Gabriel’s plot triggered tightened Virginia slave codes, including banning literacy and expelling freed Blacks

Evidence

The fear was well founded. Enslaved people in the United States and across the Americas saw themselves as part of a joint struggle for freedom, as news of insurrections traveled across the water. The following year, an enslaved man in Virginia named Gabriel was inspired by the uprising in Saint-Domingue to hatch an insurrection of his own, which reportedly grew to several hundred conspirators. As Virginia governor (and future president) James Monroe, himself an enslaver, wrote in a letter to Vice President Thomas Jefferson, “It is unquestionably the most serious and formidable conspiracy we have ever known of the kind.” Although traitors betrayed Gabriel’s plot before the rebellion could fully materialize, Virginia responded by further restricting Black people’s lives. Governor Monroe ordered the state militia to patrol the capitol, sweep the region, and arrest any enslaved person they deemed suspicious. White Virginians also strengthened the slave codes, hoping that strict surveillance and control over gatherings would stymie the ability of Black people to plot and execute rebellions. They further circumscribed the movements of enslaved people, explicitly preventing gatherings on Sundays or in the evenings and banning education and literacy among the enslaved. The new law also required Black people freed by their owners to leave the state within twelve months or face reenslavement. In Virginia, then, to be Black was to be enslaved. To be free and Black was to be a threat. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 370

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s stated core task: the feedback loop where perceived threat of revolt hardens the slave regime is a concrete mechanism in the deviation-vs-design argument.