Gabriel Prosser

Gabriel was born into slavery around 1776 on Brookfield, a tobacco plantation in Henrico County, Virginia, just north of Richmond, then the property of the planter Thomas Prosser. Upon Thomas Prosser's death in 1798, Gabriel passed to his son, Thomas Henry Prosser. He never bore the surname "Prosser" in the records of his own time; it was later attached to him from his enslaver's name.

Trained as a blacksmith — and, uncommonly for an enslaved man, able to read and write — Gabriel was skilled enough to be hired out beyond Brookfield, laboring in Richmond and for neighboring farms and businesses and keeping a portion of what he earned. This mobility and literacy let him move among the enslaved and free Black people of the region and imagine a wider freedom.

Through the spring and summer of 1800 he organized what would be one of the largest slave uprisings planned in United States history. Enlisting his brothers, fellow blacksmiths, and hundreds of the enslaved across many counties and the towns of Richmond, Norfolk, and Petersburg, he forged scythes into swords and set a plan to seize the Richmond armory and capitol. On August 30, 1800, torrential rain washed out roads and creeks, and betrayal reached the authorities. Governor James Monroe called out the militia.

Captured and tried, Gabriel was convicted and, on October 10, 1800, hanged in Richmond — the first, and alone. He was about twenty-four. May the courage of Gabriel, who chose the peril of freedom over the safety of bondage, be honored for as long as his name is spoken.