An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, - and Others, Which Have Occurred, or Been Attempted, in the - United States and Elsewhere, During the Last Two Centuries. by Joshua Coffin
page 33 of 50 (66%)
page 33 of 50 (66%)
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river._ They were to have entered the city of Richmond in three
places with fire and sword, to commence an indiscriminate slaughter, the French only excepted. They were then to have called on their fellow negroes and the friends of humanity throughout the continent, by proclamation, to rally round their standard. The magazine, which was defenceless, would have supplied them with arms for many thousand men. The treasury would have given them money, the mills bread, and the bridges would have enabled them to let in their friends, and keep out their enemies. Never was there a more propitious season for the accomplishment of their purpose. The country is covered with rich harvests of Indian corn; flocks and herds are every where fat in the fields; and the liberty and equality doctrine, nonsensical and wicked as it is, (in this land of tyrants and slaves,) is for electioneering purposes sounding and resounding through our valleys and mountains in every direction. The city of Richmond and the circumjacent country are in arms, and have been so for ten or twelve days past. The patrollers are doubled through the State, and the Governor, impressed with the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three Aids de Camp. A number of conspirators have been hung, _and a great many more are yet to be hung._ The trials and executions are going on day by day. Poor deluded wretches! _Their democratic deluders, conscious of their own guilt, and fearful of the public vengeance, are most active in bringing them to punishment. "Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi"!_ Two important facts have been established by the witnesses on the different trials. First, that the plan of the plot was drawn by two Frenchmen in Richmond, and by them given to the negro General Gabriel, who is not yet caught; and secondly, that in the meditated massacre, _not one Frenchman_ was to be touched. It is moreover believed, though not positively known, that a great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished by the |
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