ABSTRACT
In history, context is everything. Yet it was a curious fact that when the slave rebel Gabriel was mentioned in textbooks and monographs—when he was mentioned at all—his context was sadly lacking. Gabriel's world was the Age of Revolution. Born in Virginia in the year 1776, he was raised amidst the heady talk of liberty and equality. As a young man, he watched and read as refugees from the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue washed up in Virginia ports, bring with them stories of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian slave rebellion not far from American shores. Most of all, Gabriel's world was the forge, the blacksmith shop at Brookfield plantation, and occasionally, I am convinced, shops run by white artisans along Richmond's dusty streets.
