Gabriel's Failed Revolution of 1800: Causes and Prerequisites

This work is devoted to a very little-studied topic of the Virginia Slave Conspiracy led by Gabriel and is the first study of this issue in Russian historiography. The present article analyzes in detail the causes and prerequisites of the failed uprising of 1800. At the same time, the author relies on the published materials of the trial and the works of leading Western researchers. The first part is devoted directly to the history of studying this issue. Using historical-genetic and retrospective methods, the author traces the influence of foreign policy, domestic political, social, economic, demographic, socio-cultural factors on the formation of a socially explosive situation in Virginia by 1800, and also identifies a number of subjective reasons and prerequisites for a slave conspiracy, such as: motives of personal revenge and banal miscalculations of the authorities who did not take proper measures. At the same time, the main emphasis is on comparing approaches and substantiating the complex of causes and prerequisites in Western historiography. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that in the case of Gabriel's conspiracy, it is not just about a failed uprising, but about the emergence in Virginia of the late XVIII – early XIX centuries of a real revolutionary situation, the formation of which was facilitated by a combination of interrelated factors. The results of the research conducted in this article can be used in research and teaching activities related to the study of American history and the history of the African-American people (Black History).