d the New York panic of two years later, there was
remarkable quiet in race relations in general for a full half century. It
was not indeed until the spread of the amazing news from San Domingo and
the influx thence of white refugees and their slaves that a new series of
disturbances began on the continent. At Norfolk in 1792 some negroes were
arrested on suspicion of conspiracy but were promptly discharged for lack
of evidence;[59] and close by at Portsmouth in the next year there were
such savage clashes between the newly come French blacks and those of the
Virginia stock that citizens were alarmed for their own safety.[60] In
Louisiana an uprising on the plantation of Julien Poydras in Pointe
Coupee Parish in 1796 brought the execution of a dozen or two negroes and
sentences to prison of several whites convicted as their accomplices;[61]
and as late as 1811 an outbreak in St. Charles and St. James Parishes was
traced in part to San Domingo slaves.[62]

[Footnote 59: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, V, 540, 541, 546.]

[Footnote 60: _Ibid_., VI, 490, letter of a citizen who had just found four
strange negroes hanging from the branches of a tree near his door.]

[Footnote 61: C.C. Robin, _Voyages_ (Paris, 1806), II, 244 ff.; E.P.
Puckett, "Free Negroes in Louisiana" (MS.).]

[Footnote 62: M Puckett, _op. cit. Le Moniteur de la Louisiane_ (New
Orleans), Feb. 11, 1811, has mention of the manumission of a mulatto slave
at this time on the ground of his recent valiant defence of his master's
house against attacking insurgents.]

Gabriel's rising in the vicinity of Richmond, however, eclipsed all other
such events on the continent in this period. Although this affair was
of prodigious current interest its details were largely obscured by the
secrecy maintained by the court and the legislature in their dealings with
it. Reports in the newspapers of the time were copious enough but were
vague except as to the capture of the leading participants; and the
reminiscent journalism of after years was romantic to the point of
absurdity. It is fairly clear, however, that Gabriel and other slaves
on Thomas H. Prosser's plantation, which lay several miles distant from
Richmond, began to brew the conspiracy as early as June, 1800, and enlisted
some hundreds of confederates, perhaps more than a thousand, before
September 1, the date fixed for its maturity. Many of these were doubtless
residents of Richmond, and some it was said li