Gabriel Prosser

Gabriel was born into slavery on the Brookfield plantation near Richmond, Virginia, around 1776, the property of Thomas Henry Prosser. He was trained as a blacksmith and was permitted by his master to hire his own time — earning wages on independent contract work that he was allowed to keep above a fixed rate paid back to Prosser. He was tall (approximately six foot two, by the records of subsequent reward advertisements), literate, and connected through his metalworking trade to the network of enslaved and free Black workers across the Tidewater region.

In the summer of 1800 — at twenty-four — Gabriel organized the largest planned slave insurrection in U.S. history before Nat Turner. The plan, developed over six months with his brothers Solomon and Martin and the boatman Jack Bowler, called for a coordinated march on Richmond on the night of the thirtieth of August 1800. Approximately one thousand enslaved men were enlisted across Henrico, Caroline, Hanover, Louisa, and Chesterfield counties. The plan called for the seizure of the Capitol, the State Penitentiary, and the powder magazine at Richmond. The slogan was to be "Death or Liberty" — a direct echo of Patrick Henry's "give me liberty, or give me death."

A torrential thunderstorm on the night of the thirtieth of August washed out the roads to Richmond and forced postponement. Two enslaved men, Pharaoh and Tom, used the delay to inform their owner Mosby Sheppard. Sheppard alerted Governor James Monroe. The Virginia militia was mobilized within the day; arrests began the following morning.

Gabriel evaded capture for three weeks, was betrayed by another enslaved man for the substantial reward, and tried in Richmond. He refused to testify at his trial. He was hanged on the seventh of October 1800 with twenty-five other conspirators.

He is honored here as the blacksmith whose Death or Liberty rising would have taken Richmond in 1800.