The more alarming insurrections of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were the immediate cause of the most reactionary measures.  It was easily observed that these movements were due to the mental improvement of the colored people during the struggle for the rights of man.  Not only had Negroes heard from the lips of their masters warm words of praise for the leaders of the French Revolution but had developed sufficient intelligence themselves to read the story of the heroes of the world, who were then emboldened to refresh the tree of liberty “with the blood of patriots and tyrants."[1] The insurrectionary passion among the colored people was kindled, too, around Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans by certain Negroes who to escape the horrors of the political upheaval in Santo Domingo,[2] immigrated into this country in 1793.  The education of the colored race had paved the way for the dissemination of their ideas of liberty and equality.  Enlightened bondmen persistently made trouble for the white people in these vicinities.  Negroes who could not read, learned from others the story of Toussaint L’Ouverture, whose example colored men were then ambitious to emulate.

[Footnote 1:  Washington, Works of Jefferson, vol. iv., p. 467.]

[Footnote 2:  Drewery, Insurrections in Virginia, p. 121.]

The insurrection of Gabriel in Virginia and that of South Carolina in the year 1800 are cases in evidence.  Unwilling to concede that slaves could have so well planned such a daring attack, the press of the time insisted that two Frenchmen were the promoters of the affair in Virginia.[1] James Monroe said there was no evidence that any white man was connected with it.[2] It was believed that the general tendency of the Negroes toward an uprising had resulted from French ideas which had come to the slaves through intelligent colored men.[3] Observing that many Negroes were sufficiently enlightened to see things as other men, the editor of the Aurora asserted that in negotiating with the “Black Republic” the United States and Great Britain had set the seal of approval upon servile insurrection.[4] Others referred to inflammatory handbills which Negroes extensively read.[5] Discussing the Gabriel plot in 1800, Judge St. George Tucker said:  “Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it—­a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is, every day diminishes.  Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear."[6]

[Footnote 1:  The New York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800; and The Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 21, 1831.]

[Footnote 2:  Writings of James Monroe, vol. iii., p. 217.]

[Footnote 3:  Educated Negroes then constituted an alarming element in Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina.  See The New York Daily Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1800.]