I think it is impossible to tell whether Gabriel's Rebellion would have tended toward genocide since it never really got past the planning stage.  From trial testimony, it is evident that Gabriel indeed expected to find some allies among whites (especially among the more egalitarian religious sects and from "Frenchmen.") and he apparently was not intent on killing white women or poor non-slaveholding whites.  Gabriel's plan involved a military seizure of the capital at Richmond and then a negotiation of the ending of slavery in Virginia -- with the kidnapped governor Monroe as a bargaining chip.  At the same time, the powerful revenge motive for many of the enslaved and the desire to fight and kill whites was one that Gabriel recognized and utilized in recruiting people to his plan.   Could he have controlled those forces once the rebellion started?   Perhaps that was one reason for his insistence on a military-type organization for the rebellion.  It enters into the arena of "what if" history to ask what direction the rebellion might take if (or when) that plan did not achieve the desired political result.

As for Douglas Egerton's work, it is certainly revisionist -- but I don't think he makes any assertion about the rebellion that runs counter to the existing evidence.  I recommend it to interested readers.  

David Kiracofe

David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136
>>> "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]> 09/03/07 3:08 PM >>>
> From the Associated Press:
>
> "Virginia governor 'pardons' slave who led 'Gabriel's Rebellion'
> The Associated Press
> August 31, 2007

Where in all this does a comparison of nobility of purpose meet means  
and methods?

Rebellion to become free will justifiably be seen as serving the  
nobility of purpose end of the argument. On that, both the Am Rev and  
Gabriel's Rebellion are equal, albeit at vastly different scales.

At the pointy end of the stick, wherein after the Dec. of Ind. was  
read, measures of a more physical nature were taken. Knowing full  
well what would happen once it was read, one can argue that the Am  
Rev leaders only had to wait for action to develop as the authorities  
moved to put down the venture. Conflict/Civil War then ensued with  
the colonials coming out on top.

In contrast, Turner's higher ideal was simply genocide.  
Indiscriminate killing of men, women and children is murder, however  
draped in the verbiage of freedom.

What separates the Am Rev and possibly Gabriel, from Turner certainly  
is the means and methods by which the ideals may be achieved. The  
Haitian Revolution was at first a bloodbath that has been later  
sanctified by those at several removes from it into a glorious  
expression of freedom. That would appear to lessen the value of the  
lives lost so long as freedom rings. That kind of specious reasoning  
was also inherent in Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, to name but a few whose  
results justified those means. Haitians ended up switching the color  
of master, but little of substance is now discernible, apart from the  
historiography of the event.

Gabriel's aim, according to Edgerton, was not genocide, but rather a  
negotiated settlement ending slavery. However, what muddies the  
waters is the issue of statements made concerning the conduct of the  
rebellion. Basically, join or die seems to have been the directive,  
apart from Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen. Is Edgerton generally  
viewed as reading the documents correctly or has he ventured rather  
far out onto the revisionist limb?

For those of you who will undoubtedly jump into the fray, I am well  
aware that in the Am Rev, there were quasi-institutionalized  
incidents of brutal behavior on both Colonial and Tory sides, similar  
probably to the Border Wars in the 1850's onward.

State to state relations were the ideal and the practice during the  
Am Rev, not using genocide as a means of igniting conflict. The  
questions are: Did Gabriel advocate genocide, was he unable to  
control more volatile elements in his group, was genocidal advocacy  
legitimately placed at his door?

Lyle Browning