![]() "Informed by much new work on the context of slave life and rebellion, an understanding of African American folk and literary texts, and improved methods of psychobiography. "An illuminating stew of antebellum Southern history, ethnic relations, and contemporary social literature."- Kirkus Reviews "An eclectic collection of perspectives about Nat Turner and his rebellion."- Times Literary Supplement "Offer new insight into the man, his rebellion and his time."- Publishers Weekly " dedicated effort by historians to unearth the rich particulars from which historical memory is created."- Richmond Times-Dispatch This book offers a clear-eyed look at one of the best known and least understood figures in our history. Nat Turner has always been controversial, an emblem of the searing wound of slavery in American life. We follow Nat Turner into the world of Hollywood. Alvin Poussaint, one of the "ten black writers" of the 1960s who bitterly attacked Styron's vision of Turner. We trace Turner's passage through American memory through fascinating interviews with William Styron on his landmark novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and with Dr. Louis Masur places him against the backdrop of the nation's sectional crisis, and Douglas Egerton puts his revolt in the context of rebellions across the Americas. Here are discussions of Turner's religious visions-the instructions he received from God to kill all of his white oppressors. They examine the place of women in his insurrection, and its far-reaching consequences (including an extraordinary 1832 Virginia debate about ridding the state of slavery). Religious and literary context of his movement. The historians here explore Turner's slave community, discussing the support for his uprising as well as the Greenberg gathers twelve distinguished scholars to offer provocative new insight into the man, his rebellion, and his time, and his place in history. In Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory, Kenneth S. And yet we do not know what he looked like, where he is buried, or even whether Nat Turner was his real name. Leader of the most important slave rebellion on these shores, variously viewed as a murderer of unarmed women and children, an inspired religious leader, a fanatic-this puzzling figure represents all the terrible complexities of American slavery. In 1991, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources erected the not entirely accurate marker shown below in Cross Keys, Virginia, in Southampton County.Nat Turner's name rings through American history with a force all its own. Other slave-holding states across the South enacted similar laws restricting activities of slaves and free blacks. The General Assembly also passed a law restricting all blacks from holding religious meetings without the presence of a licensed white minister. In the aftermath of the slave rebellion, the Virginia General Assembly passed new legislation making it unlawful to teach slaves, free blacks, or mulattoes to read or write. Strips of his skin were used to make souvenir purses. ![]() ![]() He was hanged on November 11, 1831, decapitated, and skinned. Turner had initially escaped, but was eventually discovered, tried, and sentenced to die. Severed heads were mounted on stakes along a country road, the location of which is still identified as Blackhead Signpost Road. White mobs responded by rounding up some 200 blacks (none of whom were known to have been involved at all), who were burned alive, beheaded, and/or lynched. In late August of 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia, the 30-year-old slave Nat Turner, inspired by visions and signs, led a group of other slave rebels –eventually more than forty – who began to kill all of the white people they encountered.īy the time the rebel force was captured, some 55-60 white people had died. ![]()
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