"[1] The
insurrectionary passion among the colored people was kindled, too,
around Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans by certain
Negroes who to escape the horrors of the political upheaval in Santo
Domingo,[2] immigrated into this country in 1793. The education of the
colored race had paved the way for the dissemination of their ideas of
liberty and equality. Enlightened bondmen persistently made trouble
for the white people in these vicinities. Negroes who could not read,
learned from others the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose example
colored men were then ambitious to emulate.
[Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. iv., p. 467.]
[Footnote 2: Drewery, _Insurrections in Virginia_, p. 121.]
The insurrection of Gabriel in Virginia and that of South Carolina in
the year 1800 are cases in evidence. Unwilling to concede that slaves
could have so well planned such a daring attack, the press of the
time insisted that two Frenchmen were the promoters of the affair in
Virginia.[1] James Monroe said there was no evidence that any white
man was connected with it.[2] It was believed that the general
tendency of the Negroes toward an uprising had resulted from French
ideas which had come to the slaves through intelligent colored men.
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