European University Institute Library

Ploughshares into swords, race, rebellion, and identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810, James Sidbury

eng

index present

non fiction

Ploughshares into swords

electronic resource

dictionaries

1167560365

James Sidbury

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

race, rebellion, and identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810

During the summer of 1800, slaves in and around Richmond conspired to overthrow their masters and abolish slavery. This book uses Gabriel's Conspiracy, and the evidence produced during the repression of the revolt, to expose the processes through which Virginians of African descent built an oppositional culture. Sidbury portrays the rich cultures of eighteenth-century black Virginians, and the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, senses of identity that emerged among enslaved and free people living in and around the rapidly growing state capital. The book also examines the conspirators' vision of themselves as God's chosen people, and the complicated African and European roots of their culture. In so doing, it offers an alternative interpretation of the meaning of the Virginia that was home to so many of the Founding Fathers. This narrative focuses on the history and perspectives of black and enslaved people, in order to develop 'Gabriel's Virginia' as a counterpoint to more common discussions of 'Jeffersonian Virginia'.--, Provided by publisher

1. The emergence of racial consciousness in eighteenth-century Virginia -- 2. Forging an oppositional culture: Gabriel's Conspiracy and the process of cultural appropriation -- 3. Individualism, community, and identity in Gabriel's Conspiracy -- 4. Making sense of Gabriel's Conspiracy: Immediate responses to the conspiracy -- 5. The growth of early Richmond -- 6. Labor, race, and identity in early Richmond -- 7. Race and constructions of gender in early Richmond -- 8. Gabriel's Conspiracy in memory and fiction -- Appendix. Richmond households in 1784 and 1810