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.[3] Observing that many Negroes were sufficiently enlightened to see things as other men, the editor of the _Aurora_ asserted that in negotiating with the "Black Republic" the United States and Great Britain had set the seal of approval upon servile insurrection.[4] Others referred to inflammatory handbills which Negroes extensively read.[5] Discussing the Gabriel plot in 1800, Judge St.George Tucker said: "Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it--a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is, every day diminishes.

Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear."[6] [Footnote 1: _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept.