the United States be instructed, and the Representatives
+be requested, to use their best efforts for the obtaining from the
+General Government a competent portion of territory in the State of
+Louisiana, to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as
+have been or shall be emancipated, or hereafter may become dangerous to
+the public safety," etc. But of all these efforts nothing was known till
+their record was accidentally discovered by Charles Fenton Mercer in
+1816. He at once brought the matter to light, and moved a similar
+resolution in the Virginia Legislature; it was almost unanimously
+adopted, and the first formal meeting of the Colonization Society, in
+1817, was called "in aid" of this Virginia movement. But the whole
+correspondence was never made public until the Nat Turner insurrection of
+1831 recalled the previous excitement; and these papers were demanded by
+Mr. Summers, a member of the Legislature, who described them as "having
+originated in a convulsion similar to that which had recently, but more
+terribly, occurred."
+
+But neither these subsequent papers, nor any documents which now appear
+accessible, can supply any authentic or trustworthy evidence as to the
+real extent of the earlier plot. It certainly was not confined to the
+mere environs of Richmond. The Norfolk _Epitome_ of Oct. 6 states that on
+the 6th and 7th of the previous month one hundred and fifty blacks,
+including twenty from Norfolk, were assembled near Whitlock's Mills in
+Suffolk County, and remained in the neighborhood till the failure of the
+Richmond plan became known. Petersburg newspapers also had letters
+containing similar tales. Then the alarm spread more widely. Near
+Edenton, N.C., there was undoubtedly a real insurrection, though promptly
+suppressed; and many families ultimately removed from that vicinity in
+consequence. In Charleston, S.C., there was still greater excitement, if
+the contemporary press may be trusted; it was reported that the
+freeholders had been summoned to appear in arms, on penalty of a fine of
+fifteen pounds, which many preferred to pay rather than risk taking the
+fever which then prevailed. These reports were, however, zealously
+contradicted in letters from Charleston, dated Oct. 8; and the Charleston
+newspapers up to Sept. 17 had certainly contained no reference to any
+especial excitement. This alone might not settle the fact, for reasons
+already given. But the omission of any such affair from the valuable
+pamphlet published in 1822 by Edwin C. Holland, containing reminiscences
+of insurrections in South Carolina, is presumptive evidence that no very
+extended agitation occurred.
+
+But wherever there was a black population, slave or emancipated, men's
+startled consciences made cowards of them all, and recognized the negro
+as a dangerous man, because an injured one. In Philadelphia it was
+seriously proposed to prohibit the use of sky-rockets for a time, because
+they had been employed as signals in San Domingo. "Even in Boston," said
+the New-York _Daily Advertiser_ of Sept. 20, "fears are expressed, and
+measures of prevention adopted." This probably refers to a singular
+advertisement which appeared in some of the Boston newspapers on Sept.
+16, and runs as follows:--
+
+    "NOTICE TO BLACKS.
+
+    "The officers of the police having made returns to the subscriber
+    of the names of the following persons who are Africans or
+    negroes, not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of
+    any of the United States, the same are hereby warned and directed
+    to depart out of this Commonwealth before the tenth day of
+    October next, as they would avoid the pains and penalties of the
+    law in that case provided, which was passed by the Legislature
+    March 26, 1788.
+
+    "CHARLES BULFINCH, Superintendent.
+
+    "By order and direction of the Selectmen."
+
+The names annexed are about three hundred, with the places of their
+supposed origin, and they occupy a column of the paper. So at least
+asserts the _United-States Gazette_ of Sept. 23. "It seems probable,"
+adds the editor, "from the nature of the notice, that some suspicion of
+the design of the negroes is entertained; and we regret to say there is
+too much cause." The law of 1788 above mentioned was "An Act for
+suppressing rogues, vagabonds, and the like," which forbade all persons
+of African descent, unless citizens of some one of the United States or
+subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, from remaining more than two months
+within the Commonwealth, on penalty of imprisonment and hard labor. This
+singular statute remained unrepealed until 1834.
+
+Amid the general harmony in the contemporary narratives of Gabriel's
+insurrection, it would be improper to pass by one exceptional legend,
+which by some singular fatality has obtained more circulation than all
+the true accounts put together. I can trace it no farther back than Nat
+Turner's time, when it was published in the Albany _Evening Journal_;
+thence transferred to the _Liberator_ of Sept. 17, 1831, and many other
+newspapers; then refuted in detail by the _Richmond Enquirer_ of Oct. 21;
+then resuscitated in the John-Brown epoch by the Philadelphia _Press_,
+and extensively copied. It is fresh, spirited, and full of graphic and
+interesting details, nearly every one of which is altogether false.
+
+Gabriel in this narrative becomes a rather mythical being, of vast
+abilities and life-long preparations. He bought his freedom, it is
+stated, at the age of twenty-one, and then travelled all over the
+Southern States, enlisting confederates and forming stores of arms. At
+length his plot was discovered, in consequence of three negroes having
+been seen riding out of a stable-yard together; and the Governor offered
+a reward of ten thousand dollars for further information, to which a
+Richmond gentleman added as much more. Gabriel concealed himself on board
+the "Sally Ann," a vessel just sailing for San Domingo, and was revealed
+by his little nephew, whom he had sent for a jug of rum. Finally, the
+narrative puts an eloquent dying speech into Gabriel's mouth, and, to
+give a properly tragic consummation, causes him to be torn to death by
+four wild horses. The last item is, however, omitted in the more recent
+reprints of the story.
+
+Every one of these statements appears to be absolutely erroneous. Gabriel
+lived and died a slave, and was probably never out of Virginia. His plot
+was voluntarily revealed by accomplices. The rewards offered for his
+arrest amounted to three hundred dollars only. He concealed himself on
+board the schooner "Mary," bound to Norfolk, and was discovered by the
+police. He died on the gallows, with ten associates, having made no
+address to the court or the people. All the errors of the statement were
+contradicted when it was first made public, but they have proved very
+hard to kill.
+
+Some of these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with
+this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both
+being composed by a colored man. Several witnesses have assured me of
+having heard this sung in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of
+the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It is surely one
+of history's strange parallelisms, that this fatal enterprise, like that
+of John Brown afterwards, should thus have embalmed itself in music. And
+twenty-two years after these events, their impression still remained
+vivid enough for Benjamin Lundy, in Tennessee, to write: "So well had
+they matured their plot, and so completely had they organized their
+system of operations, that nothing but a seemingly miraculous
+intervention of the arm of Providence was supposed to have been capable
+of saving the city from pillage and flames, and the inhabitants thereof
+from butchery. So dreadful was the alarm and so great the consternation
+produced on this occasion, that a member of Congress from that State was
+some time after heard to express himself in his place as follows: 'The
+night-bell is never heard to toll in the city of Richmond, but the
+anxious mother presses her infant more closely to her bosom.'" The
+Congressman was John Randolph of Roanoke, and it was Gabriel who had
+taught him the lesson.
+
+And longer than the melancholy life of that wayward statesman,--down even
+to the beginning of the American civil war,--there lingered in Richmond a
+memorial of those days, most peculiar and most instructive. Before the
+days of secession, when the Northern traveller in Virginia, after
+traversing for weary leagues its miry ways, its desolate fields, and its
+flowery forests, rode at last into its metropolis, he was sure to be
+guided ere long to visit its stately Capitol, modelled by Jefferson, when
+French minister, from the Maison Carree. Standing before it, he might
+admire undisturbed the Grecian outline of its exterior; but he found
+himself forbidden to enter, save by passing an armed and uniformed
+sentinel at the doorway. No other State of the Union then found it
+necessary to protect its State House by a permanent cordon of bayonets.
+Yet there for half a century stood sentinel the "Public Guard" of
+Virginia; and when the traveller asked the origin of the precaution, he
+was told that it was the lasting memorial of Gabriel's Defeat.
+
+
+
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+
+On Saturday afternoon, May 25, 1822, a slave named Devany, belonging to
+Col. Prioleau of Charleston, S.C., was sent to market by his
+mistress,--the colonel being absent in the country. After doing his
+errands, he strolled down upon the wharves in the enjoyment of that
+magnificent wealth of leisure which usually characterized the former
+"house-servant" of the South, when beyond hail of the street-door. He
+presently noticed a small vessel lying in the stream, with a peculiar
+flag flying; and while looking at it, he was accosted by a slave named
+William, belonging to Mr. John Paul, who remarked to him, "I have often
+seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number 96 upon it
+before." After some further conversation on this trifling point, William
+suddenly inquired, "Do you know that something serious is about to take
+place?" Devany disclaiming the knowledge of any graver impending crisis
+than the family dinner, the other went on to inform him that many of the
+slaves were "determined to right themselves." "We are determined," he
+added, "to shake off our bondage, and for that purpose we stand on a good
+foundation; many have joined, and if you will go with me, I will show you
+the man who has the list of names, and who will take yours down."
+
+This startling disclosure was quite too much for Devany: he was made of
+the wrong material for so daring a project; his genius was culinary, not
+revolutionary. Giving some excuse for breaking off the conversation, he
+went forthwith to consult a free colored man, named Pensil or Pencell,
+who advised him to warn his master instantly. So he lost no time in
+telling the secret to his mistress and her young son; and on the return
+of Col. Prioleau from the country, five days afterward, it was at once
+revealed to him. Within an hour or two he stated the facts to Mr.
+Hamilton, the intendant, or, as he would now be called, mayor; Mr.
+Hamilton at once summoned the corporation, and by five o'clock Devany and
+William were under examination.
+
+This was the first warning of a plot which ultimately filled Charleston
+with terror. And yet so thorough and so secret was the organization of
+the negroes, that a fortnight passed without yielding the slightest
+information beyond the very little which was obtained from these two.
+William Paul was, indeed, put in confinement, and soon gave evidence
+inculpating two slaves as his employers,--Mingo Harth and Peter Poyas.
+But these men, when arrested, behaved with such perfect coolness, and
+treated the charge with such entire levity;--their trunks and premises,
+when searched, were so innocent of all alarming contents;--that they were
+soon discharged by the wardens. William Paul at length became alarmed for
+his own safety, and began to let out further facts piecemeal, and to
+inculpate other men. But some of those very men came voluntarily to the
+intendant, on hearing that they were suspected, and indignantly offered
+themselves for examination. Puzzled and bewildered, the municipal
+government kept the thing as secret as possible, placed the city guard in
+an efficient condition, provided sixteen hundred rounds of ball
+cartridges, and ordered the sentinels and patrols to be armed with loaded
+muskets. "Such had been our fancied security, that the guard had
+previously gone on duty without muskets, and with only sheathed bayonets
+and bludgeons."
+
+It has since been asserted, though perhaps on questionable authority,
+that the Secretary of War was informed of the plot, even including some
+details of the plan and the leader's name, before it was known in
+Charleston. If so, he utterly disregarded it; and, indeed, so well did
+the negroes play their part, that the whole report was eventually
+disbelieved, while--as was afterwards proved--they went on to complete
+their secret organization, and hastened by a fortnight the appointed day
+of attack. Unfortunately for their plans, however, another betrayal took
+place at the very last moment, from a different direction. A class-leader
+in a Methodist church had been persuaded or bribed by his master to
+procure further disclosures. He at length came and stated, that, about
+three months before, a man named Rolla, slave of Gov. Bennett, had
+communicated to a friend of his the fact of an intended insurrection, and
+had said that the time fixed for the outbreak was the following Sunday
+night, June 16. As this conversation took place on Friday, it gave but a
+very short time for the city authorities to act, especially as they
+wished neither to endanger the city nor to alarm it.
+
+Yet so cautiously was the game played on both sides that the whole thing
+was still kept a secret from the Charleston public; and some members of
+the city government did not fully appreciate their danger till they had
+passed it. "The whole was concealed," wrote the governor afterwards,
+"until the time came; but secret preparations were made. Saturday night
+and Sunday morning passed without demonstrations; doubts were excited,
+and counter orders issued for diminishing the guard." It afterwards
+proved that these preparations showed to the slaves that their plot was
+betrayed, and so saved the city without public alarm. Newspaper
+correspondence soon was full of the story, each informant of course
+hinting plainly that he had been behind the scenes all along, and had
+withheld it only to gratify the authorities in their policy of silence.
+It was "now no longer a secret," they wrote; adding, that, for five or
+six weeks, but little attention had been paid by the community to these
+rumors, the city council having kept it carefully to themselves until a
+number of suspicious slaves had been arrested. This refers to ten
+prisoners who were seized on June 18, an arrest which killed the plot,
+and left only the terrors of what might have been. The investigation,
+thus publicly commenced, soon revealed a free colored man named Denmark
+Vesey as the leader of the enterprise,--among his chief coadjutors being
+that innocent Peter and that unsuspecting Mingo who had been examined and
+discharged nearly three weeks before.
+
+It is matter of demonstration, that, but for the military preparations on
+the appointed Sunday night, the attempt would have been made. The
+ringleaders had actually met for their final arrangements, when, by
+comparing notes, they found themselves foiled; and within another week
+they were prisoners on trial. Nevertheless, the plot which they had laid
+was the most elaborate insurrectionary project ever formed by American
+slaves, and came the nearest to a terrible success. In boldness of
+conception and thoroughness of organization there has been nothing to
+compare with it; and it is worth while to dwell somewhat upon its
+details, first introducing the _dramatis personae_.
+
+Denmark Vesey had come very near figuring as a revolutionist in Hayti,
+instead of South Carolina. Capt. Vesey, an old resident of Charleston,
+commanded a ship that traded between St. Thomas and Cape Francais, during
+our Revolutionary War, in the slave-transportation line. In the year 1781
+he took on board a cargo of three hundred and ninety slaves, and sailed
+for the Cape. On the passage, he and his officers were much attracted by
+the beauty and intelligence of a boy of fourteen, whom they unanimously
+adopted into the cabin as a pet. They gave him new clothes, and a new
+name, Telemaque, which was afterwards gradually corrupted into Telmak and
+Denmark. They amused themselves with him until their arrival at Cape
+Francais, and then, "having no use for the boy," sold their pet as if he
+had been a macaw or a monkey. Capt. Vesey sailed for St. Thomas; and,
+presently making another trip to Cape Francais, was surprised to hear
+from his consignee that Telemaque would be returned on his hands as being
+"unsound,"--not in theology nor in morals, but in body,--subject to
+epileptic fits, in fact. According to the custom of that place, the boy
+was examined by the city physician, who required Capt. Vesey to take him
+back; and Denmark served him faithfully, with no trouble from epilepsy,
+for twenty years, travelling all over the world with him, and learning to
+speak various languages. In 1800 he drew a prize of fifteen hundred
+dollars in the East Bay-street Lottery, with which he bought his freedom
+from his master for six hundred dollars,--much less than his market
+value. From that time, the official report says, he worked as a carpenter
+in Charleston, distinguished for physical strength and energy. "Among
+those of his color he was looked up to with awe and respect. His temper
+was impetuous and domineering in the extreme, qualifying him for the
+despotic rule of which he was ambitious. All his passions were
+ungovernable and savage; and to his numerous wives and children he
+displayed the haughty and capricious cruelty of an Eastern bashaw."
+
+"For several years before he disclosed his intentions to any one, he
+appears to have been constantly and assiduously engaged in endeavoring to
+imbitter the minds of the colored population against the white. He
+rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of the
+Scriptures which he thought he could pervert to his purpose, and would
+readily quote them to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God;
+that slaves were bound to attempt their emancipation, however shocking
+and bloody might be the consequences; and that such efforts would not
+only be pleasing to the Almighty, but were absolutely enjoined, and their
+success predicted, in the Scriptures. His favorite texts when he
+addressed those of his own color were Zech. xiv. 1-3, and Josh. vi. 21;
+and in all his conversations he identified their situation with that of
+the Israelites. The number of inflammatory pamphlets on slavery brought
+into Charleston from some of our sister States within the last four years
+(and once from Sierra Leone), and distributed amongst the colored
+population of the city, for which there was a great facility, in
+consequence of the unrestricted intercourse allowed to persons of color
+between the different States in the Union, and the speeches in Congress
+of those opposed to the admission of Missouri into the Union, perhaps
+garbled and misrepresented, furnished him with ample means for inflaming
+the minds of the colored population of the State; and by distorting
+certain parts of those speeches, or selecting from them particular
+passages, he persuaded but too many that Congress had actually declared
+them free, and that they were held in bondage contrary to the laws of the
+land. Even whilst walking through the streets in company with another, he
+was not idle; for if his companion bowed to a white person, he would
+rebuke him, and observe that all men were born equal, and that he was
+surprised that any one would degrade himself by such conduct; that he
+would never cringe to the whites, nor ought any one who had the feelings
+of a man. When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would sarcastically and
+indignantly reply, 'You deserve to remain slaves;' and if he were further
+asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, 'Go and buy a spelling-book,
+and read the fable of Hercules and the Wagoner,' which he would then
+repeat, and apply it to their situation. He also sought every opportunity
+of entering into conversation with white persons, when they could be
+overheard by negroes near by, especially in grog-shops,--during which
+conversation he would artfully introduce some bold remark on slavery; and
+sometimes, when, from the character he was conversing with, he found he
+might still be bolder, he would go so far, that, had not his declarations
+in such situations been clearly proved, they would scarcely have been
+credited. He continued this course until some time after the commencement
+of the last winter; by which time he had not only obtained incredible
+influence amongst persons of color, but many feared him more than their
+owners, and, one of them declared, even more than his God."
+
+It was proved against him, that his house had been the principal place of
+meeting for the conspirators, that all the others habitually referred to
+him as the leader, and that he had shown great address in dealing with
+different temperaments and overcoming a variety of scruples. One witness
+testified that Vesey had read to him from the Bible about the deliverance
+of the children of Israel; another, that he had read to him a speech
+which had been delivered "in Congress by a Mr. King" on the subject of
+slavery, and Vesey had said that "this Mr. King was the black man's
+friend; that he, Mr. King, had declared he would continue to speak,
+write, and publish pamphlets against slavery the longest day he lived,
+until the Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves, for that
+slavery was a great disgrace to the country." But among all the reports
+there are only two sentences which really reveal the secret soul of
+Denmark Vesey, and show his impulses and motives. "He said he did not go
+with Creighton to Africa, because he had not a will; he wanted to stay
+and see what he could do for his fellow-creatures." The other takes us
+still nearer home. Monday Gell stated in his confession, that Vesey, on
+first broaching the plan to him, said "he was satisfied with his own
+condition, being free; but, as all his children were slaves, he wished to
+see what could be done for them."
+
+It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent
+preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a
+condition of freedom, to the _naive_ astonishment of his judges. "It is
+difficult to imagine," says the sentence finally passed on Denmark Vesey,
+"what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprise so
+wild and visionary. You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and
+enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation. You had, therefore,
+much to risk and little to gain." Yet one witness testified: "Vesey said
+the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise. I
+said, I was living well; he said, though I was, others were not, and that
+'twas such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and
+that after all things were well he would mark me." "His general
+conversation," said another witness, a white boy, "was about religion,
+which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the
+creation of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights,
+blacks as well as whites, etc.; all his religious remarks were mingled
+with slavery." And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even
+after the betrayal of his cherished plans. "After the plot was
+discovered," said Monday Gell, in his confession, "Vesey said it was all
+over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned,
+by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying
+together."
+
+The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter
+Poyas. Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the
+organizing mind. He kept the register of "candidates," and decided who
+should or should not be enrolled. "We can't live so," he often reminded
+his confederates; "we must break the yoke." "God has a hand in it; we
+have been meeting for four years, and are not yet betrayed." Peter was a
+ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value. He was to be the military
+leader. His plans showed some natural generalship: he arranged the
+night-attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the
+streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition
+were kept for sale. He voluntarily undertook the management of the most
+difficult part of the enterprise,--the capture of the main
+guard-house,--and had pledged himself to advance alone and surprise the
+sentinel. He was said to have a magnetism in his eyes, of which his
+confederates stood in great awe; if he once got his eye upon a man, there
+was no resisting it. A white witness has since narrated, that, after his
+arrest, he was chained to the floor in a cell, with another of the
+conspirators. Men in authority came, and sought by promises, threats, and
+even tortures, to ascertain the names of other accomplices. His
+companion, wearied out with pain and suffering, and stimulated by the
+hope of saving his own life, at last began to yield. Peter raised
+himself, leaned upon his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying
+quietly, "Die like a man," and instantly lay down again. It was enough;
+not another word was extorted.
+
+One of the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack
+Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack,--Gullah signifying Angola, the
+place of his origin. A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in
+his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this side
+the Atlantic. For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense
+influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had the
+reputation of being invulnerable, and of teaching invulnerability as an
+art, he was very good at beating up recruits for insurrection. Over those
+of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made them
+join in the revolt as one man. They met him monthly at a place called
+Bulkley's Farm, selected because the black overseer on that plantation
+was one of the initiated, and because the farm was accessible by water,
+thus enabling them to elude the patrol. There they prepared cartridges
+and pikes, and had primitive banquets, which assumed a melodramatic
+character under the inspiriting guidance of Jack. If a fowl was privately
+roasted, that mystic individual muttered incantations over it; and then
+they all grasped at it, exclaiming, "Thus we pull Buckra to pieces!" He
+gave them parched corn and ground-nuts to be eaten as internal safeguards
+on the day before the outbreak, and a consecrated _cullah_, or crab's
+claw, to be carried in the mouth by each, as an amulet. These rather
+questionable means secured him a power which was very unquestionable; the
+witnesses examined in his presence all showed dread of his conjurations,
+and referred to him indirectly, with a kind of awe, as "the little man
+who can't be shot."
+
+When Gullah Jack was otherwise engaged, there seems to have been a sort
+of deputy seer employed in the enterprise, a blind man named Philip. He
+was a preacher; was said to have been born with a caul on his head, and
+so claimed the gift of second-sight. Timid adherents were brought to his
+house for ghostly counsel. "Why do you look so timorous?" he said to
+William Garner, and then quoted Scripture, "Let not your heart be
+troubled." That a blind man should know how he looked, was beyond the
+philosophy of the visitor; and this piece of rather cheap ingenuity
+carried the day.
+
+Other leaders were appointed also. Monday Gell was the scribe of the
+enterprise; he was a native African, who had learned to read and write.
+He was by trade a harness-maker, working chiefly on his own account. He
+confessed that he had written a letter to President Boyer of the new
+black republic; "the letter was about the sufferings of the blacks, and
+to know if the people of St. Domingo would help them if they made an
+effort to free themselves." This epistle was sent by the black cook of a
+Northern schooner, and the envelope was addressed to a relative of the
+bearer.
+
+Tom Russell was the armorer, and made pikes "on a very improved model,"
+the official report admits. Polydore Faber fitted the weapons with
+handles. Bacchus Hammett had charge of the fire-arms and ammunition, not
+as yet a laborious duty. William Garner and Mingo Harth were to lead the
+horse-company. Lot Forrester was the courier, and had done, no one ever
+knew how much, in the way of enlisting country negroes, of whom Ned
+Bennett was to take command when enlisted. Being the governor's servant,
+Ned was probably credited with some official experience. These were the
+officers: now for the plan of attack.
+
+It was the custom then, as later, for the country negroes to flock
+largely into Charleston on Sunday. More than a thousand came, on ordinary
+occasions, and a far larger number might at any time make their
+appearance without exciting any suspicion. They gathered in, especially
+by water, from the opposite sides of Ashley and Cooper Rivers, and from
+the neighboring islands; and they came in a great number of canoes of
+various sizes,--many of which could carry a hundred men,--which were
+ordinarily employed in bringing agricultural products to the Charleston
+market. To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city
+government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,--and
+that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were
+rather fearful of coming into town; and it was found, that, even then,
+there were more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday. This fact,
+then, was the essential point in the plan of insurrection. Whole
+plantations were found to have been enlisted among the "candidates," as
+they were termed; and it was proved that the city negroes, who lived
+nearest the place of meeting, had agreed to conceal these confederates in
+their houses to a large extent, on the night of the proposed outbreak.
+
+The details of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass
+of the confederates; they were known only to a few, and were finally to
+be announced only after the evening prayer-meetings on the appointed
+Sunday. But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work
+marked out. When the clock struck twelve, all were to move. Peter Poyas
+was to lead a party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined by
+a force from James's Island; he was then to march up and seize the
+arsenal and guard-house opposite St. Michael's Church, and detach a
+sufficient number to cut off all white citizens who should appear at the
+alarm-posts. A second body of negroes, from the country and the Neck,
+headed by Ned Bennett, was to assemble on the Neck, and seize the arsenal
+there. A third was to meet at Gov. Bennett's Mills, under command of
+Rolla, and, after putting the governor and intendant to death, to march
+through the city, or be posted at Cannon's Bridge, thus preventing the
+inhabitants of Cannonsborough from entering the city. A fourth, partly
+from the country, and partly from the neighboring localities in the city,
+was to rendezvous on Gadsden's Wharf, and attack the upper guard-house. A
+fifth, composed of country and Neck negroes, was to assemble at Bulkley's
+Farm, two miles and a half from the city, seize the upper
+powder-magazine, and then march down; and a sixth was to assemble at
+Denmark Vesey's, and obey his orders. A seventh detachment, under Gullah
+Jack, was to assemble in Boundary Street, at the head of King Street, to
+capture the arms of the Neck company of militia, and to take an
+additional supply from Mr. Duquercron's shop. The naval stores on Mey's
+Wharf were also to be attacked. Meanwhile, a horse-company, consisting of
+many draymen, hostlers, and butcher-boys, was to meet at Lightwood's
+Alley, and then scour the streets to prevent the whites from assembling.
+Every white man coming out of his own door was to be killed; and, if
+necessary, the city was to be fired in several places,--slow-match for
+this purpose having been purloined from the public arsenal, and placed in
+an accessible position.
+
+Beyond this, the plan of action was either unformed or undiscovered; some
+slight reliance seems to have been placed on English aid,--more on
+assistance from St. Domingo. At any rate, all the ships in the harbor
+were to be seized; and in these, if the worst came to the worst, those
+most deeply inculpated could set sail, bearing with them, perhaps, the
+spoils of shops and of banks. It seems to be admitted by the official
+narrative, that they might have been able, at that season of the year,
+and with the aid of the fortifications on the Neck and around the harbor,
+to retain possession of the city for some time.
+
+So unsuspicious were the authorities, so unprepared the citizens, so open
+to attack lay the city, that nothing seemed necessary to the success of
+the insurgents except organization and arms. Indeed, the plan of
+organization easily covered a supply of arms. By their own contributions
+they had secured enough to strike the first blow,--a few hundred pikes
+and daggers, together with swords and guns for the leaders. But they had
+carefully marked every place in the city where weapons were to be
+obtained. On King-street Road, beyond the municipal limits, in a common
+wooden shop, were left unguarded the arms of the Neck company of militia,
+to the number of several hundred stand; and these were to be secured by
+Bacchus Hammett, whose master kept the establishment. In Mr. Duquercron's
+shop there were deposited for sale as many more weapons; and they had
+noted Mr. Schirer's shop in Queen Street, and other gunsmiths'
+establishments. Finally, the State arsenal in Meeting Street, a building
+with no defences except ordinary wooden doors, was to be seized early in
+the outbreak. Provided, therefore, that the first moves proved
+successful, all the rest appeared sure.
+
+Very little seems to have been said among the conspirators in regard to
+any plans of riot or debauchery, subsequent to the capture of the city.
+Either their imaginations did not dwell on them, or the witnesses did not
+dare to give testimony, or the authorities to print it. Death was to be
+dealt out, comprehensive and terrible; but nothing more is mentioned. One
+prisoner, Rolla, is reported in the evidence to have dropped hints in
+regard to the destiny of the women; and there was a rumor in the
+newspapers of the time, that he or some other of Gov. Bennett's slaves
+was to have taken the governor's daughter, a young girl of sixteen, for
+his wife, in the event of success; but this is all. On the other hand,
+Denmark Vesey was known to be for a war of immediate and total
+extermination; and when some of the company opposed killing "the
+ministers and the women and children," Vesey read from the Scriptures
+that all should be cut off, and said that "it was for their safety not to
+leave one white skin alive, for this was the plan they pursued at St.
+Domingo." And all this was not a mere dream of one lonely enthusiast, but
+a measure which had been maturing for four full years among several
+confederates, and had been under discussion for five months among
+multitudes of initiated "candidates."
+
+As usual with slave-insurrections, the best men and those most trusted
+were deepest in the plot. Rolla was the only prominent conspirator who
+was not an active church-member. "Most of the ringleaders," says a
+Charleston letter-writer of that day, "were the rulers or class-leaders
+in what is called the African Society, and were considered faithful,
+honest fellows. Indeed, many of the owners could not be convinced, till
+the fellows confessed themselves, that they were concerned, and that the
+first object of all was to kill their masters." And the first official
+report declares that it would not be difficult to assign a motive for the
+insurrectionists, "if it had not been distinctly proved, that, with
+scarcely an exception, they had no individual hardship to complain of,
+and were among the most humanely treated negroes in the city. The
+facilities for combining and confederating in such a scheme were amply
+afforded by the extreme indulgence and kindness which characterize the
+domestic treatment of our slaves. Many slave-owners among us, not
+satisfied with ministering to the wants of their domestics by all the
+comforts of abundant food and excellent clothing, with a misguided
+benevolence have not only permitted their instruction, but lent to such
+efforts their approbation and applause."
+
+"I sympathize most sincerely," says the anonymous author of a pamphlet of
+the period, "with the very respectable and pious clergyman whose heart
+must still bleed at the recollection that his confidential class-leader,
+but a week or two before his just conviction, had received the communion
+of the Lord's Supper from his hand. This wretch had been brought up in
+his pastor's family, and was treated with the same Christian attention as
+was shown to their own children." "To us who are accustomed to the base
+and proverbial ingratitude of these people, this ill return of kindness
+and confidence is not surprising; but they who are ignorant of their real
+character will read and wonder."
+
+One demonstration of this "Christian attention" had lately been the
+closing of the African Church,--of which, as has been stated, most of the
+leading revolutionists were members,--on the ground that it tended to
+spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On Jan. 15, 1821, the
+city marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the gospel and
+others who keep night--and Sunday-schools for slaves, that the education
+of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city government feel
+imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there were some
+special as well as general grounds for disaffection among these
+ungrateful favorites of fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied
+dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen,--since you cannot keep men
+ignorant without making them unreasonable also,--that on the ensuing
+Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that every
+black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them;" this
+being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to be on
+its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had ended
+the Missouri Compromise discussion by making them all free, and that the
+law would protect their liberty if they could only secure it. Others,
+again, were threatened with the vengeance of the conspirators, unless
+they also joined; on the night of attack, it was said, the initiated
+would have a countersign, and all who did not know it would share the
+fate of the whites. Add to this the reading of Congressional speeches,
+and of the copious magazine of revolution to be found in the Bible,--and
+it was no wonder, if they for the first time were roused, under the
+energetic leadership of Vesey, to a full consciousness of their own
+condition.
+
+"Not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by
+their owners; but this was very generally the case with all who were
+convicted,--many of them possessing the highest confidence of their
+owners, and not one of bad character." In one case it was proved that
+Vesey had forbidden his followers to trust a certain man, because he had
+once been seen intoxicated. In another case it was shown that a slave
+named George had made every effort to obtain their confidence, but was
+constantly excluded from their meetings as a talkative fellow who could
+not be trusted,--a policy which his levity of manner, when examined in
+court, fully justified. They took no women into counsel,--not from any
+distrust apparently, but in order that their children might not be left
+uncared-for in case of defeat and destruction. House-servants were rarely
+trusted, or only when they had been carefully sounded by the chief
+leaders. Peter Poyas, in commissioning an agent to enlist men, gave him
+excellent cautions: "Don't mention it to those waiting-men who receive
+presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they'll betray us; I
+will speak to them." When he did speak, if he did not convince them, he
+at least frightened them. But the chief reliance was on those slaves who
+were hired out, and therefore more uncontrolled,--and also upon the
+country negroes.
+
+The same far-sighted policy directed the conspirators to disarm suspicion
+by peculiarly obedient and orderly conduct. And it shows the precaution
+with which the thing was carried on, that, although Peter Poyas was
+proved to have had a list of some six hundred persons, yet not one of his
+particular company was ever brought to trial. As each leader kept to
+himself the names of his proselytes, and as Monday Gell was the only one
+of these leaders who turned traitor, any opinion as to the numbers
+actually engaged must be altogether conjectural. One witness said nine
+thousand; another, six thousand six hundred. These statements were
+probably extravagant, though not more so than Gov. Bennett's assertion,
+on the other side, that "all who were actually concerned had been brought
+to justice,"--unless by this phrase he designates only the ringleaders.
+The avowed aim of the governor's letter, indeed, is to smooth the thing
+over, for the credit and safety of the city; and its evasive tone
+contrasts strongly with the more frank and thorough statements of the
+judges, made after the thing could no longer be hushed up. These high
+authorities explicitly acknowledge that they had failed to detect more
+than a small minority of those concerned in the project, and seem to
+admit, that, if it had once been brought to a head, the slaves generally
+would have joined in.
+
+"We cannot venture to say," says the intendant's pamphlet, "to how many
+the knowledge of the intended effort was communicated, who without
+signifying their assent, or attending any of the meetings, were yet
+prepared to profit by events. That there are many who would not have
+permitted the enterprise to have failed at a critical moment, for the
+want of their co-operation, we have the best reason for believing." So
+believed the community at large; and the panic was in proportion, when
+the whole danger was finally made public. "The scenes I witnessed," says
+one who has since narrated the circumstances, "and the declaration of the
+impending danger that met us at all times and on all occasions, forced
+the conviction that never were an entire people more thoroughly alarmed
+than were the people of Charleston at that time.... During the
+excitement, and the trial of the supposed conspirators, rumor proclaimed
+all, and doubtless more than all, the horrors of the plot. The city was
+to be fired in every quarter; the arsenal in the immediate vicinity was
+to be broken open, and the arms distributed to the insurgents, and a
+universal massacre of the white inhabitants to take place. Nor did there
+seem to be any doubt in the mind of the people, that such would actually
+have been the result had not the plot fortunately been detected before
+the time appointed for the outbreak. It was believed, as a matter of
+course, that every black in the city would join in the insurrection, and
+that if the original design had been attempted, and the city taken by
+surprise, the negroes would have achieved a complete and easy victory.
+Nor does it seem at all impossible that such might have been, or yet may
+be, the case, if any well-arranged and resolute rising should take
+place."
+
+Indeed, this universal admission, that all the slaves were ready to take
+part in any desperate enterprise, was one of the most startling aspects
+of the affair. The authorities say that the two principal State's
+evidence declared that "they never spoke to any person of color on the
+subject, or knew of any one who had been spoken to by the other leaders,
+who had withheld his assent." And the conspirators seem to have been
+perfectly satisfied that all the remaining slaves would enter their ranks
+upon the slightest success. "Let us assemble a sufficient number to
+commence the work with spirit, and we'll not want men; they'll fall in
+behind us fast enough." And as an illustration of this readiness, the
+official report mentions a slave who had belonged to one master for
+sixteen years, sustaining a high character for fidelity and affection,
+who had twice travelled with him through the Northern States, resisting
+every solicitation to escape, and who yet was very deeply concerned in
+the insurrection, though knowing it to involve the probable destruction
+of the whole family with whom he lived.
+
+One singular circumstance followed the first rumors of the plot. Several
+white men, said to be of low and unprincipled character, at once began to
+make interest with the supposed leaders among the slaves, either from
+genuine sympathy, or with the intention of betraying them for money, or
+by profiting by the insurrection, should it succeed. Four of these were
+brought to trial; but the official report expresses the opinion that many
+more might have been discovered but for the inadmissibility of slave
+testimony against whites. Indeed, the evidence against even these four
+was insufficient for a capital conviction, although one was overheard,
+through stratagem, by the intendant himself, and arrested on the spot.
+This man was a Scotchman, another a Spaniard, a third a German, and the
+fourth a Carolinian. The last had for thirty years kept a shop in the
+neighborhood of Charleston; he was proved to have asserted that "the
+negroes had as much right to fight for their liberty as the white
+people," had offered to head them in the enterprise, and had said that in
+three weeks he would have two thousand men. But in no case, it appears,
+did these men obtain the confidence of the slaves; and the whole plot was
+conceived and organized, so far as appears, without the slightest
+co-operation from any white man.
+
+The trial of the conspirators began on Wednesday, June 19. At the request
+of the intendant, Justices Kennedy and Parker summoned five freeholders
+(Messrs. Drayton, Heyward, Pringle, Legare, and Turnbull) to constitute a
+court, under the provisions of the Act "for the better ordering and
+governing negroes and other slaves." The intendant laid the case before
+them, with a list of prisoners and witnesses. By a vote of the court, all
+spectators were excluded, except the owners and counsel of the slaves
+concerned. No other colored person was allowed to enter the jail, and a
+strong guard of soldiers was kept always on duty around the building.
+Under these general arrangements the trials proceeded with elaborate
+formality, though with some variations from ordinary usage,--as was,
+indeed, required by the statute.
+
+For instance, the law provided that the testimony of any Indian or slave
+could be received, without oath, against a slave or free colored person,
+although it was not valid, even under oath, against a white. But it is
+best to quote the official language in respect to the rules adopted: "As
+the court had been organized under a statute of a peculiar and local
+character, and intended for the government of a distinct class of persons
+in the community, they were bound to conform their proceedings to its
+provisions, which depart in many essential features from the principles
+of the common law and some of the settled rules of evidence. The court,
+however, determined to adopt those rules, whenever they were not
+repugnant to nor expressly excepted by that statute, nor inconsistent
+with the local situation and policy of the State; and laid down for their
+own government the following regulations: First, that no slave should be
+tried except in the presence of his owner or his counsel, and that notice
+should be given in every case at least one day before the trial; second,
+that the testimony of one witness, unsupported by additional evidence or
+by circumstances, should lead to no conviction of a capital nature;
+third, that the witnesses should be confronted with the accused and with
+each other in every case, except where testimony was given under a solemn
+pledge that the names of the witnesses should not be divulged,--as they
+declared, in some instances, that they apprehended being murdered by the
+blacks, if it was known that they had volunteered their evidence; fourth,
+that the prisoners might be represented by counsel, whenever this was
+requested by the owners of the slaves, or by the prisoners themselves if
+free; fifth, that the statements or defences of the accused should be
+heard in every case, and they be permitted themselves to examine any
+witness they thought proper."
+
+It is singular to observe how entirely these rules seem to concede that a
+slave's life has no sort of value to himself, but only to his master. His
+master, not he himself, must choose whether it be worth while to employ
+counsel. His master, not his mother or his wife, must be present at the
+trial. So far is this carried, that the provision to exclude "persons who
+had no particular interest in the slaves accused" seems to have excluded
+every acknowledged relative they had in the world, and admitted only
+those who had invested in them so many dollars. And yet the very first
+section of that part of the statute under which they were tried lays down
+an explicit recognition of their humanity: "And whereas natural justice
+forbids that any _person_, of what condition soever, should be condemned
+unheard." So thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of person and
+chattel intermingled, that when Gov. Bennett petitions for mitigation of
+sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I ask this,
+gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing loss," it
+is really impossible to decide whether the predominant emotion be
+affectional or financial.
+
+It is a matter of painful necessity to acknowledge that the proceedings
+of most slave-tribunals have justified the honest admission of Gov. Adams
+of South Carolina, in his legislative message of 1855: "The
+administration of our laws, in relation to our colored population, by our
+courts of magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present
+constituted, calls loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in
+conformity with justice or humanity." This trial, as reported by the
+justices themselves, seems to have been no worse than the
+average,--perhaps better. In all, thirty-five were sentenced to death,
+thirty-four to transportation, twenty-seven acquitted by the court, and
+twenty-five discharged without trial, by the Committee of
+Vigilance,--making in all one hundred and twenty-one.
+
+The sentences pronounced by Judge Kennedy upon the leading rebels, while
+paying a high tribute to their previous character, of course bring all
+law and all Scripture to prove the magnitude of their crime. "It is a
+melancholy fact," he says, "that those servants in whom we reposed the
+most unlimited confidence have been the principal actors in this wicked
+scheme." Then he rises into earnest appeals. "Are you incapable of the
+heavenly influence of that gospel, all whose paths are peace? It was to
+reconcile us to our destiny on earth, and to enable us to discharge with
+fidelity all our duties, whether as master or servant, that those
+inspired precepts were imparted by Heaven to fallen man."
+
+To these reasonings the prisoners had, of course, nothing to say; but the
+official reports bear the strongest testimony to their fortitude. "Rolla,
+when arraigned, affected not to understand the charge against him, and,
+when it was at his request further explained to him, assumed, with
+wonderful adroitness, astonishment and surprise. He was remarkable,
+throughout his trial, for great presence and composure of mind. When he
+was informed he was convicted, and was advised to prepare for death,
+though he had previously (but after his trial) confessed his guilt, he
+appeared perfectly confounded, but exhibited no signs of fear. In Ned's
+behavior there was nothing remarkable; but his countenance was stern and
+immovable, even whilst he was receiving the sentence of death: from his
+looks it was impossible to discover or conjecture what were his feelings.
+Not so with Peter: for in his countenance were strongly marked
+disappointed ambition, revenge, indignation, and an anxiety to know how
+far the discoveries had extended; and the same emotions were exhibited in
+his conduct. He did not appear to fear personal consequences, for his
+whole behavior indicated the reverse; but exhibited an evident anxiety
+for the success of their plan, in which his whole soul was embarked. His
+countenance and behavior were the same when he received his sentence; and
+his only words were, on retiring, 'I suppose you'll let me see my wife
+and family before I die?' and that not in a supplicating tone. When he
+was asked, a day or two after, if it was possible he could wish to see
+his master and family murdered, who had treated him so kindly, he only
+replied to the question by a smile. Monday's behavior was not peculiar.
+When he was before the court, his arms were folded; he heard the
+testimony given against him, and received his sentence, with the utmost
+firmness and composure. But no description can accurately convey to
+others the impression which the trial, defence, and appearance of Gullah
+Jack made on those who witnessed the workings of his cunning and rude
+address. When arrested and brought before the court, in company with
+another African named Jack, the property of the estate of Pritchard, he
+assumed so much ignorance, and looked and acted the fool so well, that
+some of the court could not believe that this was the necromancer who was
+sought after. This conduct he continued when on his trial, until he saw
+the witnesses and heard the testimony as it progressed against him; when,
+in an instant, his countenance was lighted up as if by lightning, and his
+wildness and vehemence of gesture, and the malignant glance with which he
+eyed the witnesses who appeared against him, all indicated the savage,
+who indeed had been _caught_, but not _tamed_. His courage, however, soon
+forsook him. When he received sentence of death, he earnestly implored
+that a fortnight longer might be allowed him, and then a week longer,
+which he continued earnestly to solicit until he was taken from the
+court-room to his cell; and when he was carried to execution, he gave up
+his spirit without firmness or composure."
+
+Not so with Denmark Vesey. The plans of years were frustrated; his own
+life and liberty were thrown away; many others were sacrificed through
+his leadership; and one more was added to the list of unsuccessful
+insurrections. All these disastrous certainties he faced calmly, and gave
+his whole mind composedly to the conducting of his defence. With his arms
+tightly folded, and his eyes fixed on the floor, he attentively followed
+every item of the testimony. He heard the witnesses examined by the
+court, and cross-examined by his own counsel; and it is evident from the
+narrative of the presiding judge, that he showed no small skill and
+policy in the searching cross-examination which he then applied. The
+fears, the feelings, the consciences, of those who had betrayed him, all
+were in turn appealed to; but the facts were quite overpowering, and it
+was too late to aid his comrades or himself. Then turning to the court,
+he skilfully availed himself of the point which had so much impressed the
+community: the intrinsic improbability that a man in his position of
+freedom and prosperity should sacrifice every thing to free other people.
+If they thought it so incredible, why not give him the benefit of the
+incredibility? The act being, as they stated, one of infatuation, why
+convict him of it on the bare word of men who, by their own showing, had
+not only shared the infatuation, but proved traitors to it? An ingenious
+defence,--indeed, the only one which could by any possibility be
+suggested, anterior to the days of Choate and somnambulism; but in vain.
+He was sentenced; and it was not, apparently, till the judge reproached
+him for the destruction he had brought on his followers, that he showed
+any sign of emotion. Then the tears came into his eyes. But he said not
+another word.
+
+The executions took place on five different days; and, bad as they were,
+they might have been worse. After the imaginary Negro Plot of New York,
+in 1741, thirteen negroes had been judicially burned alive; two had
+suffered the same sentence at Charleston in 1808; and it was undoubtedly
+some mark of progress, that in this case the gallows took the place of
+the flames. Six were hanged on July 2, upon Blake's lands, near
+Charleston,--Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Jesse, Ned, Rolla, and
+Batteau,--the last three being slaves of the governor himself. Gullah
+Jack and John were executed "on the Lines," near Charleston, on July 12;
+and twenty-two more on July 26. Four others suffered their fate on July
+30; and one more, William Garner, effected a temporary escape, was
+captured, and tried by a different court, and was finally executed on
+Aug. 9.
+
+The self-control of these men did not desert them at their execution.
+When the six leaders suffered death, the report says, Peter Poyas
+repeated his charge of secrecy: "Do not open your lips; die silent, as
+you shall see me do;" and all obeyed. And though afterwards, as the
+particulars of the plot became better known, there was less inducement to
+conceal, yet every one of the thirty-five seems to have met his fate
+bravely, except the conjurer. Gov. Bennett, in his letter, expresses much
+dissatisfaction at the small amount learned from the participators. "To
+the last hour of the existence of several who appeared to be conspicuous
+actors in the drama, they were pressingly importuned to make further
+confessions,"--this "importuning" being more clearly defined in a letter
+of Mr. Ferguson, owner of two of the slaves, as "having them severely
+corrected." Yet so little was obtained, that the governor was compelled
+to admit at last that the really essential features of the plot were not
+known to any of the informers.
+
+It is to be remembered, that the plot failed because a man unauthorized
+and incompetent, William Paul, undertook to make enlistments on his own
+account. He happened on one of precisely that class of men,--favored
+house-servants,--whom his leaders had expressly reserved for more skilful
+manipulations. He being thus detected, one would have supposed that the
+discovery of many accomplices would at once have followed. The number
+enlisted was counted by thousands; yet for twenty-nine days after the
+first treachery, and during twenty days of official examination, only
+fifteen of the conspirators were ferreted out. Meanwhile the informers'
+names had to be concealed with the utmost secrecy; they were in peril of
+their lives from the slaves,--William Paul scarcely dared to go beyond
+the doorstep,--and the names of important witnesses examined in June were
+still suppressed in the official report published in October. That a
+conspiracy on so large a scale should have existed in embryo during four
+years, and in an active form for several months, and yet have been so
+well managed, that, after actual betrayal, the authorities were again
+thrown off their guard, and the plot nearly brought to a head
+again,--this certainly shows extraordinary ability in the leaders, and a
+talent for concerted action on the part of slaves generally, with which
+they have hardly been credited.
+
+And it is also to be noted, that the range of the conspiracy extended far
+beyond Charleston. It was proved that Frank, slave of Mr. Ferguson,
+living nearly forty miles from the city, had boasted of having enlisted
+four plantations in his immediate neighborhood. It was in evidence that
+the insurgents "were trying all round the country, from Georgetown and
+Santee round about to Combahee, to get people;" and, after the trials, it
+was satisfactorily established that Vesey "had been in the country as far
+north as South Santee, and southwardly as far as the Euhaws, which is
+between seventy and eighty miles from the city." Mr. Ferguson himself
+testified that the good order of any gang was no evidence of their
+ignorance of the plot, since the behavior of his own initiated slaves had
+been unexceptionable, in accordance with Vesey's directions.
+
+With such an organization and such materials, there was nothing in the
+plan which could be pronounced incredible or impracticable. There is no
+reason why they should not have taken the city. After all the governor's
+entreaties as to moderate language, the authorities were obliged to admit
+that South Carolina had been saved from a "horrible catastrophe." "For,
+although success could not possibly have attended the conspirators, yet,
+before their suppression, Charleston would probably have been wrapped in
+flames, many valuable lives would have been sacrificed, and an immense
+loss of property sustained by the citizens, even though no other
+distressing occurrences were experienced by them; while the plantations
+in the lower country would have been disorganized, and the agricultural
+interests have sustained an enormous loss." The Northern journals had
+already expressed still greater anxieties. "It appears," said the
+New-York _Commercial Advertiser_, "that, but for the timely disclosure,
+the whole of that State would in a few days have witnessed the horrid
+spectacle once witnessed in St. Domingo."
+
+My friend, David Lee Child, has kindly communicated to me a few memoranda
+of a conversation held long since with a free colored man who had worked
+in Vesey's shop during the time of the insurrection; and these generally
+confirm the official narratives. "I was a young man then," he said; "and,
+owing to the policy of preventing communication between free colored
+people and slaves, I had little opportunity of ascertaining how the
+slaves felt about it. I know that several of them were abused in the
+street, and some put in prison, for appearing in sackcloth. There was an
+ordinance of the city, that any slave who wore a badge of mourning should
+be imprisoned and flogged. They generally got the law, which is
+thirty-nine lashes; but sometimes it was according to the decision of the
+court." "I heard, at the time, of arms being buried in coffins at
+Sullivan's Island." "In the time of the insurrection, the slaves were
+tried in a small room in the jail where they were confined. No colored
+person was allowed to go within two squares of the prison. Those two
+squares were filled with troops, five thousand of whom were on duty day
+and night. I was told, Vesey said to those that tried him, that the work
+of insurrection would go on; but as none but white persons were permitted
+to be present, I cannot tell whether he said it."
+
+During all this time there was naturally a silence in the Charleston
+journals, which strongly contrasts with the extreme publicity at last
+given to the testimony. Even the _National Intelligencer_, at Washington,
+passed lightly over the affair, and deprecated the publication of
+particulars. The Northern editors, on the other hand, eager for items,
+were constantly complaining of this reserve, and calling for further
+intelligence. "The Charleston papers," said the Hartford _Courant_ of
+July 16, "have been silent on the subject of the insurrection; but
+letters from this city state that it has created much alarm, and that two
+brigades of troops were under arms for some time to suppress any risings
+that might have taken place." "You will doubtless hear," wrote a
+Charleston correspondent of the same paper, just before, "many reports,
+and some exaggerated ones." "There was certainly a disposition to revolt,
+and some preparations made, principally by the plantation negroes, to
+take the city." "We hoped they would progress so far as to enable us to
+ascertain and punish the ringleaders." "Assure my friends that we feel in
+perfect security, although the number of nightly guards, and other
+demonstrations, may induce a belief among strangers to the contrary."
+
+The strangers would have been very blind strangers, if they had not been
+more influenced by the actions of the Charleston citizens than by their
+words. The original information was given on May 25, 1822. The time
+passed, and the plot failed on June 16. A plan for its revival on July 2
+proved abortive. Yet a letter from Charleston, in the Hartford _Courant_
+of Aug. 6, represented the panic as unabated: "Great preparations are
+making, and all the military are put in preparation to guard against any
+attempt of the same kind again; but we have no apprehension of its being
+repeated." On Aug. 10, Gov. Bennett wrote the letter already mentioned,
+which was printed and distributed as a circular, its object being to
+deprecate undue alarm. "Every individual in the State is interested,
+whether in regard to his own property, or the reputation of the State, in
+giving no more importance to the transaction than it justly merits." Yet,
+five days after this,--two months after the first danger had passed,--a
+re-enforcement of United-States troops arrived at Fort Moultrie; and,
+during the same month, several different attempts were made by small
+parties of armed negroes to capture the mails between Charleston and
+Savannah, and a reward of two hundred dollars was offered for their
+detection.
+
+The first official report of the trials was prepared by the intendant, by
+request of the city council. It passed through four editions in a few
+months,--the first and fourth being published in Charleston, and the
+second and third in Boston. Being, however, but a brief pamphlet, it did
+not satisfy the public curiosity; and in October of the same year (1822),
+a larger volume appeared at Charleston, edited by the magistrates who
+presided at the trials,--Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker. It contains
+the evidence in full, and a separate narrative of the whole affair, more
+candid and lucid than any other which I have found in the newspapers or
+pamphlets of the day. It exhibits that rarest of all qualities in a
+slave-community, a willingness to look facts in the face. This narrative
+has been faithfully followed, with the aid of such cross-lights as could
+be secured from many other quarters, in preparing the present history.
+
+The editor of the first official report racked his brains to discover the
+special causes of the revolt, and never trusted himself to allude to the
+general one. The negroes rebelled because they were deluded by
+Congressional eloquence; or because they were excited by a church
+squabble; or because they had been spoilt by mistaken indulgences, such
+as being allowed to learn to read,--"a misguided benevolence," as he
+pronounces it. So the Baptist Convention seems to have thought it was
+because they were not Baptists; and an Episcopal pamphleteer, because
+they were not Episcopalians. It never seems to occur to any of these
+spectators, that these people rebelled simply because they were slaves,
+and wished to be free.
+
+No doubt, there were enough special torches with which a man so skilful
+as Denmark Vesey could kindle up these dusky powder-magazines; but, after
+all, the permanent peril lay in the powder. So long as that existed,
+every thing was incendiary. Any torn scrap in the street might contain a
+Missouri-Compromise speech, or a report of the last battle in St.
+Domingo, or one of those able letters of Boyer's which were winning the
+praise of all, or one of John Randolph's stirring speeches in England
+against the slave-trade. The very newspapers which reported the happy
+extinction of the insurrection by the hanging of the last conspirator,
+William Garner, reported also, with enthusiastic indignation, the
+massacre of the Greeks at Constantinople and at Scio; and then the
+Northern editors, breaking from their usual reticence, pointed out the
+inconsistency of Southern journals in printing, side by side,
+denunciations of Mohammedan slave-sales, and advertisements of those of
+Christians.
+
+Of course the insurrection threw the whole slavery question open to the
+public. "We are sorry to see," said the _National Intelligencer_ of Aug.
+31, "that a discussion of the hateful Missouri question is likely to be
+revived, in consequence of the allusions to its supposed effect in
+producing the late servile insurrection in South Carolina." A member of
+the Board of Public Works of South Carolina published in the Baltimore
+_American Farmer_ an essay urging the encouragement of white laborers,
+and hinting at the ultimate abolition of slavery "if it should ever be
+thought desirable." More boldly still, a pamphlet appeared in Charleston,
+under the signature of "Achates," arguing with remarkable sagacity and
+force against the whole system of slave-labor _in towns_; and proposing
+that all slaves in Charleston should be sold or transferred to the
+plantations, and their places supplied by white labor. It is interesting
+to find many of the facts and arguments of Helper's "Impending Crisis"
+anticipated in this courageous tract, written under the pressure of a
+crisis which had just been so narrowly evaded. The author is described in
+the preface as "a soldier and patriot of the Revolution, whose name, did
+we feel ourselves at liberty to use it, would stamp a peculiar weight and
+value on his opinions." It was commonly attributed to Gen. Thomas
+Pinckney.
+
+Another pamphlet of the period, also published in Charleston, recommended
+as a practical cure for insurrection the copious administration of
+Episcopal-Church services, and the prohibition of negroes from attending
+Fourth-of-July celebrations. On this last point it is more consistent
+than most pro-slavery arguments. "The celebration of the Fourth of July
+belongs _exclusively_ to the white population of the United States. The
+American Revolution was _a family quarrel among equals_. In this the
+negroes had no concern; their condition remained, and must remain,
+unchanged. They have no more to do with the celebration of that day than
+with the landing of the Pilgrims on the rock at Plymouth. It therefore
+seems to me improper to allow these people to be present on these
+occasions. In our speeches and orations, much, and sometimes more than is
+politically necessary, is said about personal liberty, which negro
+auditors know not how to apply except by running the parallel with their
+own condition. They therefore imbibe false notions of their own personal
+rights, and give reality in their minds to what has no real existence.
+The peculiar state of our community must be steadily kept in view. This,
+I am gratified to learn, will in some measure be promoted by the
+institution of the South Carolina Association."
+
+On the other hand, more stringent laws became obviously necessary to keep
+down the advancing intelligence of the Charleston slaves. Dangerous
+knowledge must be excluded from without and from within. For the first
+purpose the South Carolina Legislature passed, in December, 1822, the Act
+for the imprisonment of Northern colored seamen, which afterwards
+produced so much excitement. For the second object, the Grand Jury, about
+the same time, presented as a grievance "the number of schools which are
+kept within the city by persons of color," and proposed their
+prohibition. This was the encouragement given to the intellectual
+progress of the slaves; while, as a reward for betraying them, Pensil,
+the free colored man who advised with Devany, received a present of one
+thousand dollars; and Devany himself had what was rightly judged to be
+the higher gift of freedom, and was established in business, with liberal
+means, as a drayman. He lived long in Charleston, thriving greatly in his
+vocation, and, according to the newspapers, enjoyed the privilege of
+being the only man of property in the State whom a special statute
+exempted from taxation.
+
+More than half a century has passed since the incidents of this true
+story closed. It has not vanished from the memories of South Carolinians,
+though the printed pages which once told it have gradually disappeared
+from sight. The intense avidity which at first grasped at every incident
+of the great insurrectionary plot was succeeded by a prolonged distaste
+for the memory of the tale; and the official reports which told what
+slaves had once planned and dared have now come to be among the rarest of
+American historical documents. In 1841, a friend of the writer, then
+visiting South Carolina, heard from her hostess, for the first time, the
+events which are recounted here. On asking to see the reports of the
+trials, she was cautiously told that the only copy in the house, after
+being carefully kept for years under lock and key, had been burnt at
+last, lest it should reach the dangerous eyes of the slaves. The same
+thing had happened, it was added, in many other families. This partially
+accounts for the great difficulty now to be found in obtaining a single
+copy of either publication; and this is why, to the readers of American
+history, Denmark Vesey and Peter Poyas have commonly been but the shadows
+of names.
+
+
+
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+
+During the year 1831, up to the 23d of August, the Virginia newspapers
+seem to have been absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied
+the minds of intelligent American citizens: What Gen. Jackson should do
+with the scolds, and what with the disreputables? should South Carolina
+be allowed to nullify? and would the wives of cabinet ministers call on
+Mrs. Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of
+the Richmond _Enquirer_, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages
+are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner. Then the
+terror flared on increasing, until the remotest Southern States were
+found shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection; until far-off
+European colonies--Antigua, Martinique, Caraccas, Tortola--recognized by
+some secret sympathy the same epidemic alarms; until the very boldest
+words of freedom were reported as uttered in the Virginia House of
+Delegates with unclosed doors; until an obscure young man named Garrison
+was indicted at common law in North Carolina, and had a price set upon
+his head by the Legislature of Georgia.
+
+Near the south-eastern border of Virginia, in Southampton County, there
+is a neighborhood known as "The Cross Keys." It lies fifteen miles from
+Jerusalem, the county-town, or "court-house," seventy miles from Norfolk,
+and about as far from Richmond. It is some ten or fifteen miles from
+Murfreesborough in North Carolina, and about twenty-five from the Great
+Dismal Swamp. Up to Sunday, the 21st of August, 1831, there was nothing
+to distinguish it from any other rural, lethargic, slipshod Virginia
+neighborhood, with the due allotment of mansion-houses and log huts,
+tobacco-fields and "old-fields," horses, dogs, negroes, "poor white
+folks," so called, and other white folks, poor without being called so.
+One of these last was Joseph Travis, who had recently married the widow
+of one Putnam Moore, and had unfortunately wedded to himself her negroes
+also.
+
+In the woods on the plantation of Joseph Travis, upon the Sunday just
+named, six slaves met at noon for what is called in the Northern States a
+picnic, and in the Southern a barbecue. The bill of fare was to be
+simple: one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting
+an aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be
+the final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in
+preparation. In this plot four of the men had been already
+initiated--Henry, Hark or Hercules, Nelson, and Sam. Two others were
+novices, Will and Jack by name. The party had remained together from
+twelve to three o'clock, when a seventh man joined them,--a short, stout,
+powerfully built person, of dark mulatto complexion, and strongly marked
+African features, but with a face full of expression and resolution. This
+was Nat Turner.
+
+He was at this time nearly thirty-one years old, having been born on the
+2d of October, 1800. He had belonged originally to Benjamin Turner,--from
+whom he took his last name, slaves having usually no patronymic;--had
+then been transferred to Putnam Moore, and then to his present owner. He
+had, by his own account, felt himself singled out from childhood for some
+great work; and he had some peculiar marks on his person, which, joined
+to his mental precocity, were enough to occasion, among his youthful
+companions, a superstitious faith in his gifts and destiny. He had some
+mechanical ingenuity also; experimentalized very early in making paper,
+gunpowder, pottery, and in other arts, which, in later life, he was found
+thoroughly to understand. His moral faculties appeared strong, so that
+white witnesses admitted that he had never been known to swear an oath,
+to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. And, in general, so
+marked were his early peculiarities that people said "he had too much
+sense to be raised; and, if he was, he would never be of any use as a
+slave." This impression of personal destiny grew with his growth: he
+fasted, prayed, preached, read the Bible, heard voices when he walked
+behind his plough, and communicated his revelations to the awe-struck
+slaves. They told him, in return, that, "if they had his sense, they
+would not serve any master in the world."
+
+The biographies of slaves can hardly be individualized; they belong to
+the class. We know bare facts; it is only the general experience of human
+beings in like condition which can clothe them with life. The outlines
+are certain, the details are inferential. Thus, for instance, we know
+that Nat Turner's young wife was a slave; we know that she belonged to a
+different master from himself; we know little more than this, but this is
+much. For this is equivalent to saying, that, by day or by night, her
+husband had no more power to protect her than the man who lies bound upon
+a plundered vessel's deck has power to protect his wife on board the
+pirate schooner disappearing in the horizon. She may be well treated, she
+may be outraged; it is in the powerlessness that the agony lies. There
+is, indeed, one thing more which we do know of this young woman: the
+Virginia newspapers state that she was tortured under the lash, after her
+husband's execution, to make her produce his papers: this is all.
+
+What his private experiences and special privileges or wrongs may have
+been, it is therefore now impossible to say. Travis was declared to be
+"more humane and fatherly to his slaves than any man in the county;" but
+it is astonishing how often this phenomenon occurs in the contemporary
+annals of slave insurrections. The chairman of the county court also
+stated, in pronouncing sentence, that Nat Turner had spoken of his master
+as "only too indulgent;" but this, for some reason, does not appear in
+his printed Confession, which only says, "He was a kind master, and
+placed the greatest confidence in me." It is very possible that it may
+have been so, but the printed accounts of Nat Turner's person look
+suspicious: he is described in Gov. Floyd's proclamation as having a scar
+on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, and a large knot
+on one of the bones of his right arm, produced by a blow; and although
+these were explained away in Virginia newspapers as having been produced
+by fights with his companions, yet such affrays are entirely foreign to
+the admitted habits of the man. It must therefore remain an open
+question, whether the scars and the knot were produced by black hands or
+by white.
+
+Whatever Nat Turner's experiences of slavery might have been, it is
+certain that his plans were not suddenly adopted, but that he had brooded
+over them for years. To this day there are traditions among the Virginia
+slaves of the keen devices of "Prophet Nat." If he was caught with lime
+and lampblack in hand, conning over a half-finished county-map on the
+barn-door, he was always "planning what to do if he were blind"; or,
+"studying how to get to Mr. Francis's house." When he had called a
+meeting of slaves, and some poor whites came eavesdropping, the poor
+whites at once became the subjects for discussion: he incidentally
+mentioned that the masters had been heard threatening to drive them away;
+one slave had been ordered to shoot Mr. Jones's pigs, another to tear
+down Mr. Johnson's fences. The poor whites, Johnson and Jones, ran home
+to see to their homesteads, and were better friends than ever to Prophet
+Nat.
+
+He never was a Baptist preacher, though such vocation has often been
+attributed to him. The impression arose from his having immersed himself,
+during one of his periods of special enthusiasm, together with a poor
+white man named Brantley. "About this time," he says in his Confession,
+"I told these things to a white man, on whom it had a wonderful effect;
+and he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a
+cutaneous eruption, and the blood oozed from the pores of his skin, and
+after praying and fasting nine days he was healed. And the Spirit
+appeared to me again, and said, as the Saviour had been baptized, so
+should we be also; and when the white people would not let us be baptized
+by the church, we went down into the water together, in the sight of many
+who reviled us, and were baptized by the Spirit. After this I rejoiced
+greatly, and gave thanks to God."
+
+The religious hallucinations narrated in his Confession seem to have been
+as genuine as the average of such things, and are very well expressed.
+The account reads quite like Jacob Behmen. He saw white spirits and black
+spirits contending in the skies; the sun was darkened, the thunder
+rolled. "And the Holy Ghost was with me, and said, 'Behold me as I stand
+in the heavens!' And I looked, and saw the forms of men in different
+attitudes. And there were lights in the sky, to which the children of
+darkness gave other names than what they really were; for they were the
+lights of the Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west, even as
+they were extended on the cross on Calvary, for the redemption of
+sinners." He saw drops of blood on the corn: this was Christ's blood,
+shed for man. He saw on the leaves in the woods letters and numbers and
+figures of men,--the same symbols which he had seen in the skies. On May
+12, 1828, the Holy Spirit appeared to him, and proclaimed that the yoke
+of Jesus must fall on him, and he must fight against the serpent when the
+sign appeared. Then came an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831: this
+was the sign; then he must arise and prepare himself, and slay his
+enemies with their own weapons; then also the seal was removed from his
+lips, and then he confided his plans to four associates.
+
+When he came, therefore, to the barbecue on the appointed Sunday, and
+found not these four only, but two others, his first question to the
+intruders was, how they came thither. To this Will answered manfully,
+that his life was worth no more than the others, and "his liberty was as
+dear to him." This admitted him to confidence; and as Jack was known to
+be entirely under Hark's influence, the strangers were no bar to their
+discussion. Eleven hours they remained there, in anxious consultation:
+one can imagine those dusky faces, beneath the funereal woods, and amid
+the flickering of pine-knot torches, preparing that stern revenge whose
+shuddering echoes should ring through the land so long. Two things were
+at last decided: to begin their work that night; and to begin it with a
+massacre so swift and irresistible as to create in a few days more terror
+than many battles, and so spare the need of future bloodshed. "It was
+agreed that we should commence at home on that night, and, until we had
+armed and equipped ourselves and gained sufficient force, neither age nor
+sex was to be spared: which was invariably adhered to."
+
+John Brown invaded Virginia with nineteen men, and with the avowed
+resolution to take no life but in self-defence. Nat Turner attacked
+Virginia from within, with six men, and with the determination to spare
+no life until his power was established. John Brown intended to pass
+rapidly through Virginia, and then retreat to the mountains. Nat Turner
+intended to "conquer Southampton County as the white men did in the
+Revolution, and then retreat, if necessary, to the Dismal Swamp." Each
+plan was deliberately matured; each was in its way practicable; but each
+was defeated by a single false step, as will soon appear.
+
+We must pass over the details of horror, as they occurred during the next
+twenty-four hours. Swift and stealthy as Indians, the black men passed
+from house to house,--not pausing, not hesitating, as their terrible work
+went on. In one thing they were humaner than Indians, or than white men
+fighting against Indians: there was no gratuitous outrage beyond the
+death-blow itself, no insult, no mutilation; but in every house they
+entered, that blow fell on man, woman, and child,--nothing that had a
+white skin was spared. From every house they took arms and ammunition,
+and from a few money. On every plantation they found recruits: those
+dusky slaves, so obsequious to their master the day before, so prompt to
+sing and dance before his Northern visitors, were all swift to transform
+themselves into fiends of retribution now; show them sword or musket, and
+they grasped it, though it were an heirloom from Washington himself. The
+troop increased from house to house,--first to fifteen, then to forty,
+then to sixty. Some were armed with muskets, some with axes, some with
+scythes, some came on their masters' horses. As the numbers increased,
+they could be divided, and the awful work was carried on more rapidly
+still. The plan then was for an advanced guard of horsemen to approach
+each house at a gallop, and surround it till the others came up.
+Meanwhile, what agonies of terror must have taken place within, shared
+alike by innocent and by guilty! what memories of wrongs inflicted on
+those dusky creatures, by some,--what innocent participation, by others,
+in the penance! The outbreak lasted for but forty-eight hours; but,
+during that period, fifty-five whites were slain, without the loss of a
+single slave.
+
+One fear was needless, which to many a husband and father must have
+intensified the last struggle. These negroes had been systematically
+brutalized from childhood; they had been allowed no legalized or
+permanent marriage; they had beheld around them an habitual
+licentiousness, such as can scarcely exist except under slavery; some of
+them had seen their wives and sisters habitually polluted by the husbands
+and the brothers of these fair white women who were now absolutely in
+their power. Yet I have looked through the Virginia newspapers of that
+time in vain for one charge of an indecent outrage on a woman against
+these triumphant and terrible slaves. Wherever they went, there went
+death, and that was all. It is reported by some of the contemporary
+newspapers, that a portion of this abstinence was the result of
+deliberate consultation among the insurrectionists; that some of them
+were resolved on taking the white women for wives, but were overruled by
+Nat Turner. If so, he is the only American slave-leader of whom we know
+certainly that he rose above the ordinary level of slave vengeance; and
+Mrs. Stowe's picture of Dred's purposes is then precisely typical of his:
+"Whom the Lord saith unto us, 'Smite,' them will we smite. We will not
+torment them with the scourge and fire, nor defile their women as they
+have done with ours. But we will slay them utterly, and consume them from
+off the face of the earth."
+
+When the number of adherents had increased to fifty or sixty, Nat Turner
+judged it time to strike at the county-seat, Jerusalem. Thither a few
+white fugitives had already fled, and couriers might thence be despatched
+for aid to Richmond and Petersburg, unless promptly intercepted. Besides,
+he could there find arms, ammunition, and money; though they had already
+obtained, it is dubiously reported, from eight hundred to one thousand
+dollars. On the way it was necessary to pass the plantation of Mr.
+Parker, three miles from Jerusalem. Some of the men wished to stop here
+and enlist some of their friends. Nat Turner objected, as the delay might
+prove dangerous; he yielded at last, and it proved fatal.
+
+He remained at the gate with six or eight men; thirty or forty went to
+the house, half a mile distant. They remained too long, and he went alone
+to hasten them. During his absence a party of eighteen white men came up
+suddenly, dispersing the small guard left at the gate; and when the main
+body of slaves emerged from the house, they encountered, for the first
+time, their armed masters. The blacks halted; the whites advanced
+cautiously within a hundred yards, and fired a volley; on its being
+returned, they broke into disorder, and hurriedly retreated, leaving some
+wounded on the ground. The retreating whites were pursued, and were saved
+only by falling in with another band of fresh men from Jerusalem, with
+whose aid they turned upon the slaves, who in their turn fell into
+confusion. Turner, Hark, and about twenty men on horseback retreated in
+some order; the rest were scattered. The leader still planned to reach
+Jerusalem by a private way, thus evading pursuit; but at last decided to
+stop for the night, in the hope of enlisting additional recruits.
+
+During the night the number increased again to forty, and they encamped
+on Major Ridley's plantation. An alarm took place during the
+darkness,--whether real or imaginary, does not appear,--and the men
+became scattered again. Proceeding to make fresh enlistments with the
+daylight, they were resisted at Dr. Blunt's house, where his slaves,
+under his orders, fired upon them; and this, with a later attack from a
+party of white men near Capt. Harris's, so broke up the whole force that
+they never re-united. The few who remained together agreed to separate
+for a few hours to see if any thing could be done to revive the
+insurrection, and meet again that evening at their original rendezvous.
+But they never reached it.
+
+Gloomily came Nat Turner at nightfall into those gloomy woods where
+forty-eight hours before he had revealed the details of his terrible plot
+to his companions. At the outset all his plans had succeeded; every thing
+was as he predicted: the slaves had come readily at his call; the masters
+had proved perfectly defenceless. Had he not been persuaded to pause at
+Parker's plantation, he would have been master before now of the arms and
+ammunition at Jerusalem; and with these to aid, and the Dismal Swamp for
+a refuge, he might have sustained himself indefinitely against his
+pursuers.
+
+Now the blood was shed, the risk was incurred, his friends were killed or
+captured, and all for what? Lasting memories of terror, to be sure, for
+his oppressors; but, on the other hand, hopeless failure for the
+insurrection, and certain death for him. What a watch he must have kept
+that night! To that excited imagination, which had always seen spirits in
+the sky and blood-drops on the corn and hieroglyphic marks on the dry
+leaves, how full the lonely forest must have been of signs and solemn
+warnings! Alone with the fox's bark, the rabbit's rustle, and the
+screech-owl's scream, the self-appointed prophet brooded over his
+despair. Once creeping to the edge of the wood, he saw men stealthily
+approach on horseback. He fancied them some of his companions; but before
+he dared to whisper their ominous names, "Hark" or "Dred,"--for the
+latter was the name, since famous, of one of his more recent
+recruits,--he saw them to be white men, and shrank back stealthily
+beneath his covert.
+
+There he waited two days and two nights,--long enough to satisfy himself
+that no one would rejoin him, and that the insurrection had hopelessly
+failed. The determined, desperate spirits who had shared his plans were
+scattered forever, and longer delay would be destruction for him also. He
+found a spot which he judged safe, dug a hole under a pile of fence-rails
+in a field, and lay there for six weeks, only leaving it for a few
+moments at midnight to obtain water from a neighboring spring. Food he
+had previously provided, without discovery, from a house near by.
+
+Meanwhile an unbounded variety of rumors went flying through the State.
+The express which first reached the governor announced that the militia
+were retreating before the slaves. An express to Petersburg further fixed
+the number of militia at three hundred, and of blacks at eight hundred,
+and invented a convenient shower of rain to explain the dampened ardor of
+the whites. Later reports described the slaves as making three desperate
+attempts to cross the bridge over the Nottoway between Cross Keys and
+Jerusalem, and stated that the leader had been shot in the attempt. Other
+accounts put the number of negroes at three hundred, all well mounted and
+armed, with two or three white men as leaders. Their intention was
+supposed to be to reach the Dismal Swamp, and they must be hemmed in from
+that side.
+
+Indeed, the most formidable weapon in the hands of slave insurgents is
+always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which
+follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted.
+Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even
+after it had commenced operations; but it is the fatal weakness of a
+rural slaveholding community, that it can never furnish men promptly for
+such a purpose. "My first intention was," says one of the most
+intelligent newspaper narrators of the affair, "to have attacked them
+with thirty or forty men; but those who had families here were strongly
+opposed to it."
+
+As usual, each man was pinioned to his own hearth-stone. As usual, aid
+had to be summoned from a distance; and, as usual, the United-States
+troops were the chief reliance. Col. House, commanding at Fort Monroe,
+sent at once three companies of artillery under Lieut.-Col. Worth, and
+embarked them on board the steamer "Hampton" for Suffolk. These were
+joined by detachments from the United States ships "Warren" and
+"Natchez," the whole amounting to nearly eight hundred men. Two volunteer
+companies went from Richmond, four from Petersburg, one from Norfolk, one
+from Portsmouth, and several from North Carolina. The militia of Norfolk,
+Nansemond, and Princess Anne Counties, and the United States troops at
+Old Point Comfort, were ordered to scour the Dismal Swamp, where it was
+believed that two or three thousand fugitives were preparing to join the
+insurgents. It was even proposed to send two companies from New York and
+one from New London to the same point.
+
+When these various forces reached Southampton County, they found all
+labor paralyzed and whole plantations abandoned. A letter from Jerusalem,
+dated Aug. 24, says, "The oldest inhabitant of our county has never
+experienced such a distressing time as we have had since Sunday night
+last.... Every house, room, and corner in this place is full of women and
+children, driven from home, who had to take the woods until they could
+get to this place." "For many miles around their track," says another
+"the county is deserted by women and children." Still another writes,
+"Jerusalem is full of women, most of them from the other side of the
+river,--about two hundred at Vix's." Then follow descriptions of the
+sufferings of these persons, many of whom had lain night after night in
+the woods. But the immediate danger was at an end, the short-lived
+insurrection was finished, and now the work of vengeance was to begin. In
+the frank phrase of a North Carolina correspondent, "The massacre of the
+whites was over, and the white people had commenced the destruction of
+the negroes, which was continued after our men got there, from time to
+time, as they could fall in with them, all day yesterday." A postscript
+adds, that "passengers by the Fayetteville stage say, that, by the latest
+accounts, one hundred and twenty negroes had been killed,"--this being
+little more than one day's work.
+
+These murders were defended as Nat Turner defended his: a fearful blow
+must be struck. In shuddering at the horrors of the insurrection, we have
+forgotten the far greater horrors of its suppression.
+
+The newspapers of the day contain many indignant protests against the
+cruelties which took place. "It is with pain," says a correspondent of
+the _National Intelligencer_, Sept. 7, 1831, "that we speak of another
+feature of the Southampton Rebellion; for we have been most unwilling to
+have our sympathies for the sufferers diminished or affected by their
+misconduct. We allude to the slaughter of many blacks without trial and
+under circumstances of great barbarity.... We met with an individual of
+intelligence who told us that he himself had killed between ten and
+fifteen.... We [the Richmond troop] witnessed with surprise the
+sanguinary temper of the population, who evinced a strong disposition to
+inflict immediate death on every prisoner."
+
+There is a remarkable official document from Gen. Eppes, the officer in
+command, to be found in the Richmond _Enquirer_ for Sept. 6, 1831. It is
+an indignant denunciation of precisely these outrages; and though he
+refuses to give details, he supplies their place by epithets:
+"revolting,"--"inhuman and not to be justified,"--"acts of barbarity and
+cruelty,"--"acts of atrocity,"--"this course of proceeding dignifies the
+rebel and the assassin with the sanctity of martyrdom." And he ends by
+threatening martial law upon all future transgressors. Such general
+orders are not issued except in rather extreme cases. And in the parallel
+columns of the newspaper the innocent editor prints equally indignant
+descriptions of Russian atrocities in Lithuania, where the Poles were
+engaged in active insurrection, amid profuse sympathy from Virginia.
+
+The truth is, it was a Reign of Terror. Volunteer patrols rode in all
+directions, visiting plantations. "It was with the greatest difficulty,"
+said Gen. Brodnax before the House of Delegates, "and at the hazard of
+personal popularity and esteem, that the coolest and most judicious among
+us could exert an influence sufficient to restrain an indiscriminate
+slaughter of the blacks who were suspected." A letter from the Rev. G. W.
+Powell declares, "There are thousands of troops searching in every
+direction, and many negroes are killed every day: the exact number will
+never be ascertained." Petition after petition was subsequently presented
+to the Legislature, asking compensation for slaves thus assassinated
+without trial.
+
+Men were tortured to death, burned, maimed, and subjected to nameless
+atrocities. The overseers were called on to point out any slaves whom
+they distrusted, and if any tried to escape they were shot down. Nay,
+worse than this. "A party of horsemen started from Richmond with the
+intention of killing every colored person they saw in Southampton County.
+They stopped opposite the cabin of a free colored man, who was hoeing in
+his little field. They called out, 'Is this Southampton County?' He
+replied, 'Yes, sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree.' They
+shot him dead, and rode on." This is from the narrative of the editor of
+the Richmond _Whig_, who was then on duty in the militia, and protested
+manfully against these outrages. "Some of these scenes," he adds, "are
+hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents."
+
+These were the masters' stories. If even these conceded so much, it would
+be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report. I am indebted to my
+honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this
+terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman,
+once well known in New York, Charity Bowery. "At the time of the old
+Prophet Nat," she said, "the colored folks was afraid to pray loud; for
+the whites threatened to punish 'em dreadfully, if the least noise was
+heard. The patrols was low drunken whites; and in Nat's time, if they
+heard any of the colored folks praying, or singing a hymn, they would
+fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em, afore master or
+missis could get to 'em. The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time.
+The whites always suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place
+called Duplon. They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they
+shot; then they pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about
+the insurrection. He told 'em he didn't know any thing about any
+insurrection. They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put
+his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court." (This
+is no exaggeration, if the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.)
+"It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat's
+time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try
+to make 'em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody
+could interfere. Mr. James Cole, high sheriff, said, if any of the
+patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his
+people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had
+killed. Mr. Cole said, 'If you don't pack up, as quick as God Almighty
+will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again,
+I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you.' He went off, and wasn't seen
+in them parts again."
+
+These outrages were not limited to the colored population; but other
+instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times. An
+Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg.
+An alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching
+towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge. After the
+panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that "the blacks, as
+men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated." This
+led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town. He took passage
+in the stage, but the stage was intercepted. He then fled to a friend's
+house; the house was broken open, and he was dragged forth. The civil
+authorities, being applied to, refused to interfere. The mob stripped
+him, gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked,
+under a hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage
+to New York.
+
+Of the capture or escape of most of that small band who met with Nat
+Turner in the woods upon the Travis plantation, little can now be known.
+All appear among the list of convicted, except Henry and Will. Gen.
+Moore, who occasionally figures as second in command, in the newspaper
+narratives of that day, was probably the Hark or Hercules before
+mentioned; as no other of the confederates had belonged to Mrs. Travis,
+or would have been likely to bear her previous name of Moore. As usual,
+the newspapers state that most, if not all the slaves, were "the property
+of kind and indulgent masters."
+
+The subordinate insurgents sought safety as they could. A free colored
+man, named Will Artist, shot himself in the woods, where his hat was
+found on a stake and his pistol lying by him; another was found drowned;
+others were traced to the Dismal Swamp; others returned to their homes,
+and tried to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their
+masters that they had been forced, against their will, to join,--the
+usual defence in such cases. The number shot down at random must, by all
+accounts, have amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human
+registration now. The number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is
+officially stated at fifty-five; of these, seventeen were convicted and
+hanged, twelve convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free
+colored men sent on for further trial and finally acquitted. "Not one of
+those known to be concerned escaped." Of those executed, one only was a
+woman, "Lucy, slave of John T. Barrow."
+
+There is one touching story, in connection with these terrible
+retaliations, which rests on good authority, that of the Rev. M. B. Cox,
+a Liberian missionary, then in Virginia. In the hunt which followed the
+massacre, a slaveholder went into the woods, accompanied by a faithful
+slave, who had been the means of saving his life during the insurrection.
+When they had reached a retired place in the forest, the man handed his
+gun to his master, informing him that he could not live a slave any
+longer, and requesting him either to free him or shoot him on the spot.
+The master took the gun, in some trepidation, levelled it at the faithful
+negro, and shot him through the heart. It is probable that this
+slaveholder was a Dr. Blunt,--his being the only plantation where the
+slaves were reported as thus defending their masters. "If this be true,"
+said the Richmond _Enquirer_, when it first narrated this instance of
+loyalty, "great will be the desert of these noble-minded Africans."
+
+Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might
+be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence
+of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made
+to represent it as a trifling affair. A distinguished citizen of Virginia
+wrote, three months later, to the Hon. W. B. Seabrook of South Carolina,
+"From all that has come to my knowledge during and since that affair, I
+am convinced most fully that every black preacher in the country east of
+the Blue Ridge was in the secret." "There is much reason to believe,"
+says the Governor's Message on Dec. 6, "that the spirit of insurrection
+was not confined to Southampton. Many convictions have taken place
+elsewhere, and some few in distant counties." The withdrawal of the
+United States troops, after some ten days' service, was a signal for
+fresh excitement; and an address, numerously signed, was presented to the
+United States Government, imploring their continued stay. More than three
+weeks after the first alarm, the governor sent a supply of arms into
+Prince William, Fauquier, and Orange Counties. "From examinations which
+have taken place in other counties," says one of the best newspaper
+historians of the affair (in the Richmond _Enquirer_ of Sept. 6), "I fear
+that the scheme embraced a wider sphere than I at first supposed." Nat
+Turner himself, intentionally or otherwise, increased the confusion by
+denying all knowledge of the North Carolina outbreak, and declaring that
+he had communicated his plans to his four confederates within six months;
+while, on the other hand, a slave-girl, sixteen or seventeen years old,
+belonging to Solomon Parker, testified that she had heard the subject
+discussed for eighteen months, and that at a meeting held during the
+previous May some eight or ten had joined the plot.
+
+It is astonishing to discover, by laborious comparison of newspaper
+files, how vast was the immediate range of these insurrectionary alarms.
+Every Southern State seems to have borne its harvest of terror. On the
+eastern shore of Maryland, great alarm was at once manifested, especially
+in the neighborhood of Easton and Snowhill; and the houses of colored men
+were searched for arms even in Baltimore. In Delaware, there were similar
+rumors through Sussex and Dover Counties; there were arrests and
+executions; and in Somerset County great public meetings were held, to
+demand additional safeguards. On election-day in Seaford, Del., some
+young men, going out to hunt rabbits, discharged their guns in sport; the
+men being absent, all the women in the vicinity took to flight; the alarm
+spread like the "Ipswich Fright"; soon Seaford was thronged with armed
+men; and when the boys returned from hunting, they found cannon drawn out
+to receive them.
+
+In North Carolina, Raleigh and Fayetteville were put under military
+defence, and women and children concealed themselves in the swamps for
+many days. The rebel organization was supposed to include two thousand.
+Forty-six slaves were imprisoned in Union County, twenty-five in Sampson
+County, and twenty-three at least in Duplin County, some of whom were
+executed. The panic also extended into Wayne, New Hanover, and Lenoir
+Counties. Four men were shot without trial in Wilmington,--Nimrod,
+Abraham, Prince, and "Dan the Drayman," the latter a man of seventy,--and
+their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. Nearly two
+months afterwards the trials were still continuing; and at a still later
+day, the governor in his proclamation recommended the formation of
+companies of volunteers in every county.
+
+In South Carolina, Gen. Hayne issued a proclamation "to prove the
+groundlessness of the existing alarms,"--thus implying that serious
+alarms existed. In Macon, Ga., the whole population were roused from
+their beds at midnight by a report of a large force of armed negroes five
+miles off. In an hour, every woman and child was deposited in the largest
+building of the town, and a military force hastily collected in front.
+The editor of the Macon _Messenger_ excused the poor condition of his
+paper, a few days afterwards, by the absorption of his workmen in patrol
+duties and describes "dismay and terror" as the condition of the people
+of "all ages and sexes." In Jones, Twiggs, and Monroe Counties, the same
+alarms were reported; and in one place "several slaves were tied to a
+tree, while a militia captain hacked at them with his sword."
+
+In Alabama, at Columbus and Fort Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint
+conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still
+greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that
+part of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being
+apparently founded on one stray copy of the Boston _Liberator_.
+
+In Tennessee, the Shelbyville _Freeman_ announced that an insurrectionary
+plot had just been discovered, barely in time for its defeat, through the
+treachery of a female slave. In Louisville, Ky., a similar organization
+was discovered or imagined, and arrests were made in consequence. "The
+papers, from motives of policy, do not notice the disturbance," wrote one
+correspondent to the Portland _Courier_. "Pity us!" he added.
+
+But the greatest bubble burst in Louisiana. Capt. Alexander, an English
+tourist, arriving in New Orleans at the beginning of September, found the
+whole city in tumult. Handbills had been issued, appealing to the slaves
+to rise against their masters, saying that all men were born equal,
+declaring that Hannibal was a black man, and that they also might have
+great leaders among them. Twelve hundred stand of weapons were said to
+have been found in a black man's house; five hundred citizens were under
+arms, and four companies of regulars were ordered to the city, whose
+barracks Alexander himself visited.
+
+If such was the alarm in New Orleans, the story, of course, lost nothing
+by transmission to other slave States. A rumor reached Frankfort, Ky.,
+that the slaves already had possession of the coast, both above and below
+New Orleans. But the most remarkable circumstance is, that all this seems
+to have been a mere revival of an old terror once before excited and
+exploded. The following paragraph had appeared in the Jacksonville, Ga.,
+_Observer_, during the spring previous:--
+
+    "FEARFUL DISCOVERY.--We were favored, by yesterday's mail, with a
+    letter from New Orleans, of May 1, in which we find that an
+    important discovery had been made a few days previous in that
+    city. The following is an extract: 'Four days ago, as some
+    planters were digging under ground, they found a square room
+    containing eleven thousand stand of arms and fifteen thousand
+    cartridges, each of the cartridges containing a bullet.' It is
+    said the negroes intended to rise as soon as the sickly season
+    began, and obtain possession of the city by massacring the white
+    population. The same letter states that the mayor had prohibited
+    the opening of Sunday schools for the instruction of blacks,
+    under a penalty of five hundred dollars for the first offence,
+    and, for the second, death."
+
+Such were the terrors that came back from nine other slave States, as the
+echo of the voice of Nat Turner. And when it is also known that the
+subject was at once taken up by the legislatures of other States, where
+there was no public panic, as in Missouri and Tennessee; and when,
+finally, it is added that reports of insurrection had been arriving all
+that year from Rio Janeiro, Martinique, St. Jago, Antigua, Caraccas, and
+Tortola,--it is easy to see with what prolonged distress the accumulated
+terror must have weighed down upon Virginia during the two months that
+Nat Turner lay hid.
+
+True, there were a thousand men in arms in Southampton County, to inspire
+security. But the blow had been struck by only seven men before; and
+unless there were an armed guard in every house, who could tell but any
+house might at any moment be the scene of new horrors? They might kill or
+imprison negroes by day, but could they resist their avengers by night?
+"The half cannot be told," wrote a lady from another part of Virginia, at
+this time, "of the distresses of the people. In Southampton County, the
+scene of the insurrection, the distress beggars description. A gentleman
+who has been there says that even here, where there has been great alarm,
+we have no idea of the situation of those in that county.... I do not
+hesitate to believe that many negroes around us would join in a massacre
+as horrible as that which has taken place, if an opportunity should
+offer."
+
+Meanwhile the cause of all this terror was made the object of desperate
+search. On Sept. 17 the governor offered a reward of five hundred dollars
+for his capture; and there were other rewards, swelling the amount to
+eleven hundred dollars,--but in vain. No one could track or trap him. On
+Sept. 30 a minute account of his capture appeared in the newspapers, but
+it was wholly false. On Oct. 7 there was another, and on Oct. 18 another;
+yet all without foundation. Worn out by confinement in his little cave,
+Nat Turner grew more adventurous, and began to move about stealthily by
+night, afraid to speak to any human being, but hoping to obtain some
+information that might aid his escape. Returning regularly to his retreat
+before daybreak, he might possibly have continued this mode of life until
+pursuit had ceased, had not a dog succeeded where men had failed. The
+creature accidentally smelt out the provisions hid in the cave, and
+finally led thither his masters, two negroes, one of whom was named
+Nelson. On discovering the formidable fugitive, they fled precipitately,
+when he hastened to retreat in an opposite direction. This was on Oct.
+15; and from this moment the neighborhood was all alive with excitement,
+and five or six hundred men undertook the pursuit.
+
+It shows a more than Indian adroitness in Nat Turner to have escaped
+capture any longer. The cave, the arms, the provisions, were found; and,
+lying among them, the notched stick of this miserable Robinson Crusoe,
+marked with five weary weeks and six days. But the man was gone. For ten
+days more he concealed himself among the wheat-stacks on Mr. Francis's
+plantation, and during this time was reduced almost to despair. Once he
+decided to surrender himself, and walked by night within two miles of
+Jerusalem before his purpose failed him. Three times he tried to get out
+of that neighborhood, but in vain: travelling by day was of course out of
+the question, and by night he found it impossible to elude the patrol.
+Again and again, therefore, he returned to his hiding-place; and, during
+his whole two months' liberty, never went five miles from the Cross Keys.
+On the 25th of October, he was at last discovered by Mr. Francis as he
+was emerging from a stack. A load of buckshot was instantly discharged at
+him, twelve of which passed through his hat as he fell to the ground. He
+escaped even then; but his pursuers were rapidly concentrating upon him,
+and it is perfectly astonishing that he could have eluded them for five
+days more.
+
+On Sunday, Oct. 30, a man named Benjamin Phipps, going out for the first
+time on patrol duty, was passing at noon a clearing in the woods where a
+number of pine-trees had long since been felled. There was a motion among
+their boughs; he stopped to watch it; and through a gap in the branches
+he saw, emerging from a hole in the earth beneath, the face of Nat
+Turner. Aiming his gun instantly, Phipps called on him to surrender. The
+fugitive, exhausted with watching and privation, entangled in the
+branches, armed only with a sword, had nothing to do but to
+yield,--sagaciously reflecting, also, as he afterwards explained, that
+the woods were full of armed men, and that he had better trust fortune
+for some later chance of escape, instead of desperately attempting it
+then. He was correct in the first impression, since there were fifty
+armed scouts within a circuit of two miles. His insurrection ended where
+it began; for this spot was only a mile and a half from the house of
+Joseph Travis.
+
+Tom, emaciated, ragged, "a mere scarecrow," still wearing the hat
+perforated with buckshot, with his arms bound to his sides, he was driven
+before the levelled gun to the nearest house, that of a Mr. Edwards. He
+was confined there that night; but the news had spread so rapidly that
+within an hour after his arrival a hundred persons had collected, and the
+excitement became so intense "that it was with difficulty he could be
+conveyed alive to Jerusalem." The enthusiasm spread instantly through
+Virginia; M. Trezvant, the Jerusalem postmaster, sent notices of it far
+and near; and Gov. Floyd himself wrote a letter to the Richmond
+_Enquirer_ to give official announcement of the momentous capture.
+
+When Nat Turner was asked by Mr. T. R. Gray, the counsel assigned him,
+whether, although defeated, he still believed in his own Providential
+mission, he answered, as simply as one who came thirty years after him,
+"Was not Christ crucified?" In the same spirit, when arraigned before the
+court, "he answered, 'Not guilty,' saying to his counsel that he did not
+feel so." But apparently no argument was made in his favor by his
+counsel, nor were any witnesses called,--he being convicted on the
+testimony of Levi Waller, and upon his own confession, which was put in
+by Mr. Gray, and acknowledged by the prisoner before the six justices
+composing the court, as being "full, free, and voluntary." He was
+therefore placed in the paradoxical position of conviction by his own
+confession, under a plea of "Not guilty." The arrest took place on the
+30th of October, 1831, the confession on the 1st of November, the trial
+and conviction on the 5th, and the execution on the following Friday, the
+11th of November, precisely at noon. He met his death with perfect
+composure, declined addressing the multitude assembled, and told the
+sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Another account says that he
+"betrayed no emotion, and even hurried the executioner in the performance
+of his duty." "Not a limb nor a muscle was observed to move. His body,
+after his death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection."
+
+The confession of the captive was published under authority of Mr. Gray,
+in a pamphlet, at Baltimore. Fifty thousand copies of it are said to have
+been printed; and it was "embellished with an accurate likeness of the
+brigand, taken by Mr. John Crawley, portrait-painter, and lithographed by
+Endicott & Swett, at Baltimore." The newly established _Liberator_ said
+of it, at the time, that it would "only serve to rouse up other leaders,
+and hasten other insurrections," and advised grand juries to indict Mr.
+Gray. I have never seen a copy of the original pamphlet; it is not easily
+to be found in any of our public libraries; and I have heard of but one
+as still existing, although the Confession itself has been repeatedly
+reprinted. Another small pamphlet, containing the main features of the
+outbreak, was published at New York during the same year, and this is in
+my possession. But the greater part of the facts which I have given were
+gleaned from the contemporary newspapers.
+
+Who now shall go back thirty years, and read the heart of this
+extraordinary man, who, by the admission of his captors, "never was known
+to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits"; who, on the same
+authority, "for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension was
+surpassed by few men," "with a mind capable of attaining any thing"; who
+knew no book but his Bible, and that by heart; who devoted himself soul
+and body to the cause of his race, without a trace of personal hope or
+fear; who laid his plans so shrewdly that they came at last with less
+warning than any earthquake on the doomed community around; and who, when
+that time arrived, took the life of man, woman, and child, without a
+throb of compunction, a word of exultation, or an act of superfluous
+outrage? Mrs. Stowe's "Dred" seems dim and melodramatic beside the actual
+Nat Turner, and De Quincey's "Avenger" is his only parallel in
+imaginative literature. Mr. Gray, his counsel, rises into a sort of
+bewildered enthusiasm with the prisoner before him. "I shall not attempt
+to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by
+himself, in the condemned-hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate
+composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the
+expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still
+bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him, clothed
+with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise his manacled hands
+to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man,--I looked
+on him, and the blood curdled in my veins."
+
+But, the more remarkable the personal character of Nat Turner, the
+greater the amazement felt that he should not have appreciated the
+extreme felicity of his position as a slave. In all insurrections, the
+standing wonder seems to be that the slaves most trusted and best used
+should be most deeply involved. So in this case, as usual, men resorted
+to the most astonishing theories of the origin of the affair. One
+attributed it to Free-Masonry, and another to free whiskey,--liberty
+appearing dangerous, even in these forms. The poor whites charged it upon
+the free colored people, and urged their expulsion; forgetting that in
+North Carolina the plot was betrayed by one of this class, and that in
+Virginia there were but two engaged, both of whom had slave wives. The
+slaveholding clergymen traced it to want of knowledge of the Bible,
+forgetting that Nat Turner knew scarcely any thing else. On the other
+hand, "a distinguished citizen of Virginia" combined in one sweeping
+denunciation "Northern incendiaries, tracts, Sunday schools, religion,
+reading, and writing."
+
+But whether the theories of its origin were wise or foolish, the
+insurrection made its mark; and the famous band of Virginia
+emancipationists, who all that winter made the House of Delegates ring
+with unavailing eloquence,--till the rise of slave-exportation to new
+cotton regions stopped their voices,--were but the unconscious
+mouthpieces of Nat Turner. In January, 1832, in reply to a member who had
+called the outbreak a "petty affair," the eloquent James McDowell thus
+described the impression it left behind:--
+
+    "Now, sir, I ask you, I ask gentlemen in conscience to say, was
+    that a 'petty affair' which startled the feelings of your whole
+    population; which threw a portion of it into alarm, a portion of
+    it into panic; which wrung out from an affrighted people the
+    thrilling cry, day after day, conveyed to your executive, '_We
+    are in peril of our lives; send us an army for defence_'? Was
+    that a 'petty affair' which drove families from their
+    homes,--which assembled women and children in crowds, without
+    shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition of
+    weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and
+    terror could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet
+    death from famine, death from climate, death from hardships,
+    preferring any thing rather than the horrors of meeting it from a
+    domestic assassin? Was that a 'petty affair' which erected a
+    peaceful and confiding portion of the State into a military camp;
+    which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers
+    had offended; which barred every door, penetrated every bosom
+    with fear or suspicion; which so banished every sense of security
+    from every man's dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break
+    upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be
+    driven to the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and
+    the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle? Was it the
+    fear of Nat Turner, and his deluded, drunken handful of
+    followers, which produced such effects? Was it this that induced
+    distant counties, where the very name of Southampton was strange,
+    to arm and equip for a struggle? No, sir: it was the suspicion
+    eternally attached to the slave himself,--the suspicion that a
+    Nat Turner might be in every family; that the same bloody deed
+    might be acted over at any time and in any place; that the
+    materials for it were spread through the land, and were always
+    ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this
+    withering apprehension,--nothing but the paralyzing and deadening
+    weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every
+    man who has helpless dependants to protect,--nothing but this
+    could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could
+    have made any portion of this powerful Commonwealth, for a single
+    instant, to have quailed and trembled."
+
+While these things were going on, the enthusiasm for the Polish
+Revolution was rising to its height. The nation was ringing with a peal
+of joy, on hearing that at Frankfort the Poles had killed fourteen
+thousand Russians. The _Southern Religious Telegraph_ was publishing an
+impassioned address to Kosciuszko; standards were being consecrated for
+Poland in the larger cities; heroes like Skrzynecki, Czartoryski,
+Rozyski, Raminski, were choking the trump of Fame with their complicated
+patronymics. These are all forgotten now; and this poor negro, who did
+not even possess a name, beyond one abrupt monosyllable,--for even the
+name of Turner was the master's property,--still lives, a memory of
+terror, and a symbol of wild retribution.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX OF AUTHORITIES
+
+
+THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA
+
+1. Dallas, R. C. "The History of the Maroons, from their origin to the
+establishment of their chief tribe at Sierra Leone: including the
+expedition to Cuba, for the purpose of procuring Spanish chasseurs; and
+the state of the Island of Jamaica for the last ten years, with a
+succinct history of the island previous to that period." In two volumes.
+London, 1803. [8vo.]
+
+2. Edwards, Bryan. "The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British
+Colonies in the West Indies. To which is added a general description of
+the Bahama Islands, by Daniel M'Kinnen, Esq." In four volumes.
+Philadelphia, 1806. [8vo.]
+
+3. Edwards, Bryan. "Proceedings of the Governor and Associates of Jamaica
+in regard to the Maroon Negroes, with an account of the Maroons." London,
+1796. 8vo.
+
+4. Edwards, Bryan. "Historical Survey of St. Domingo, with an account of
+the Maroon Negroes, a history of the war in the West Indies, 1793-94"
+[etc.]. London, 1801. 4to.
+
+5. _Edinburgh Review_, ii. 376. [Review of Dallas and Edwards, by Henry
+Lord Brougham.]
+
+Also Annual Register, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, etc.
+
+[There appeared in _Once a Week_ (1865) a paper entitled "The Maroons of
+Jamaica," and reprinted in _Every Saturday_ (i. 50, Jan. 31, 1866), in
+which Gov. Eyre is quoted as having said, in the London _Times_, "To the
+fidelity and loyalty of the Maroons it is due that the negroes did not
+commit greater devastation" in the recent insurrection; thus curiously
+repeating the encomium given by Lord Balcarres seventy years before.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MAROONS OF SURINAM
+
+1. "Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the revolted negroes of
+Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America, from the year
+1772 to 1777 ... by Capt. J. G. Stedman." London. Printed for J. Johnson,
+St. Paul's Churchyard, and J. Edwards, Pall Mall. 1790. [2 vols. 4to.]
+
+2. "Transatlantic Sketches, comprising visits to the most interesting
+scenes in North and South America and the West Indies. With notes on
+negro slavery and Canadian emigration. By Capt. J. E. Alexander, 42 Royal
+Highlanders." London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington St., 1833. [2 vols.
+8vo.]
+
+Also Annual Register, etc.
+
+[The best account of the present condition of the Maroons, or, as they
+are now called, bush-negroes, of Surinam, is to be found in a graphic
+narrative of a visit to Dutch Guiana, by W. G. Palgrave, in the
+_Fortnightly Review_, xxiv. 801; xxv. 194, 536. These papers are
+reprinted in _Littell's Living Age_, cxxviii. 154, cxxix. 409. He
+estimates the present numbers of these people as approaching thirty
+thousand. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" gives the names of several
+publications relating to their peculiar dialect, popularly known as
+Negro-English, but including many Dutch words.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GABRIEL'S DEFEAT
+
+The materials for the history of Gabriel's revolt are still very
+fragmentary, and must be sought in the contemporary newspapers. No
+continuous file of Southern newspapers for the year 1800 was to be found,
+when this narrative was written, in any Boston or New-York library,
+though the Harvard-College Library contained a few numbers of the
+Baltimore _Telegraphe_ and the Norfolk _Epitome of the Times_. My chief
+reliance has therefore been the Southern correspondence of the Northern
+newspapers, with the copious extracts there given from Virginian
+journals. I am chiefly indebted to the Philadelphia _United-States
+Gazette_, the Boston _Independent Chronicle_, the Salem _Gazette_ and
+_Register_, the New-York _Daily Advertiser_, and the Connecticut
+_Courant_. The best continuous narratives that I have found are in the
+_Courant_ of Sept. 29, 1800, and the Salem _Gazette_ of Oct. 7, 1800; but
+even these are very incomplete. Several important documents I have been
+unable to discover,--the official proclamation of the governor, the
+description of Gabriel's person, and the original confession of the
+slaves as given to Mr. Sheppard. The discovery of these would no doubt
+have enlarged, and very probably corrected, my narrative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DENMARK VESEY
+
+1. "Negro Plot. An Account of the late intended insurrection among a
+portion of the blacks of the city of Charleston, S.C. Published by the
+Authority of the Corporation of Charleston." Second edition. Boston:
+printed and published by Joseph W. Ingraham. 1822. 8vo, pp. 50.
+
+[A third edition was printed at Boston during the same year, a copy of
+which is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The
+first and fourth editions, which were printed at Charleston, S.C., I have
+never seen.]
+
+2. "An Official Report of the trials of sundry negroes, charged with an
+attempt to raise an insurrection in the State of South Carolina: preceded
+by an introduction and narrative; and in an appendix, a report of the
+trials of four white persons, on indictments for attempting to excite the
+slaves to insurrection. Prepared and published at the request of the
+court. By Lionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker, members of the Charleston
+bar, and the presiding magistrates of the court." Charleston: printed by
+James R. Schenck, 23 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 188x4.
+
+3. "Reflections occasioned by the late disturbances in Charleston, by
+Achates." Charleston: printed and sold by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St.
+1822. 8vo, pp. 30.
+
+4. "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and
+Western States, respecting the institution and existence of slavery among
+them. To which is added a minute and particular account of the actual
+state and condition of their Negro Population, together with Historical
+Notices of all the Insurrections that have taken place since the
+settlement of the country.--Facts are stubborn things.--_Shakspeare_. By
+a South Carolinian." [Edwin C. Holland.] Charleston: printed by A. E.
+Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1822. 8vo, pp. 86.
+
+5. "Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the views of the Baptists
+relative to the colored population in the United States, in a
+communication to the Governor of South Carolina." Second edition.
+Charleston: printed by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1833. 8vo, pp. 16.
+
+[The first edition appeared in 1823. It relates to a petition offered by
+a Baptist Convention for a day of thanksgiving and humiliation, in
+reference to the insurrection, and to a violent hurricane which had just
+occurred.]
+
+6. "Practical Considerations, founded on the Scriptures, relative to the
+Slave Population of South Carolina. Respectfully dedicated to the South
+Carolina Association. By a South Carolinian." Charleston: printed and
+sold by A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad St. 1823. 8vo, pp. 38.
+
+7. [The letter of Gov. Bennett, dated Aug. 10, 1822, was evidently
+printed originally as a pamphlet or circular, though I have not been able
+to find it in that form. It may be found reprinted in the _Columbian
+Centinel_ (Aug. 31, 1822), _Connecticut Courant_ (Sept. 3), and Worcester
+_Spy_ (Sept. 18). It is also printed in Lundy's _Genius of Universal
+Emancipation_ for September, 1822 (ii. 42), and reviewed in subsequent
+numbers (pp. 81, 131, 142).]
+
+8. "The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom. Boston: Anti-Slavery Bazaar.
+1841. 12mo." [This contains an article on p. 158, entitled "Servile
+Insurrections," by Edmund Jackson, including brief personal reminiscences
+of the Charleston insurrection, during which he resided in that city.]
+
+[Of the above-named pamphlets, all now rare, Nos. 1 and 2 are in my own
+possession. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, are in the Wendell Phillips collection of
+pamphlets in the Boston Public Library.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION
+
+1. "The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late Insurrection in
+Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, in the
+prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when
+read before the Court of Southampton, with the certificate under seal of
+the court convened at Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1831, for this trial. Also an
+authentic account of the whole insurrection, with lists of the whites who
+were murdered, and of the negroes brought before the Court of
+Southampton, and there sentenced, etc." New York: printed and published
+by C. Brown, 211 Water Street, 1831.
+
+[This pamphlet was reprinted in the _Anglo-African Magazine_ (New York),
+December, 1859. Whether it is identical with the work said by the
+newspapers of the period to have been published at Baltimore, I have been
+unable to ascertain. But if, as was alleged, forty thousand copies of the
+Baltimore pamphlet were issued, it seems impossible that they should have
+become so scarce. The first reprint of the Confession, so far as I know,
+was a partial one in Abdy's "Journal in the United States." London. 1835.
+3 vols. 8vo.]
+
+2. "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was
+witnessed in Southhampton County (Va.), on Monday, the 22d of August
+last, when Fifty-five of its inhabitants (mostly women and children) were
+inhumanly massacred by the blacks! Communicated by those who were
+eye-witnesses of the bloody scene, and confirmed by the confessions of
+several of the Blacks, while under Sentence of Death." [By Samuel Warner,
+New York.] Printed for Warner & West. 1831. 12mo, pp. 36 [or more, copy
+incomplete. With a frontispiece]. Among the Wendell Phillips tracts in
+the Boston Public Library.
+
+3. "Slave Insurrection in 1831, in Southampton County, Va., headed by Nat
+Turner. Also a conspiracy of slaves in Charleston, S.C., in 1822." New
+York: compiled and published by Henry Bibb, 9 Spruce St. 1849. 12mo, pp.
+12.
+
+[The contemporary newspaper narratives may be found largely quoted in the
+first volume of the _Liberator_ (1831), and in Lundy's _Genius of
+Universal Emancipation_ (September, 1831). The files of the Richmond
+_Enquirer_ have also much information on the subject.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Black Rebellion, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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