Gabriel Archer was an early English explorer of Cape Cod, Chesapeake Bay, and Virginia. A settler of Jamestown, Virginia, he clashed with the leadership council and John Smith repeatedly before dying in the winter of 1609-1610. The Jamestown Rediscovery Project, among other scholars, considers the possibility that Gabriel Archer may have been a Catholic, based on how he was buried.

Gabriel Archer was born to Christopher and Mary Archer of Mountnessing, Essex in England, in either 1574 or 1575. He graduated from St John's College, Cambridge in 1591.

Gabriel Archer also explored Cape Cod under an expedition which was headed by Bartholomew Gosnold. His account of this expedition was later published after his death by Samuel Purchas under the title "The Relation of Captaine Gosnols Voyage to the North Part of Virginia." The title reflects the fact that the term New England was not consistently used to refer to Massachusetts and its environs at that time.

The voyage departed on March 26, 1602, before arriving at the coast on May 14. The expedition consequently explored both Cape Cod, but also Martha's Vineyard, which George R. Stewart conjectures that Archer himself named, as Gosnold had a daughter named Martha and there were many grapevines in the area. Martha's Vineyard initially designated a smaller island, before the name was shifted to the larger island referred to as Martha's Vineyard to this day. Archer also recorded and most likely coined many other names from that voyage that are not still used in the present day, including Tucker's Terror and Hill's Hap. His records contain a description of most of the important events of the voyage, including finding and naming Cape Cod.

During the course of the expedition, Archer engaged in trade with the local Wampanoag tribe and helped build a trading post at Cuttyhunk Island. However, the trading post was abandoned when Archer and the rest of the expedition returned to England.

Archer entered Chesapeake Bay in an expedition in early 1607 to aid in setting up the Virginia colony. On April 26, some of the local Native Americans attacked, and Archer sustained some wounds to his hands. Later on, in the James River, Archer sighted what he thought to be a promising site for settlement, which afterwards was known as Archer's Hope (near College Creek). However, a separate site which Christopher Newport preferred was picked, which ended up becoming Jamestown. Newport then led an expedition that charted the James River until present-day Richmond, Virginia. While on that journey, Archer most likely kept a log of what they saw, and bestowed more names upon the land, though many were changed and few survived.

Archer then gained a position as secretary and recorder for Jamestown. However, he was not on the governing council at that time, despite his position. Archer then aided in the trial of Edward Maria Wingfield, the first president of the colony, who was convicted for a string of minor charges after a shift in opinion against him because of a lack of food and great disease within the colony.

Not long after the trial, John Smith had been captured by the Powhatan tribe. Smith was released, but two of his men had been killed on that mission. Archer held Smith responsible and subsequently put him on trial. Archer called for the death penalty, citing Leviticus in support of why Smith should be hanged. However, Smith was not hanged, because Christopher Newport arrived with supplies that he had brought back from England, and convinced the colonists to let Smith go free.