James Sidbury. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. x + 292 pp. $75.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-58454-8.

Reviewed by Seth Rockman

Published on H-SHEAR (February, 1999)

This book's title comes from the Old Testa‐ ing mirror of truth" to the master narrative of ment prophet, Joel, who inverted Isaiah's peaceful American history.[1] Instead of casting slavery as vision and instead prepared the ancient Israelites an abstract philosophical quandary for elite to expel their cruel enemies from Zion. Several whites to ponder in treatises and letters, Sidbury thousand years later, enslaved blacksmiths in the makes slavery a very "real" problem in the lives of vicinity of Richmond made swords from the black Virginians. Sidbury recounts the eforts of scythes their compatriots used to harvest the the enslaved half of the state's population to end felds of their common masters. In this fashion, racial bondage. Black Virginians shaped a revolu‐ Gabriel and other leaders of the 1800 rebellion tionary legacy that drew upon evangelical Chris‐ armed themselves to march on the state capital tianity and the struggles for American and and bring a violent and immediate end to slavery. Haitian independence. Their defnitions of justice James Sidbury does not ofer a linear retelling of and freedom stood at odds with those of their that unsuccessful insurrection, but provides a rich white neighbors and owners. Sidbury explains exploration of the social and cultural contexts that that "Gabriel and his followers should be under‐ spurred enslaved Virginians to strike out for liber‐ stood to have commented critically upon White ty. Not a book about Gabriel's Rebellion, Virginians' use of natural rights philosophy and Ploughshares into Swords is about Gabriel's Vir‐ thus to have asserted an important alternate in‐ ginia. There, long-standing practices of resistance terpretation of the limited meaning and the and accommodation and newer forms of urban broader potential of the American Revolution" (p. labor, evangelical Christianity, and racial con‐ 276). Since that time, activists have used Gabriel's sciousness combined in a radical assertion of free‐ Rebellion to challenge the injustices of slavery, dom. segregation, and inequality. Gabriel has persisted By reconceptualizing Jefersonian Virginia as in the historical memory of African Americans be‐ Gabriel's Virginia, Sidbury holds up "the deform‐ cause he and his allies constructed their own ver‐ sion of American history, placed racial justice at H-Net Reviews its center, and acted upon it. Taking up that narra‐ pressor. Ironically, the lack of a broader collective tive for himself, Sidbury presents a history that is identity was itself the primary "Africanism" in both honest and inspiring. early Virginia. Ploughshares into Swords is three studies in In the half-century after 1750, four develop‐ one. The frst part is an extended essay on the ments fostered a broader racial consciousness. process by which diverse Africans became Black First, as plantation slavery expanded into Pied‐ Christian Virginians in the eighteenth century. mont counties, links between old and new quar‐ The middle section reads Gabriel's Rebellion ters enlarged the boundaries of community. Sec‐ through the lens of cultural history, drawing at‐ ondly, evangelical Christianity created a network tention to how slaves transformed the symbols of the faithful, especially as black Baptists pushed and rituals of white hegemony into the tools of to establish autonomous churches. At the same their own liberation. Finally, Sidbury mines court, time, the American Revolution gave black Virgini‐ census, and tax records to provide a community ans a reason to see themselves as a cohesive peo‐ study of Richmond between 1780 and 1810. Each ple. In particular, Dunmore's Proclamation ad‐ of the three sections refects impressive research, dressed the colony's slaves in collective terms. Fi‐ engages the relevant historiography, and presents nally, events in Saint Domingue provided a model an innovative interpretation. However, the book's of revolutionary racial justice that prompted disjointed organization threatens to make the black Virginians to situate themselves in a larger whole less than the sum of its parts. African diaspora. By 1800, Gabriel and his neigh‐ Sidbury begins by looking at how Africans bors asserted a double consciousness that was at and their descendants forged two distinct identi‐ once provincial (black and Virginian) and global ties: one as Black Virginians sharing a provincial (black Virginian and African American). culture, and a second as African Americans shar‐ Sidbury carefully roots community and iden‐ ing a fate with enslaved peoples throughout the tity in concrete social relations, specifc to time hemisphere. Neither identity emerged before and place. People can simultaneously inhabit mul‐ 1750. Like Michael Gomez, Michael Mullin, and tiple, and potentially antagonistic, communities. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Sidbury contends that Likewise, identities are "crosscutting," the term African ethnicity mattered in the New World.[2] Sidbury uses to capture the tension among an in‐ Virginia's slaves came from inland communities dividual's class, race, gender, status, nativity, and along the Bight of Biafra, where a narrow kinship religious positions. Race was the foundation of system structured Igbo, Igala, and Ibibio villages. many, but not all, of the communities to which en‐ Once across the Atlantic, slaves created new but slaved Virginians belonged. When Haitian slaves similarly localistic identities specifc to a given arrived with their exiled masters in Richmond in plantation and well-suited to the dispersed geog‐ 1793, local slaves skirmished with the strange, raphy of Virginia farms. Although slaveowners predominately-African refugees. In 1800, Gabriel readily grouped their diverse slaves in a single and his allies excluded women from their upris‐ racial category, "the abstract and imposed quality ing. They also debated whether to spare Quakers, of racial similarity held less sway than the con‐ Methodists, Frenchmen, and white women. Not crete ties of kinship and friendship that enslaved long after, two slaves alerted their master to the people created in Virginia's quarters" (p. 20). To plot, another black man turned the feeing Gabriel highlight the absence of racial solidarity, Sidbury over to the authorities, and several co-conspira‐ points to the refusal of slaves from one locality to tors turned state's evidence. Where other histori‐ aid those of another in resisting their common op‐ ans have mythologized a homogeneous "slave

2 H-Net Reviews community," Sidbury introduces complexity and trans-Atlantic world of artisan radicalism. This ra‐ confict. He delights in the unpredictable, particu‐ tionalist Gabriel struck out for all working people larly the interracial alliances between men and against the exploitative practices of Richmond's women in Richmond's taverns, workshops, and capitalist merchants. Both Sidbury and Egerton jail. use the same evidentiary base of trial records, but The most ubiquitous, if questionable, commu‐ to diferent ends. In a dramatic narrative, Egerton nity grouping is "Virginians." Sidbury uses the makes Gabriel's Rebellion a key moment in the term not merely as a geographical delimiter, but 1800 Presidential campaign; it remains the better as a self-conscious identity that held meaning for source for the details of the abortive uprising, the Gabriel and James Monroe alike. Although slaves ensuing trials and executions, and the reaction of fell outside the body politic, they were both co- white Virginians. Sidbury's cultural history read‐ creators and products of a distinct provincial cul‐ ings of trial transcripts refect his greater concern ture. Sidbury is less interested in the genealogy of with Gabriel's Virginia than Gabriel's Rebellion "the world they made together" than in the spaces per se. Still, Sidbury does contest two main com‐ they jointly occupied, the language they shared, ponents of Egerton's interpretation. First, Sidbury and symbols they held in common.[3] That Vir‐ can fnd no evidence that Gabriel hired out his ginian culture was the key to Gabriel's Conspiracy. time to master blacksmiths in Richmond. Without Slave rebels "used local symbolic idioms to com‐ this opportunity to work among white and free municate their conception of status and authority, black journeymen, Gabriel's "artisan republican" their belief in themselves as God's chosen people, consciousness seems dubious. Secondly, Sidbury and their desire for freedom" (p. 57). Gabriel and argues that Egerton understated the evangelical his accomplices equated leadership with literacy, roots of the conspiracy. Gabriel's agility with Bibli‐ skill, horses, weaponry, and military titles. They cal allusions suggested more than just a passing recruited soldiers by "treating" fellow slaves at familiarity with the Old Testament. Here, Sidbury barbecues and requiring "viva voca" declarations is on weaker footing. Although Egerton down‐ of allegiance. These strategies and priorities attest played religion to counter the myth that Gabriel to the fundamental "Virginia-ness" of Gabriel's Re‐ was a long-haired messianic fgure, Sidbury can‐ bellion, as slaves engaged in "cultural appropria‐ not produce evidence attesting to Gabriel's reli‐ tion" and crafted "symbols of Black liberation out giosity. Ultimately, Egerton and Sidbury concur of bulwarks of White power" (p. 72). Paradoxical‐ that Gabriel's Biblical dexterity only further ly, Tom and Pharaoh, the slaves who betrayed the marked him as a Virginian. insurrection, were equally Virginian in their com‐ The third section of Ploughshares into Swords mitment to the culture's individualistic ethos. is a community study of Richmond, from its ori‐ Slaves on both sides of the uprising behaved as gins as a tobacco inspection point, to its designa‐ good Virginians, but Sidbury struggles to recon‐ tion as the state capital in 1780, and through its cile the outsider-quality implied in "cultural ap‐ emergence as an urban center of 10,000 in 1810. propriation" with the insider-quality of a Black Sidbury's foray into social history situates "the ex‐ Virginian identity. ceptional events of 1800^Ê in a fuller and less ex‐ Scholars of Early Republic history will invari‐ traordinary context" (p. 147). Sidbury portrait of ably contrast Sidbury's Gabriel with the one Dou‐ Gabriel's Richmond is far richer than many black glas Egerton portrayed in Gabriel's Rebellion urban community studies published in just the (Chapel Hill, 1993). In that version, Gabriel's labor last two years.[4] Instead of focusing on the ef‐ as a skilled blacksmith connected him to the forts of the black bourgeoisie to establish inde‐ pendent churches and voluntary associations, Sid‐

3 H-Net Reviews bury examines how canal-diggers, washerwomen, commercializing Richmond with the decisions of and enslaved artisans carved out some semblance the conspirators. When this fnal section of the of autonomy along the city's waterfront. Sidbury's book highlights racial indeterminacy along Rich‐ creative use of court papers compensates for the mond's waterfront, Sidbury loses the specifc so‐ unavailability of traditional quantitative sources cial relations that propelled black consciousness such as federal manuscript censuses and city di‐ in the frst section. Ultimately, the book's tripartite rectories. structure--an anthropological prologue on identi‐ Sidbury's primary concern is the fexibility of ty, a linguistic reading of the Rebellion, and a de‐ urban social relations. Slaves exploited "white ur‐ mographic analysis of Richmond--undermines the banites' need for a fexible and skilled labor force" coherence of ideology and lived experience in (p. 187). Although the law prohibited slaves from Gabriel's Virginia. Sidbury may intend this dis‐ hiring out their own time, the practice was com‐ juncture as a testament to the power of crosscut‐ mon and introduced wage-incentives to a system ting identities, as well as to the fuidity of racial governed by compulsion. In the space between boundaries in early republic Richmond. slavery and freedom, black Richmonders Ploughshares into Swords raises the tantalizing "worked, played, fought, and bargained" with prospect of uniting cultural history's "linguistic non-elite whites and "developed more fexible turn" with social history's quantitative precision. norms to govern race relations than those that Sidbury concludes with an analysis of prevailed in rural Virginia" (p. 174). Grand juries Gabriel's Rebellion in folk memory and fction. fretted, but elites benefted from the fuid labor Gabriel and his allies had crafted a narrative of market and made little efort to crack down on American history that made room for racial jus‐ disorderly black and white workers. Class solidar‐ tice. Subsequent generations have situated the ity did not unite the down-trodden, but common conspiracy in their "continuing struggles for racial poverty created improbable alliances that made equality during the past two centuries" (p. 258). Gabriel's Virginia decidedly interracial. Sidbury Like black Virginians in Gabriel's time, historians delights in story of Angela Barnett, a free black need not subscribe to a self-congratulatory narra‐ woman, wife, and mother. When she killed a tive of the American Revolution that glosses over white slave-catcher in her own home, Barnett its racial failings. Sidbury ofers a new paradigm landed in prison. There, she has a sexual relation‐ by shifting attention from Jeferson to Gabriel. ship with a white man named Jacob Valentine, Adopting the perspective of black Virginians does who is later indicted for inciting a slave insurrec‐ not inherently undermine the radicalism of the tion. The story is shadowy, but points to the over‐ American Revolution. Instead, it highlights alter‐ lapping communities and cross-cutting identities native possibilities that still resonate two hundred of both Barnett and Valentine. Moving beyond de‐ years later. James Sidbury deserves our congratu‐ mographic analysis of the "the black family," Sid‐ lations for writing a politically astute book that bury draws rightful attention to the role of gender forces readers to reconsider their assumptions in structuring lives already circumscribed by about American history. race. Notes: The community study of Richmond creates [1]. Nathan Huggins, "The Deforming Mirror several problems for Sidbury's larger argument. of Truth: Slavery and the Master Narrative of Initially, readers may wonder about placing the American History," Radical History Review 49 context as a postscript to the Rebellion. Organized (1991): 25-48. this way, the book struggles to connect daily life in

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[2]. Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Coun‐ try Marks: The Transformation of African Identi‐ ties in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill, 1998); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Cre‐ ole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge, 1992); Michael Mullin, Africa in America: Slave Acculturation in the American South and the British Caribbean, 1736-1831 (Urbana, 1992). [3]. Mechal Sobel, The World They Made To‐ gether: Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Cen‐ tury Virginia (Princeton, 1987). [4]. In this growing genre, see most recently Tommy L. Bogger, Free Blacks in Norfolk Virginia, 1790-1860: The Darker Side of Freedom (Char‐ lottesville, 1997); Kimberly Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colo‐ nial New Orleans, 1769-1803 (Durham, 1997); James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (New York, 1996); Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savan‐ nah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville, 1996); Christopher Phillips, Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Urbana, 1997); T. Stephen Whitman, The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland (Lexington, 1997). Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Seth Rockman. Review of Sidbury, James. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810. H-SHEAR, H-Net Reviews. February, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2760

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