Gabriel's insurrection in 1800 again forced the idea concretely forward.
Virginia was visibly disturbed by this outbreak, and _in secret
session_, on December 21, the House of Delegates passed the following
resolution: "That the Governor[1] be requested to correspond with the
President of the United States,[2] on the subject of purchasing land
without the limits of this state, whither persons obnoxious to the laws,
or dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." The real purpose
of this resolution was to get rid of those Negroes who had had some part
in the insurrection and had not been executed; but not in 1800, or in
1802 or 1804, was the General Assembly thus able to banish those whom
it was afraid to hang. Monroe, however, acted in accordance with his
instructions, and Jefferson replied to him under date November 24, 1801.
He was not now favorable to deportation to some place within the United
States, and thought that the West Indies, probably Santo Domingo, might
be better. There was little real danger that the exiles would stimulate
vindictive or predatory descents on the American coasts, and in any case
such a possibility was "overweighed by the humanity of the measures
proposed." "Africa would offer a last and undoubted resort," thought
Jefferson, "if all others more desirable should fail."[3] Six months
later, on July 13, 1802, the President wrote about the matter to Rufus
King, then minister in London. The course of events in the West Indies,
he said, had given an impulse to the minds of Negroes in the United
States; there was a disposition to insurgency, and it now seemed that if
there was to be colonization, Africa was by all means the best place. An
African company might also engage in commercial operations, and if there
was coöperation with Sierra Leone, there was the possibility of "one
strong, rather than two weak colonies." Would King accordingly enter
into conference with the English officials with reference to disposing
of any Negroes who might be sent? "It is material to observe," remarked
Jefferson, "that they are not felons, or common malefactors, but persons