I'm gonna be charged with being picky, picky, picky, as editors often are, but: There are no contemporary documents that refer to Gabriel with a surname. If he had one, it does not appear in the records. There is no evidence and little reason to believe that he adopted the surname of his owner or that his friends and coconspirators, who never referred to him as Gabriel Prosser, applied that name to him. His name was Gabriel. The trial records often refer to him as Prosser's Gabriel to distinguish him from another Gabriel who was the enslaved property of another white man. And there was no rebellion. There would have been if a flood hadn't washed out the bridges and made it impossible for the conpirators to assemble and if two men hadn't given away the secret so that the authorities could be alerted. It was therefore Gabriel's Conpiracy. And it was Gabriel, not Gabriel Prosser. Brent Tarter The Library of Virginia [log in to unmask] Please note the new w-mail address. Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at http://www.lva.virginia.gov