fishing-lines from its fibres, and salt from its ashes. Their life does
not yield, indeed, the very highest results of spiritual culture; its
mental and moral results may not come up to the level of civilization,
but they rise far above the level of slavery. In the changes of time, the
Maroons may yet elevate themselves into the one, but they will never
relapse into the other.




GABRIEL'S DEFEAT

In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true records of
Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a plot
perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain
obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the
political events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the
scanty traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in
public libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for
American history are vanishing,--since not one of our great institutions
possessed, a few years since, a file of any Southern newspaper of the
year 1800,--yet the little which I have gained may have an interest that
makes it worth preserving. Three times, at intervals of thirty years, did
a wave of unutterable terror sweep across the Old Dominion, bringing
thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every
Virginian slave. Each time did one man's name become a spell of dismay
and a symbol of deliverance. Each time did that name eclipse its
predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory: John
Brown revived the story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat Turner recalled
the vaster schemes of Gabriel.