David's summary of Gabriel, Vessey, and Turner was excellent.  I'd only add a few caveats:

The evidence that Gabriel and Vessey planned an insurrection stems from court records.  Given the way that the courts treated slaves who came before them, and given the powerful incentives for accused slaves to confirm the worst fears of the men interrogating them, its hard to say solely on the basis of that kind of evidence that there actually existed any conspiracy to rebel.  

Regarding the brutal violence perpetrated by Turner and his followers:  it is perhaps instructive to compare the vigilante violence of Turner with that which Abraham Lincoln condemned in his "Young Man's Lyceum" speech.  In that speech Lincoln condemned the vigilante executions of various criminals by extra-legal "mobs" because their actions undermined the rule of law.  The responsible thing for the mobs to have done was first, to apply the existing laws, in order to sustain order in their societies.  Second, in the event that existing laws were insufficient, the citizens who comprised the mobs should have taken political action to change the laws, or, if necessary, to amend the constitution.

However, precisely because slavery was unjust, and denied equal and fair access to the institutions of law and public life to the slaves, these kinds of lawful, orderly options were denied to them.   If you believed that you were subject to tyranny, and peaceful options to redress it were denied to you, then should you not take steps to resist it?  This, as David Walker and others pointed out at the time, was simply the application to the situation of the slaves of the arguments of John Locke, which legitimated the American Revolution.  

All best,
Kevin 
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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