The slavery question in the new territory was a critical one. It was on account of it that the Federalists had opposed the acquisition; the American Convention endeavored to secure a provision like that of the Northwest Ordinance; and the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia in 1805 prayed "that effectual measures may be adopted by Congress to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of the territories of the United States." Nevertheless the whole territory without regard to latitude was thrown open to the system March 2, 1805.
In spite of this victory for slavery, however, the general force of the events in Hayti was such as to make more certain the formal closing of the slave-trade at the end of the twenty-year period for which the Constitution had permitted it to run. The conscience of the North had been profoundly stirred, and in the far South was the ever-present fear of a reproduction of the events in Hayti. The agitation in England moreover was at last about to bear fruit in the act of 1807 forbidding the slave-trade. In America it seems from the first to have been an understood thing, especially by the Southern representatives, that even if such an act passed it would be only irregularly enforced, and the debates were concerned rather with the disposal of illegally imported Africans and with the punishment of those concerned in the importation than with the proper limitation of the traffic by water.[67] On March 2, 1807, the act was passed forbidding the slave-trade after the close of the year. In course of time it came very near to being a dead letter, as may be seen from presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. Fernandina and Galveston were only two of the most notorious ports for smuggling. A regular chain of posts was established from the head of St. Mary's River to the upper country, and through the Indian nation, by means of which the Negroes were transferred to every part of the country.[68] If dealers wished to form a caravan they would give an Indian alarm, so that the woods might be less frequented, and if pursued in Georgia they would escape into Florida. One small schooner contained one hundred and thirty souls. "They were almost packed into a small space, between a floor laid over the water-casks and the deck—not near three feet—insufficient for them to sit upright—and so close that chafing against each other their bones pierced the skin and became galled and ulcerated by the motion of the vessel." Many American vessels were engaged in the trade under Spanish colors, and the traffic to Africa was pursued with uncommon vigor at Havana, the crews of vessels being made up of men of all nations, who were tempted by the high wages to be earned. Evidently officials were negligent in the discharge of their duty, but even if offenders were apprehended it did not necessarily follow that they would receive effective punishment. President Madison in his message of December 5, 1810, said, "It appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country"; and on January 7, 1819, the Register of the Treasury made to the House the amazing report that "it doth not appear, from an examination of the records of this office, and particularly of the accounts (to the date of their last settlement) of the collectors of the customs, and of the several marshals of the United States, that any forfeitures had been incurred under the said act." A supplementary and compromising and ineffective act of 1818 sought to concentrate efforts against smuggling by encouraging informers; and one of the following year that authorized the President to "make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States" of recaptured Africans, and that bore somewhat more fruit, was in large measure due to the colonization movement and of importance in connection with the founding of Liberia.
Thus, while the formal closing of the slave-trade might seem to be a great step forward, the laxness with which the decree was enforced places it definitely in the period of reaction.
3. [Gabriel's Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem]
Gabriel's insurrection of 1800 was by no means the most formidable revolt that the Southern states witnessed. In design it certainly did not surpass the scope of the plot of Denmark Vesey twenty-two years later, and in actual achievement it was insignificant when compared not only with Nat Turner's insurrection but even with the uprisings sixty years before. At the last moment in fact a great storm that came up made the attempt to execute the plan a miserable failure. Nevertheless coming as it did so soon after the revolution in Hayti, and giving evidence of young and unselfish leadership, the plot was regarded as of extraordinary significance.
Gabriel himself[69] was an intelligent slave only twenty-four years old, and his chief assistant was Jack Bowler, aged twenty-eight. Throughout the summer of 1800 he matured his plan, holding meetings at which a brother named Martin interpreted various texts from Scripture as bearing on the situation of the Negroes. His insurrection was finally set for the first day of September. It was well planned. The rendezvous was to be a brook six miles from Richmond. Under cover of night the force of 1,100 was to march in three columns on the city, then a town of 8,000 inhabitants, the right wing to seize the penitentiary building which had just been converted into an arsenal, while the left took possession of the powder-house. These two columns were to be armed with clubs, and while they were doing their work the central force, armed with muskets, knives, and pikes, was to begin the carnage, none being spared except the French, whom it is significant that the Negroes favored. In Richmond at the time there were not more than four or five hundred men with about thirty muskets; but in the arsenal were several thousand guns, and the powder-house was well stocked. Seizure of the mills was to guarantee the insurrectionists a food supply; and meanwhile in the country districts were the new harvests of corn, and flocks and herds were fat in the fields.
On the day appointed for the uprising Virginia witnessed such a storm as she had not seen in years. Bridges were carried away, and roads and plantations completely submerged. Brook Swamp, the strategic point for the Negroes, was inundated; and the country Negroes could not get into the city, nor could those in the city get out to the place of rendezvous. The force of more than a thousand dwindled to three hundred, and these, almost paralyzed by fear and superstition, were dismissed. Meanwhile a slave who did not wish to see his master killed divulged the plot, and all Richmond was soon in arms.
A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to the city and arrests followed quickly. Three hundred dollars was offered by Governor Monroe for the arrest of Gabriel, and as much more for Jack Bowler. Bowler surrendered, but it took weeks to find Gabriel. Six men were convicted and condemned to be executed on September 12, and five more on September 18. Gabriel was finally captured on September 24 at Norfolk on a vessel that had come from Richmond; he was convicted on October 3 and executed on October 7. He showed no disposition to dissemble as to his own plan; at the same time he said not one word that incriminated anybody else. After him twenty-four more men were executed; then it began to appear that some "mistakes" had been made and the killing ceased. About the time of this uprising some Negroes were also assembled for an outbreak in Suffolk County; there were alarms in Petersburg and in the country near Edenton, N.C.; and as far away as Charleston the excitement was intense.
There were at least three other Negro insurrections of importance in the period 1790-1820. When news came of the uprising of the slaves in Santo Domingo in 1791, the Negroes in Louisiana planned a similar effort.[70] They might have succeeded better if they had not disagreed as to the hour of the outbreak, when one of them informed the commandant. As a punishment twenty-three of the slaves were hanged along the banks of the river and their corpses left dangling for days; but three white men who assisted them and who were really the most guilty of all, were simply sent out of the colony. In Camden, S. C, on July 4, 1816, some other Negroes risked all for independence.[71] On various pretexts men from the country districts were invited to the town on the appointed night, and different commands were assigned, all except that of commander-in-chief, which position was to be given to him who first forced the gates of the arsenal. Again the plot was divulged by "a favorite and confidential slave," of whom we are told that the state legislature purchased the freedom, settling upon him a pension for life. About six of the leaders were executed. On or about May 1, 1819, there was a plot to destroy the city of Augusta, Ga.[72] The insurrectionists were to assemble at Beach Island, proceed to Augusta, set fire to the place, and then destroy the inhabitants. Guards were posted, and a white man who did not answer when hailed was shot and fatally wounded. A Negro named Coot was tried as being at the head of the conspiracy and sentenced to be executed a few days later. Other trials followed his. Not a muscle moved when the verdict was pronounced upon him.
The deeper meaning of such events as these could not escape the discerning. More than one patriot had to wonder just whither the country was drifting. Already it was evident that the ultimate problem transcended the mere question of slavery, and many knew that human beings could not always be confined to an artificial status. Throughout the period the slave-trade seemed to flourish without any real check, and it was even accentuated by the return to power of the old royalist houses of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. Meanwhile it was observed that slave labor was driving out of the South the white man of small means, and antagonism between the men of the "up-country" and the seaboard capitalists was brewing. The ordinary social life of the Negro in the South left much to be desired, and conditions were not improved by the rapid increase. As for slavery itself, no one could tell when or where or how the system would end; all only knew that it was developing apace: and meanwhile there was the sinister possibility of the alliance of the Negro and the Indian. Sincere plans of gradual abolition were advanced in the South as well as the North, but in the lower section they seldom got more than a respectful hearing. In his "Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia," St. George Tucker, a professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and one of the judges of the General Court of Virginia, in 1796 advanced a plan by which he figured that after sixty years there would be only one-third as many slaves as at first. At this distance his proposal seems extremely conservative; at the time, however, it was laid on the table by the Virginia House of Delegates, and from the Senate the author received merely "a civil acknowledgment."