Inclusive Indexing: Gabriel’s Conspiracy Documents in Virginia Untold

Kade spent his first week of the internship with Virginia Untold indexing and lightly re-processing the many Commonwealth Causes associated with Gabriel’s Conspiracy. Commonwealth Causes are criminal court trials filed by the state government, and we have digitized pre-1865 case files for Virginia Untold from 15 Virginia localities. While we had physically processed these 60 or so cases from Henrico County, we had not yet digitized them. That meant they needed to be indexed according to our indexing standards for the Commonwealth Cause record type. Kade immersed himself in these records, becoming very familiar with the language used to record people and their actions.

In total there were 62 cases against enslaved men, 26 of which resulted in execution of the defendant. Those who were not executed were either sold out of the state or acquitted. The archivist who previously processed the collection had labeled the folders with basic information—a title (usually “Commonwealth vs. [defendant’s name]”), the year, and the names of any other individuals mentioned within the trial papers. Kade’s job was to continue that work and, more importantly, update some of the terminology that was used to index the cases. For instance, the titles given to each document often included the defendant’s race and status after their name (ex: “Commonwealth vs. Gabriel, a negro slave”). Kade changed that status to “enslaved.” He also added the names of enslavers to the folder and the indexing spreadsheet.

Kade also spent time reviewing other documents already digitized as part of the Gabriel’s Conspiracy Documents digital collection in Virginia Untold. This collection consists of a variety of documents from the Governor James Monroe Executive Papers. Kade’s job was to review and add additional metadata, such as important person and place names, to the indexing spreadsheet. This would ensure that the records would be searchable by a variety of terms in our relatively new digital repository, Rosetta.

Gabriel Prosser and the enslaved and free Black men who assisted him in his conspiracy plot are referred to in court records as “negroes” or “negro slaves.” Oftentimes, the clerk only recorded enslaved men with a first name. They are described on paper as the “property of [insert name of their enslaver].” Kade was responsible for updating the description of each document, or what we archivists refer to as the “abstract.” The changes we made were small; we removed unnecessary language such as “negroes,” changed the term “slaves” to “enslaved” and applied a person’s agency to various actions, for example describing a person who held someone in bondage as: “enslaver.”

When we index and describe records that are common to Virginia Untold, we follow P. Gabrielle Foreman’s “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help” guide. The guide explains why changes in the language are important. Through our description, we must acknowledge and accurately reflect the reality that “no one was ‘born a slave’; instead people were born with ‘free’ or ‘slave’ status.” People were enslaved by other people. Foreman elaborates in her introduction: changing language complicates the assumptions that have been normalized over time. Gabriel Prosser wasn’t a slave. He was a Black man who was enslaved by a white man, Thomas Prosser. Or, said another way, Thomas Prosser wasn’t a master. He was a white man who enslaved Gabriel Prosser, a Black man. Does our understanding of Gabriel Prosser or Thomas Prosser change in the light of this new terminology?

To be clear, we are not altering the original language of the document. The digital image of the original document is accessible online and we instruct our transcribers to “transcribe the text as is.” We think it is important for our users to read and understand the language of the time, that is with appropriate warning and consideration for harmful content. But when it comes to describing, indexing, and cataloging our records, we practice inclusive description.

Inclusive description is at the heart of perspective and power. The way we record and categorize history affects how users receive information and what meaning they take away from engaging with the records. In his final internship presentation, Kade reflected on this important lesson. Taken as a whole, the internship experience taught him the value of archival work in connecting people with the past; the descriptive component was the key to unlocking that connection. The Henrico Commonwealth Causes, including those relating to Gabriel’s Conspiracy are now available online.

–Lydia Neuroth and Kade McGrail