"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 September 23d. "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 September 17th, 1831, and many other newspapers; then refuted in detail by the "Richmond Enquirer" of October 21st; 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.
It is stated at the close of this newspaper romance,—and it may nevertheless be true,—that 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. The reporter claims to have heard it in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It would certainly be one of history's strange parallelisms, if this fatal enterprise, like that of John Brown afterwards, should thus triumphantly have embalmed itself in music. But I have found no other trace of such a piece of border-minstrelsy, and it is probable that even this plaintive memorial has at length disappeared.