University of Virginia Library

James Monroe, Governor,

Dec. 1, 1799-Nov. 30, 1802.

He was a son of Col. Spence Monroe, of Westmoreland
County, Virginia, and was born April 28, 1758. He studied
at William and Mary College and rendered gallant service
in the Revolution, receiving a severe wound while leading
the advance at Harlem. In 1782 he was elected to the Legislature,
and from 1783 to 1786 was a member of the Continental
Congress. He served in the State Convention of 1788,
when he opposed the ratification of the Federal Constitution
without some amendments. In 1790 he became a United States
Senator, to fill the unexpired term of William Grayson,
deceased, serving until 1795, when Washington appointed him
minister to France. Here he offended the administration by
proving too pro-Galican, and he was recalled. The people
of Virginia sought to vindicate him by appointing him Governor.
On the election of Jefferson, Monroe was again sent
to France, and, with Robert R. Livingston, as co-plenipotentiary,
secured the cession from France of the vast Louisiana
Territory. Afterwards he was minister to England, Secretary
of State and Secretary of War, and President of the United
States for two terms (1817-1825). He died July 4, 1831. Monroe
County in West Virginia was named for him.

Just before his election as Governor, Patrick Henry died,
June 6, 1799, and two weeks after taking office George Washington
died, December 14, 1799.

This was followed by an insurrection of the negroes, known
as "Gabriel's Insurrection" after the ringleader, a negro
named Gabriel. At midday on the 30th of August, 1800,
information was given to Monroe by Mosby Shepherd that
the slaves in his neighborhood contemplated an extensive
insurrection. This information rested on the evidence of two
negroes, subsequently set free. Governor Monroe called out
at once several regiments of State Militia into service,
and, with the providential aid of a storm, which flooded the
streams and rendered their crossing impossible, nipped the
insurrection in the bud. The ringleaders, including Gabriel,
were caught, and some thirty of them executed. The plot was
fully explained by Monroe in his message December 5, 1800,
and it seems to have engaged the negroes in all the counties
surrounding Richmond. Their idea was to set fire to the
section of Richmond called Rocketts, in the east end, and
while the attention of the white inhabitants was engaged in
that quarter to seize the public arms and ammunition, stored
at the penitentiary.

Out of this insurrection grew the resolution of the Legislature
requesting the National Government, from motives of
humanity, to purchase a tract of land to which negroes like
those executed might be transported without compelling a
resort to extreme remedies involving death. Monroe, in communicating
the act to Thomas Jefferson, President of the
United States, gave it his endorsement, and suggested that
the terms of the resolution might be made the basis of another
interpretation for ridding the State altogether of slavery."
"We perceive," he said, "an existing evil, which commenced
under the Colonial system, and with which we are not properly
chargeable, or, if at all, not in the present degree, and we
acknowledge the extreme difficulty of remedying it." Jefferson

3 Monroe's Letter Book, State Archives.

in reply suggested Sierra Leone as a colonization point, and
this was first used as such; next in 1820 Sherbro Island was
used; and finally, December 15, 1821, Cape Mesurado, where,
shortly after, Monrovia, the future capital of Liberia, began
its existence, named after President Monroe.[99]

Another incident of the year 1800 was the trial in Richmond
of James T. Callender for alleged libel against John
Adams. Samuel Chase, who presided, was a Federalist of an
impudent type and utterly unfit to be a judge.

In 1802 the coming to Norfolk of negroes from San
Domingo gave rise to some apprehensions and there were
rumors of slave risings in Nottoway and Norfolk on May 10
of that year.

In his message December 7, 1800, Monroe urged internal
improvements, good roads and highways, and a well planned
system of schools.

Monroe was deeply interested in Jefferson's election in
1801 and wrote the Virginia Senators that "he trusted that
none of the Republican States will give ground." "The two
great States of Virginia and Pennsylvania, with their Republican
Governors, Monroe and McKean," says Muzzey, "were
ready to appeal to arms rather than see Jefferson cheated out
of the Presidency."

In a message dated December 6, 1802, Monroe informed
the General Assembly that the armory was nearly completed,
and in the same papers he said that the deaths of Major General
Daniel Morgan and of Brigadier-General Everard
Meade, and the removal of Major General George Rogers
Clark to Kentucky created vacancies in the militia which it
was incumbent upon the Legislature to fill.