Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
*Richmond.
Creuzot’s printshop. Richmond gathering place for supporters of the French Revolution. Its owner, Monsieur Creuzot, a French Jacobin, is labeled as a radical, along with Alexander Biddenhurst of Philadelphia, who advocates a classless society. Overhearing the “strange music” of their conversation about “liberty, equality and fraternity,” the slave Gabriel, who is the coachman for a man named Prosser, becomes bewitched by the idea of freedom. He rallies the slaves who are angry about their fellow slave Bundy’s death at Prosser’s hands, and takes charge as “general” of an army of slaves to attack Richmond and kill all its white people–“except the French.”
Prosser plantation. Gabriel’s home, located on the outskirts of Richmond. In the low cornfields of his plantation, Thomas Prosser beats to death an old broken-down, drunken slave named Bundy. This act of cruelty ignites the simmering rebellion, with Prosser’s giant coachman Gabriel as its self-proclaimed general.
Sheppard plantation. Plantation of Moseley Sheppard that is home to Old Ben, a trusted slave who presides over the great house with its broad staircase and “cavernous” rooms that are “dark as death” at night. The morning mists stream over the house and the vast fields where “gleaming birds” crow up the sun. Old Ben keeps the household running and also keeps secret the meetings of the planter’s son Robin with a mulatto girl.
Mingo’s house. Home of a black freedman and saddlemaker who knows how to read. There, on Sundays some black men, Gabriel among them, gather to hear Mingo read from the “good book” about how the Lord proclaims liberty for the strangers in Egypt that were oppressed by their masters. Mingo’s words persuade others, like Old Ben and Pharaoh, to take part in the slave uprising.
Brook Swamp. Gathering place outside Richmond for the slaves. There eleven hundred men and one woman are to begin their assault on Richmond. Gabriel directs three columns to approach the town from different directions and quickly kill all white people. However, a sudden storm of wind and heavy rain makes creeks and pathways impassable, so that only four hundred reach the gathering place. Rising stream and low fields make the region a sea of islands and bays with reefs and currents. Many of the slaves interpret the storm as a sign of God’s displeasure and stay away from the rising. After the rising fails, many say that the stars were not right–an opinion with which Gabriel agrees shortly before he is executed.