by Gigi Amateau
Gabriel expected four hundred, five hundred, maybe one thousand men from Goochland, Henrico, Hanover, and Caroline. Another thousand armed soldiers would fall in with them at Richmond. The rest would join once they took the city. He had ordered them to meet at Brook Bridge; all were to bring what arms they could secure. Some would bring clubs and sticks; others would carry the weapons that Gabriel and Solomon had crafted from the scythes used to cut tobacco and wheat. A few would take swords off great-house mantels and rifles from under great-house beds. They would gather at midnight, and he would need every hour until then to make ready.
Will these last bullets give us victory? he asked himself.
“If we use the coming night to fight. If we remember we are men with an equal right to freedom,” Gabriel said, not realizing he spoke out loud.
“What, Brother?”
“We’ve done all we can do,” he told Solomon. “Our deliverance is in our hands.” To himself, he prayed for God to be real and on the good side of the business.
All morning, the brothers worked alone and in quiet, readying the small, homemade arsenal to move to Brook Bridge once the sun set. Just past noon, Gabriel heard Nanny calling him. She had run all the way from Wilkinson’s.
“Here,” she said, out of breath. “Sit down and eat. Take your nourishment, now. Both of you.” Nanny unwrapped two hoecakes and a sweet potato for each brother from her bandanna. “Share this meal with me.” Nanny took her husband’s left hand and held it tight. “I love you, Gabriel.”
He opened Nanny’s kerchief and smelled the still-warm yam, then blew the ashes off. He wiped his hands on his shirt before taking a bite. “I’m wearing my Nanny shirt.” He pointed to the delicate red stitches adorning the cuffs near his wrists and lacing the collar at his heart. He told his wife, “Forgive me for not teaching you every word you ever wanted to read.”
Nanny shook her head. “You taught me to write our names. And when we are free and eatin’ with the merchants of the city, we will take up my lessons again.”
In front of Solomon, Gabriel grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in close. “It’s a beautiful day for love.” But the shop — bustling toward freedom — was too busy for love.
Sam Byrd stopped in to report that the roads looked clear, but to the west the sky did not. Isaac and Ben came to collect their weapons. But Isaac hesitated to take his sword from Gabriel.
“Something wrong with you, Isaac?” Gabriel asked him.
Isaac jutted his chin out. “Nothin’ the matter.”
“Good. This is a day for men, not chickenhearted boys.” Gabriel bumped the young recruit on his way to get more wood for the fire.
Sam Byrd and Ben laughed.
Isaac looked over at Nanny and blurted out, “You told us not to repeat the business in front of any woman, General.”
Gabriel spun around to Isaac, his voice forceful and clear. “Nanny is the business; she’s not just any woman. We need her. If the business goes bad, and we end up taking to the swamp, she’ll run our provisions and messages. Nanny’s life will be on the line with ours. What you hear from Nanny, you hear from me. Understand?”
Isaac saluted.
Solomon dunked the bullet mold into a bucket of cool water, and when the burst of steam hissed, Isaac jumped.
“Isaac, it’s all right to feel afraid,” Nanny said, trying to reassure the unlikeliest of soldiers. Gabriel’s eyes met Nanny’s. They knew that anyone who backed out now would endanger everyone involved.
“What do I do?” Isaac asked her.
Isaac looks like a child, not a warrior, Gabriel thought. He nodded to his wife that she should answer.
Nanny tried to embolden Isaac. “You will go to Brook Bridge with the sword Gabriel made you. There, one thousand freedom fighters will join you. Your children, wherever they are, will be free because of what you do on this night. Isaac, do you believe me?”
“The business will never work. You know that, don’t you, Gabriel?” Ben asked from the corner.
Isaac stood shaking.
Ben didn’t hide his doubt. “Our general is sending us to our deaths; the black general is ready to fight. But are you ready to fall, Gabriel? Are you ready to die?”
“Hush your mouth, Ben.” Nanny held her hand out to Isaac. “The business will work. Gabriel’s army will march into Richmond in three columns. You need only to get to the capitol; there you will re-arm. Bob Cooley will unlock the armory. Some will march to Rocketts and set it on fire to draw the city men away from the capitol. Others will have already taken the weapons from Goodall’s Tavern. Another column will take the powder from the penitentiary. All will come back together under Gabriel’s command. Once the governor is in our custody, the army will head south to Petersburg, then Norfolk. Along the way, others will join in: Frenchmen, workers, freemen, the Catawba. The business will work. Am I right, Ben?”
Ben stared out the door. “A storm’s comin’. Nanny, come see these dark clouds.”
Isaac went to the door; Nanny followed and put her arms around his shoulders.
“Ignore him,” Nanny said of Ben. “He’s not a man today.”
Isaac confessed to Nanny, “I don’t want to die.”
She kissed her friend’s forehead. “Shhhh. It’s all right; it’s all right.”
Gabriel threw down his hammer and shouted at Isaac, “Tell me something. Where is Venus? Where did Thomas Henry send her?”
“To Amherst County, across the mountains,” Isaac answered.
“Are you sure? Where is your daughter? Your son?”
“Gone. Sold. I don’t know why. I don’t know where,” Isaac answered, staring at the ground.
“Yes, gone. All of them. Aren’t you already dying? Look here, what kind of man are you, Isaac?” Gabriel asked. “Your freedom starts in this instant. Right now, you must decide.”
Isaac closed his eyes and whispered, “I am a true man.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Isaac cleared his throat. “General Gabriel, here are my hands. Here is my heart. I am ready to fight for my country.”
By sunset, the western August sky had darkened, and the rain had arrived. Those first gusts of wind and the early smell of rain did not dissuade them. Gabriel and Solomon and Sam Byrd all agreed that the business would still go forward. They would not turn back. They even believed that the approaching storm might make the work easier to carry out, for it would keep the patrollers inside while the boys took the city.
The storm did not relent. Soon the rain overtook the roads, the creek, and the meadows. The water rose too fast, sweeping cows out of their fields and pulling horses out from under their riders. Heifers and goats scrambled to reach high ground but lost their footing, fell, and drowned by the dozens. Brook Bridge — Gabriel’s access to the city — crumbled in minutes. No bridges were left passable because no bridges were left. The places that could once be forded could no longer. Brookfield was cut off from Richmond.
Gabriel waited until his only choice was to postpone the rising until Sunday. He and Jupiter and Solomon and Sam and also Nanny split up to get the word across the countryside: “Abandon the business! We will advance tomorrow instead. Meet at Prosser’s tobacco house on Sunday night.”
They went from quarter to tavern to quarter, giving the new order to anyone they could find.
August 30, 1800
Mosby Sheppard to Governor Monroe
Richmond
Dear Governor,
I have just been informed by two of my hands, Pharoah and Tom, that the Negroes were to rise (as they termed it) in the neighborhood of Mr. Thomas H. Prosser’s and to kill the neighbors, viz. Major Wm. Mosby, Thomas H. Prosser, and Mr. Johnson; from thence they were to proceed to town, where they would be joined by the Negroes of this place (Richmond), after which they were to take possession of the arms and ammunition, and then take possession of the town.
Here the two stopped, appearing much agitated. I then asked them two questions.
Answer: To-night.
Who is the principal man?
Answer: Prosser’s Gabriel.
I have given you the substance of what I have heard, and there is no doubt in my mind but what my information is true, and I have given you this information in order that the intended massacre may be prevented if possible.
I am, with due respect,
Mosby Sheppard
N.B. I will here recite to you the manner in which I got this information. I was sitting in the counting-room with the door shut, and no one near except myself; Pharoah and Tom knocked at the door, and I let them in; they shut the door themselves and then began to tell what I have before recited.
HE HAD ordered his men to stay away on Saturday night. For most of their lives, they had all worked in the rain and mud whenever required, but no one could recall having lived through a storm like this one.
The boys would have braved a rain.
Some did try to reach Brook Bridge. Some drowned in the night. Others stole away to the woods to wait, but even those who escaped the flood would not escape the fate of this day.
By Sunday morning, a day as clean as the night was cruel brought the people out from the quarter to watch the water recede. By Sunday morning, the patrollers knew all about Gabriel’s plan. On Sunday morning, a few recruits ran deep into the forest, and a few chose to face the patrollers and fight.
Solomon’s voice trembled when he told Gabriel, “They’re arresting the boys from Price’s, from Mr. Young’s. The patrol hunted Michael into the woods. You’d be proud, Brother. He drew his sword, but they were too many. Michael will hang.”
Gabriel needed a new plan, yet on this day there was no time to make fire or sound the anvil beat. He knew even more men would soon be overtaken and soon tried and executed.
Solomon looked to his younger brother for reassurance. “Will we all hang, Gabriel?”
“No. Not all of us,” Gabriel promised.
Solomon covered his face and wept. Gabriel did nothing but watch Nanny set sweet potatoes in the fire. He looked out at the Sunday-morning sky. The storm had left behind low, luminous, and steep white clouds, seemingly within reach, just there at the canopy. “Almost makes you think we already won. We’re looking hard at the bacon, but we can’t get to it,” Gabriel said.
He watched Nanny turn the potatoes over and nudge them deeper into the heat. When she stretched her back — low, middling, and high up — he wondered, How much sleep has she already lost? How many meals did she skip to save up this food?
He gathered what weapons he could easily carry — a pistol and a homemade bayonet. He took bullets, a scythe-sword, and his papers — the letters from Quersey, the list of names. Nanny handed him a blanket and a kerchief tied off to hold two days’ worth of food. He didn’t have to tell her where he would be or that he would lie out in the marsh and wait. They both knew the fate awaiting those men caught at Brookfield or nearby. Virginia would demand their lives.
“I’ll send word to the Frenchman. If I can get to Norfolk, I’ll join our boys there,” he told her.
“And Solomon?” Nanny asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “He’s not thinking right. Solomon will stay here.”
“I’m comin’ with you,” Nanny said.
I would give up my own life for the business of liberty, he thought. Can I send my own wife to the gallows?
“Stay here,” Gabriel told her. “Be my eyes. Be my ears. Bring food to me and the men and bring us news.”
He contemplated whether the summer had all been a great mistake. How could I ever think any freedom, whether in life or death, would be worth any price if I could not have Nanny?
But he knew his campaign was not only about their love. They were fighting for Nanny’s sisters, her parents, whom she could not even remember, Venus and Isaac and their children, and Dolly and Joseph, too. He knew Nanny understood all of this.
She raised Gabriel’s hand. “Death or liberty! I’ll find out what I can and then come find you in the swamp.”
A delicate trace of regret constricted around his heart. Gabriel held his wife close and admitted, “The boys call me General Gabriel. I’m scared, Nan.”
“I know.” Nanny kissed his left palm, his hammer hand, so much larger than the other. “I won’t ever leave you.” Then she brought his hand to her stomach. “I know for sure our child is growing here,” Nanny said.
Gabriel sank to his knees and pressed his face to Nan’s dress. How can I leave Nan?
Yet, even knowing Nanny was carrying their child, Gabriel did not change his course. All along, he had been fighting for Nanny and for the son or daughter whose reflection they first saw in the creek. Certain his child was protected in the darkest, safest place of all and sure that remaining at Brookfield would mean certain condemnation to the gallows, Gabriel mustered all his courage to forge on with the business.
Nanny stirred the embers of his belief. “You are my Toussaint, our black general. You are my Gabriel, our freedom fighter.” She pressed the sack into his hands, though these supplies would not last long in the marsh. “I promise your son will know. Your son and his daughter and her children will know this: Gabriel did not give up. They will know.”
“We will see what the day brings,” he told her. He told himself, If I can get to Norfolk, hundreds of soldiers will be waiting, and the Frenchman will be there, too. Our freedom still has a chance.
Local patrollers descended on Brookfield by horse and by foot. They took Ben and Watt and Peter. They captured Martin and Solomon, too. At Wilkinson’s they found Jupiter. And from Burton’s place they dragged poor Isaac through the field, down the road, and all the way into the city. But Gabriel escaped to the swamp. The plot had been discovered. Had the business yet failed?
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATION,
COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA,
SEPTEMBER 4, 1800
On further consideration of the conspiracy & Insurrection among the Negroes, it is advised that a party of sixty men be ordered from the militia to patrol for the general safety of the county and particularly about the plantations of Messrs. Wilkinson & Prosser, where it is suggested the conspiracy originated, and that they be instructed to make diligent search for the arms of the conspirators. It is also advised that the Magistrates be permitted to commit witnesses or informers of the plot to the Penitentiary for their security.
GABRIEL SAT in the bough of an old, low oak. His legs rested against a hairy vine that made him itch. Open blisters oozed yellow and green down his arms, but now he hardly noticed. The hoecakes and potatoes Nanny had given him were long ago devoured. He thought he had been awake for days, and with the lapping of the swamp against the oak’s great roots, he started to fade. A familiar howl woke Gabriel.
“Ah-oo-oo-oo.”
Gabriel leaned against the tree trunk. He wanted to hear the mournful call again. He could not see Dog but heard her moving closer through the water.
“Ah-oo-oo-oo.” The hound sounded like she might give up, so desperate her call. To comfort her, Gabriel called back, “Ah-ah-oo-oo.” I’m here, old friend; I’m here.
“Gabriel?” Nanny appeared beneath the oak in the gleam of the moon.
He dropped from the limb to his wife. Nanny wrapped her arms around Gabriel’s neck and burrowed her head into his chest. The news poured out of her. “Patrollers are out along the James, west to Cartersville, and all along the road north to Fredericksburg. Already seven have been hanged at the gallows in Caroline. Some boys were hanged in Hanover, too.
“They took Isaac to Richmond. Tied him to a horse and dragged him away.” She could not stop the news from pouring out of her. “Ben, Sam Byrd, Frank, Gilbert, George, poor Jupiter, too —”
“My brothers?”
“Richmond.”
Nanny held out a new sack with more food.
Gabriel closed his eyes. Who will watch over Solomon? He will fall.
He pulled Nanny’s head c
loser with his chin. “Keep still, Nan. Just like this,” he said. So solid in my arms. Strong enough to live here forever with me in this old swamp, Gabriel thought. He knew they couldn’t return to Brookfield or the colonel’s, but they could make a life in the bog.
If she pleads with me to quit the business, I will.
Gabriel wanted only her. More than he wanted his own smith shop or a place to live in town, he wanted to feel Nanny’s foot push against his calf every night. He wanted to teach her how to make the letters into even more words and show her how together they could spell any dream a man and wife could imagine. Others had escaped their bondage and lived off the marsh or the forest. For a false minute, Gabriel thought, We might find our freedom here.
“I want to make love to my free wife. I want to look into the walnut eyes of our first son and ask him, Where’re you off to, my strappin’ boy?” he said aloud.
In his heart, he heard the words of his older brother Martin, who had said, at the spring, “I have borne all I can bear.” He remembered how, when he was a boy, he watched slaves build the city he loved and the capitol itself, where freedom and justice were the business. He looked at his hands that forged such prosperity for Mr. Prosser and Thomas Henry. And he looked at his wife, but a slave who would hang with him if they were ever caught.
Gabriel held his wife close and heaved a great sigh. “Many arrests and, no doubt, more coming. The betrayal begins. What’s next?” he asked.
He thought he heard baying dogs and snorting horses, trained to hunt men and game, snaking around the swamp. Shouting and shooting would come next. Whether the arrival of militia was imminent or an audible mirage conjectured by his tired mind, it didn’t matter now. The only quiet he heard was the silence from Ma’s God, the one who had yet to let His voice be heard or His power be known. Gabriel prayed for a better God.
“I can bear no more,” Gabriel finally said to Nanny.
