This talk is part of the Civil War Institute civil war conference, about an hour. Good morning again. I am Peter Carmichael. Member of the History Department at Gettysburg College. Im also the director of the Civil War Institute. It is my pleasure this morning to introduce to you Patrick Green whos an associate professor in history and classics at providence college. I should note hes also the father of one of our High School Scholarship recipients from last year, correct . She came here and enjoyed herself im sure. Patrick is the author of the land shall be deluged in blood, a new history of nat turners revolt published by Oxford University press. It is a book that i assigned to my undergraduates this spring. And as we all know undergraduates, theyre tough customers when it comes to books. They absolutely enjoy mr. Greens scholarship and especially his writing. It is a bold book, it is an important book and one of the things that patrick and i talked about it is just its just a shame. That one can go to southampton county today, where turners revolt took place. Youll see some state signage, but you have no way of taking a driving tour to see the sights related to that important revolt. It truly is shock. Shocking. I know patrick is trying to do his part and trying to bring more awareness and attention so that audiences like us who go to battlefields, and i suspect if we had the opportunity we would take a bus down to southampton county to be able to look at that historic landscape that has changed radically. I dont believe and patrick can speak to this later, that there is a single building that still survives from the revolt. Is that true . Are there any homes left . There are some. Okay, i was unaware of that. So,a real pleasure to have patrick here, and of course hell be speaking about his book about nat turners revolt. Patrick green. Thank you, peter. And thank you all for coming. This is a real honor and a pleasure to be here. Coming to talk to you guys at the Civil War Institute is a real honor and im really pleased to do it. I also want to make a special welcome to the young people, the High School Students who are here as Peter Carmichael said, my daughter actually applied and got into it last year, had a great, great experience. I want to encourage you because if i well, theres two things. Well, my daughter wants to thank you, peter, for not inviting me last year. Which is fair. And second, i want to tell you guys what i would tell my daughter but i wouldnt tell my daughter this because shes not going to listen to me. You guys are at a great age. Youre going to be looking at colleges, youre going to be doing things. Really reach out to people. This is great opportunity for you guys to learn about the life of the mind and dont be afraid of people who have Pulitzer Prizes and whove written 30 books and im allowed to be scared of them, but you guys not so much. Not so much. And if you are scared of them come talk to me. But get in the habit of talking to these people. Find out what youre interested in. This is really, really great opportunity, peter, and i think its a fabulous thing. And i want you guys to get in the habit because when you get to college you could be the person in the front row in college who goes up to meet the speaker. And people love the speaker engaged so i want to get you guys in the habit of it. Its an unbelievable opportunity. Anyway, today im going to be talking about nat turner. Of course nat turner didnt happen in gettysburg in 1863. How do i get you guys back to 1831 . Well, gettysburg as you know is, you know, central battle, the place of the most important battle that happened in American History. Its also the place of the gettysburg address. This is place where history has happened. So people come here unlike southampton county where history happens too where people dont come. We dont have a woodstock for nat turner. I love this thing, civil war woodstock, this is awesome. We dont have that. Well, i guess you do. When me and Ken Greenburg can get together for drinks. It is not the same. Anyway, how do i get you guys back there . Its not like im going to del you about 1863 more than you already know. Well, let me start with this. Abraham lincoln. Now, its not his gettysburg address, but its his cooper Union Address in 1860, one of the most important speeches he makes. And this is when hes a candidate and that picture of him from Matthew Brady is taken the same day as the cooper brady address. Has anyone ever aged this much in five years . Anyway, Abraham Lincoln gets up and one of the things he does hes sitting there in and this address he starts talking about southampton county, and he asks his audience of new yorkers what induced the southampton insurrection 28 years ago in which at least three times as many lives were lost since harpers ferry. What happened . Now whys he asking this . I think its pretty simple. Republicans are going to be blamed for john brown. In fact john brown slave insertions are a complete fiasco. Look at southampton county and why did they revolt. It wasnt because of republicans. There were no republicans, so what is it . What is it that made the slaves revolt in southampton county . I think its a good question and one that does bear on people who are studying the civil war and one you guys diving are into this should think about. Thats what ill talk about for the next 45 minutes or so. So were going back to 1831. Not 1832 where Gettysburg College was founded, 1831. Its not lincoln whos president , its jackson. That guy. Economics, i want to set this economically. When we look at the civil war many historians know a lot more about the civil war, actually, you guys know more about civil war than i do. One of the things when we look at the civil war we say, boy, this is one where railroads matter. Oh, its a modern war, weve got railroads or railroad i think in 1830. There it is. 1830, exactly a year before nat turners revolt. So were not in the world of railroads. Nat turners world is not that world. Okay, heres a map of Railroad Construction in the United States by decade. 1830, theres nothing. I mean theres like three dots. Theres a dot there by d. C. Theres a dot by south by charleston. Theres two dots in pennsylvania, so that shows how advanced pennsylvania is. Theres no railroads. Theres no railroads. So that is we want to remember theres a good deal more isolation. Now of course by 1860 by 1860 the nation is going to be crossed by railroads. Well, not crossed all the way but 1867 its going to be crossed all the way. Railroad construction is going to explode after nat turner. But they dont know thats coming. They dont know thats coming. What they do have a sense thats coming is the cotton revolution. Okay, obviously theres been cotton produced forever, okay. But in 1793 theres going to be a tremendous increase in the availability of cotton as we move from just being able to produce long Staple Cotton which can grow basically in the sea aisles of georgia to being able to produce short stable cotton which is going to open up cotton production throughout the hinterland of the south. And so cotton production is going to boom. Heres a map of cotton production. Top one is cotton production in 1820. Bottom one is cotton production in 1860. Its a tremendous amount of expansion of cotton production. Keep in mind the 1790 picture of cotton production is just some orange or red right along the coast of South Carolina and georgia. So theres been an incredible expansion of cotton. Now of course with the cotton production with the cotton production sorry about that. With the cotton production is going to come slavery, an incredible i dont know what happened. Ive got to jump ahead. Okay, i dont know where it is. This is what happens when you play with your slides late at night. Im just happy its here. You know, im sitting there saying, okay, ive got all these nice slides, hope they show up. Okay, with cotton production were going to see an expansion of slavery. And ill show you a map later on. I think well see whats in the slide show later on, you and me both, were going to see the slide show later on showing how the slave population is very much going to follow the cotton production in america, right . We have the Industrial Revolution happening. Cotton is going to become the central ingredient of it. Slavery is going to be the main way that the staple of the Industrial Revolution is produced. Okay, so what does that mean . Well, it means something really important for slavery, okay . In the 1780s and 1790s slave reason retreat. Theres no doubt about it. Pennsylvania is a free state. Why . Because they abolished slavery 1780 someone help me here 80 or 81 . Okay, 80. What . 1833 . Whats 1833 . No, no, thats britain. Thats britain. So were going to see massachusetts, pennsylvania, of course the first one thats going to abolish the slave trade is where . Vermont. Why is vermont the first one to abolish the slave trade . Because theres a bunch of pirates, okay, theyre up in vermont and they want to make sure the new yorkers who actually have slaves dont bring their slaves onto establish the claims to the land which are much more solid claims to the land. The point is slavery is in retreat and theres no doubt about this, the great accomplishment of the articles of confederation, right, which couldnt figure out how to tax the country, it did figure out one thing which was how to keep slaves out of the northwest territories, right . You also have a constitutional proof thats going to end the slave trade in america 20 years after its adoption. They didnt do it immediately, thats unfortunate. But they did do it 20 years later. But remember 1780, slavery isnt attractive. In the 1780s youre going to see virginia moving away from slavery. Its going to free up laws making it easier for virginia slave holders to free their slaves. Theres a movement away from slavery and it makes sense in a way because theres an insatiable demand for slavery. With the expansion of the south, theres going to be demand. And what youre going to see is see a retreat in antislavery, right . Here we have the one of the great institutions of america. And i say that i dont know with italics or quotes or whatever. The american colonization society, think about it, were not talking about ending slavery, were talking about sending free blacks away. Maybe itll end up freeing slaves but what is it mostly going to do, the main goal is trying to get blacks out of the country. And this is not antislavery. We of course have the missouri compromise. Slavery appears on the national stage. What do we get . We get slavery in missouri, right . Yes, theres a promise slavery wont go past 3630, but slavery is there. Its balanced. Slavery is part of the country, its part of the world. And its growing. Now, thats not to say that there arent opponents of slavery. One last thing the new york emancipation law. Think about this. When new york cant even figure how to emancipate its own slaves it passes an emancipation law as does new jersey. Places with more slaves pass emancipation laws that are gradual. Places like massachusetts that are poor and dont have as many slaves actually do things like get rid of slavery immediately. But places like new york which actually has small but significant slave population is going to get rid of slavery by abolishing it gradually, which means everyone born after 1800 is going to be free when theyre 21 or 25, right . But what about the people who are born 1799 . Theyre going to be slaves forever. Forever for them, for their whole lives. After all when the civil war starts new jersey is a slave state, right . There are still slaves in new jersey in the 1860 census, why . Because they never came back and abolished slavery permanently. Here we have what does new york pass . It passes an emancipation law that says in 1827 those people who were born before 1800 are going to be free. Think about how small a step that is, and thats in new york. This is not in charleston. This is not the kind of place where slavery which did look threatened everywhere with the french revolution, the haitian revolution and what was going on elsewhere, it looked really threatened in the 1780s and 1790s. By the 1820s it seems like its there to stay. Its stable. Well, that of course is going to lead many people, especially many black people to go out and try to startup what we now think of modern abolition. Youre going to see the freedoms journal, the first black newspaper published in the United States, published in new york. Youre going to see david walkers appeal, 1829, calling for slaves to fight for their freedom. Of course in 1831 youre going to see William Lloyd garrisons the liberator. So we see this movement, this movement to start abolition, to start realizing that theres got to be something done to stop this institution, you know, to get rid of it actively. Its not just going to wither away and die. Slavery is something that seems to be reestablished and more firmly established even though were in this age of progress and this age of enlightenment. All right, so thats 1831. Thats 1831. Now, 1833 in england abolition ism is having much more succesus september having much more success. Keep that in mind. This reflects in part english slavery is sugar based, cotton based. It also reflects the fact that england is freeing slaves in its colonies, primarily as theres movement against slavery and as theres abolition it doesnt happen everywhere. And in america, in southampton county slavery seems strong, slavery seems strong in ways i think maybe we dont always imagine. Yes, these things are happening. Yes, garrisons printing up his liberator. They dont know about it. This stuff is starting up, but its not slavery seems and feels permanent. And you can see this i think very well in the average price of the slave over the years before the civil war. What does this chart show . This chart shows panics, booms and busts, right . Maybe it works. Maybe i dont know how to use it. Whatever. But you see the peaks. 1819, 1837, these are the panics that happen in world economy, american economy. But what do you see . The panics happen but the slavery is there, in fact the price of slaves are growing. As you know the price of slaves in 1860 is at an alltime high in new orleans. This is not an institution that seems like its going to leave. Point one, slavery seems strong. Point two, what about southampton county . Where is southampton county in this growing world . Well, briefly well, where is southampton county physically . Its right there on the map, bottom sort of south of petersburg, between petersburg and norfolk on the North Carolina border. Heres a map and im not sure how well it appears. Its sort of hard to see. This is the United States in 1830, and this shows the slave population. Places in red, the red dots are roughly 50 or sort of orange dots, the middle ones are roughly 50 slave. So there it is. Heres the world, okay. We have lots of slaves. And you have to remember virginia is the heart of slavery. The cotton expansion is happening and the cotton boom is happening and the biggest plantations which had been in South Carolina are going to move to places like mississippi and alabama. Mississippi more than alabama. Louisiana and mississippi. These these plantations dont ever change the fact virginia is the largest slave Holding State in the country in 1860. Right . Virginias gotten an enormous slave population. Well, if youre going to start a rebellion you need to know something about the demographics. What are the demographics in virginia . In virginia whites outnumber slaves 32. Not propitious for a slave revolt. Never is an okay answer. Haiti, haiti is full credit. It doesnt happen. Its very hard for a slave revolt to succeed in history. Is it going to succeed in virginia, 32 . Boy, thats going to be tough. Thats going to be really tough. What about southampton county . Southampton county actually has more slaves than whites. So its not, you know, like the High Schoolers here are going, were going to revolt and take over this thing. Although that would be sort of cool, i think. I dont know. No, i mean its there are a lot of slaves in southampton county. Theres a lot of slaves in southampton county. I also want to go back to the map of this cotton production. In 1820 youll see the cotton production actually this map shows the slight cotton production extends up into southampton county which is true. It does. The slight cotton production in southhampton county, not much. But when we see where the slave production is going. Its going to go along the black belt, the Mississippi River. This is also going to play an Important Role in the revolt. Well, were going to see the shift of the slave population basically from the coast which is where it is in the 1830 map to the Mississippi River area. Thats without without taking the slave population away from the from virginia. Virginia still has its slave population. Its just the growth of the slave population happens in the west. I mean, important thing and thing you cant see, whats the number of slaves in the country in 1830 . 2 million. Whats the number of slaves in the country in 1860 . 4 million. Okay, so theres been an Enormous Growth in the slave population in the country. But notice this. In southampton the slaves i dont want to get my numbers reversed and i cant see it so its okay. Southampton population is going to go down. Why . Because this is not the center place of the economic growth. Remember cotton production is going to be moving away from southampton county. The whites are moving away, but the blacks are moving away even faster. Hows that happening . Its the slave trade. Okay, now think about if the slave population in southampton grew at the same rate the slave population grew elsewhere in the world what would happen to the slave population between 1830 and 1860 . It would double. So that 30 decline is astonishing. Its really more like a 65 decline. Relative to the growth in the nation states. Where is that population growth going . Its going to mississippi, louisiana and georgia. Its going south. Okay, important things to keep in mind . Why . What induced the slaves to rebel . Well, one thing that may have induced what induced the slaves to rebel . This may be one of the things. This is not my research. It doesnt even make it into my book, but a guy wrote a really long book which had a great, great provocative question he asked. Why what happened . Why did they do it . He said one thing he found out was the day the week before nat turner announced his revolt to his closest associates, his son had been mortgaged. Okay, now it obviously proves nat turner did it because he knew his son had been mortgaged and this was a response to that. We dont know that. I think its pretty darn reasonable. I think its the right reading. Things happen for lots of reasons but, you know, might you revolt if you find out your son has been mortgaged, a deadbeat has mortgaged your son and hes going to get sold away and youre never going to see him again . Seems to me not a bad reason to rebel. Even if it is against impossible odds. All right, keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. Now, nat turner never speaks about that. And what i want to talk about today is not these not the demographics which is just i think the context for it. But i want to explore why the slaves are rebelling, what induced the southampton insurrection . At least as we see it in the record. Follow the evidence and see what that says. Well, what induced the slaves to rebel . Nat turner. Who is nat turner . Whites thought that nat turner was crazy. He was a complete fanatic, most admirably says thomas r. Gray in the confessions who wrote down nat turners confessions which are to the High School Students and any of you readily Available Online and i encourage you to read it. One of the things my book does and im not going to talk about this today, it takes the confession much more seriously than anyone else has in the last 50 years. I make the argument about the reliability of the confessions, and my argument is that they actually are what they say they are which is basically what nat turner said. Which makes him a remarkable source. You can read them in about an hour. If you ever want to find out why nat turner rebelled you dont have to listen to me, you can go read it online. Anyway, thomas r. Gray thought he was a fanatic. Newspaper reports said the same thing. Hes a preacher and a pretend prophet. This is who it is. This fits in with a model of understanding the slave revolts that has lasted, its been an important part of our way of understanding slave revolts. I mean when we look at the confessions of nat turner which came out in 1967, and i expect many people here have read, you know, there he is. Hes still a fanatic and a little crazy. Thats who it is. I think theres a way in which this has been one way of understanding nat turners revolt, saying its this crazy thing that happened and nat turner is like a jim jones figure. I dont think thats true and i dont think the evidence supports. I think the evidence that thomas gray wrote actually doesnt support that. I dont think actually i dont know if thomas r. Gray actually believes it. So here we are. Weve got this. How do we understand nat turner . If the one view is hes a fanatic, the other one hes a heroic figure, right. If anyone has seen the new nat turner movie, which again, Ken Greenberg and i saw together so that may have been the entire audience, im not sure birth of a nation did not do well in the theaters, but its a new understanding of what happened in nat turners revolt, and its sort of sort of, hes completely heroic, right. Nat turner is the hero. Hes the man who does great things. This is not new in 2016. It goes back, here he is being the great preacher and the slaves are enthralled by nat turners leadership. Thats not how it went down. I want to tell you a little bit about how it went down and make a couple comments along the way to talk about how we have to rethink about nat turners rebellion. It might actually make us rethink a little bit about how we think about slaves and this civil war. All right. Unlike the last picture this one is more accurate. First is the conspiracy. What happens . Well, on 12 february 1831 an eclipse of the sun. Theres great websites and you can actually see the path of the eclipse of the sun which basically almost goes through southampton county, its an awesome eclipse. Nat turner says in the confessions, and on the appearance, and immediately the sign appearing in the heavens the seal was removed from my lips and i communicated a great work laid out for me to do to form my greater confidence, henry, hark, nelson and sam. Here we are, we have the eclipse. But the thing i find interesting about this is, who did nat turner tell when the seal is loose from his lips. Four is not a great number to start a rebellion. More like 40 times 4 or 4 million times 4 is a little better. Why 4 . Well, its pretty clear. In the newspaper article investigating this after the revolt found the rebels decided not to tell more people because the word always leaked out. Now, it raises an interesting question, how did they study the history of this . I wish i knew. What are they thinking about . We dont know. We did know their history enough to know that slave revoltsz are hard. What do you have to do . You have to have one person, what does ben franklin say about a secret, three can keep a secret as long as one is dead, Something Like that. This is not an easy thing to do. A slave rebellion is dangerous. All you have to do is one person get a little queasy, youre the one nice person i like, just dont hang around next sunday. Why not, boom. Slave rebellions are hard. Do fanatics sit and say, hey, im only going to tell four people . No. People who think about it, theyre the ones, being cagey, being smart. Abraham lincoln knew as much at his cooper Union Address. Said the same thing. The word leaks out. So is he a fanatic . Well, i mean if by fanatic you mean religion person . Maybe i guess. Okay. Im not sure hes fanatic in the ce sense i think when they safia nattic they mean a lot more than that. Here he is with his four comments telling them about the plan. Lets set up a plan. How do you set up a slave revolt . Lets start with the two premises i have, one is hes not crazy, and two is, slaves are whites out number slaves three to two in virginia. How do you do a slave revolt . If you can answer this please come to the microphone at the end and tell us and youre not allowed to use zombies in your answer. Yeah. Its hard. Its hard. Its not obvious. I got a ph. D. And thought about it. I dont know how you do it. Its not clear. Of course, i have a ph. D. Means i probably couldnt start a slave revolt even if i wanted to. Hey, guys. Talk to the hand. No. Theres a what are they going to do. One thing they came up with the idea of starting on july 4th, another meaningful moment. Why july 4th . July 3rd is a great day. July 15th gives you nine more days to plan. Why july 4th . Isnt it obvious . July 4th is a meaningful date. Its a date, there was a document that was signed, sort of famously, i dont know if youve heard of it, announces that all men are created equal. Just remember, thats not the constitution. Thats the declaration of independence. Youll get full credit in college. All men are created equal. Its political. I find this really interesting, right, how many people are involved in the revolt at this point . Five. What are they doing . Theyre saying lets put we are thinking about this revolt in political terms. Now, is nat turner thinking about the revolt in political terms . Is he thinking about it like Frederick Douglas does . No. I dont think so. I think he is religious, right. When they say july 4th comes around what happens . This is what he says. It was intended by us to have begun the work of death on july 4st last. Many were the plans formed and rejected by us and it affected my mind to such a degree that i fell sick and the time passed without our coming to any determination of how to commence. He got worried. Okay. Again, another sign hes not crazy, right. Okay. Were going to go die. Why . Because god wants me to die. So what are you going to do . Start on july 4th . Not so sure. He wasnt confident. I get that. You want me to join a slave rebellion . Not going to do it. Like hold on, i have a 401 k . No, not doing it. They dont have the same things, but they have the same worries. At least one of the same worries is that theyre going to die. Do you want to die . No. Do you want to die in this political war . No. Okay. This is really meaningful moment. Why . Because nat turner doesnt see it in a political framework. He sees it in a religious framework. Which is fine. I dont have a problem with that. What does that mean . His group has expanded to five people total and theyre already looking at the revolt differently. Some people are seeing this like Frederick Douglas. Some people are seeing this as a political move. And this is one of the really important lessons we need to pass along to the civil war scholars and the students of the civil war is that, you know, people do things for different reasons. Okay. It doesnt mean you know, you dont want to sit there and say they did it for one reason, they did it for another reason, they like slave or something stupid like that, you dont want to say Something Like that, but you do want to be open to the views of people. Nat turner is expanding it. What is the other thing this means . If theres differences between five people, are these people following nat turner blindly . No. Theyve got their own interpretations. Theyre going to join the revolt. Why . Because they want to. Well, what did give nat turner the confidence it was time to begin . A new sign. What was the sign . The sun appeared blue. Im not one who is sort of into reading harbingers in the sky, but that would make me think twice. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thats a little weird. Now if you are, everyone must know this is time to begin. All right. The revolt begins. What do they do if heres the map of the area of saint lukes parish where the revolt is going to take place. Theyre going to start at Joseph Travis house, Joseph Travis the man who is nat turners owner, not his owner, his guardian of his owner. Anyway, and theyre going to set out and follow this path towards jerusalem. Okay. So what do they do . They start squabbling in the yard of Joseph Travis about who is going to hit first. Nat turner is talking about how youre going to cut peoples heads off. Time to begin. Lets do it. No. You begin first. Why . Well because they didnt trust him. They didnt trust, they didnt they wanted to make sure he couldnt walk away and wash his hands and say i dont know what theyre talking about. Those guys are crazy. You take a swing, everyone knows youre going to die. Okay. Again, these people werent following nat turner blindly. They werent his disciples. So what do they do . They go in and they kill the travis family. And then they jump salathial francis, some of these pictures are from 100 years later of the farms. This is the farm which is just really a shack. Here it is. They knock on the door and say come on out. We got a message for you. Grab them and kill them. So the revolt begins initially taking advantage of surprise. Then in the morning, they start going quickly. They get horses and start moving. This is on the swing back, okay, they go to kathryn whiteheads house and Peter Edwards and Richard Porter and on their way to newt harris. By this point in the morning theres nine on horseback and six are walking. Theyre making their way back towards jerusalem. When they get to kathryn whiteheads plantation, which is a bigger plantation, nat turner is going to end up killing the only person he kills, which is Margaret Whitehead. A lot has been made of this as this graphic novel picture makes and william stire made a tremendous amount of this. I think the explanation for this is a little simpler, nat turner was just nat turner was riding in the back like a general and he saw Margaret Whitehead escape and he had a sword and his sword didnt kill anyone, and he tried to kill her with it and took a fence post and plungend her to death. Theyre going as fast as they can killing as many as they can, and then in the morning, an monday morning, they realize that they had been discovered. So what do they do . Nat turner reassembles the group. He sits there and says i have two divided wings which makes sense if youre going as fast as possible, one on horseback are going faster than the ones on foot and then he says, oh, weve been detected, lets bring them together so we will be able to fight back against whatever response comes in for us. So once they realize the word has spread, once they come to plantations that have been abandoned, they come together. They come together at the harris plantation and theyre up to about 40 slaves at this point. Theyre all excited about what is happening. As they make their way towards jerusalem, theyre going to have theyre going to attack a schoolhouse which is on levy wallers farm and theyre going to kill women and children, actually the men and farm, levy and the schoolteacher escape. Which, of course, will be a big thing as people look and tell the stories about the brutality. Ultimately they make it to about a mile away from jerusalem to parkersgate where they is have a battle. Heres a still of the battle from birth of a nation the 2016 movie. The battle doesnt actually happen anything like this. Its just complete mess up. You guys who do civil war know this stuff better than i do. Imagine this, a battle between two sides none of whom know anything about what theyre doing, right. Everything goes wrong. Its a complete disaster. In fact, nat turner doesnt even know what happened when hes captured a couple months later. He still doesnt know what happened that day. The revolt has taken place, but as it turns out, nat turners army, which was about 40 guys, ends up beating, chasing off the field, a small group of about a dozen whites who had sort of happened upon them. But they ran into another group of whites who heard the sounds of the battle and they dispersed, nat turner and his men. The next day, the revolt falls apart. People disperse. Its just a mess. Theres going to be tremendous amounts of, you know, the county is going to be up in arms. What happens to nat turner, though . Nat turner escapes. And for the next two months, nat turner is away. Until midoctober. Now i want to just draw going to sort of close with this but draw your attention to what happens here when hes discovered. I think this is one of the under appreciated lines that happens in the confessions. Two negroes having started to go hunting the dog came out again to the plays, the dog a couple days before had found food that nat turner had hidden in his hiding space, and having gone to walk about and discovered me and barking, he spoke to them to beg concealment on making myself known they fled from me. Really sort of astonishing moment. What happens here . Well nat turners like some are out hunting with their dog in the middle of the night. Hold on. Blacks are out hunting in southampton on october 15th . Less than two months. Whats going on . This doesnt make sense. After the revolt, the revolt was quickly put down, and, in fact, immediately after the revolt, the whites in charge realize that the great danger was not from the black who were put down in about a day or two, the great danger to the slaveholders was from the whites because there was nothing they could do if regular whites decided that they wanted to kill all the black they came across. Martial law was passed in southampton county, orded in southampton county and the county was really the fighting was really the repercussions against the black community was really much less than people had thought. So why . Why . Well because the slaveholders needed to protect their property. Thats what happened. Nat turners found, hes discovered. He knows immediately that these are black who are not going to hide him, but are going to betray him and eventually going to lead a couple more weeks of hiding out but theyre chasing him at this point and know where he is and they discover him. When hes finally captured and then gives what is one of the great documents in American History, the confessions of nat turner. Now thats a really quick telling of a thing that i wrote a little longer book. What do i want to tell you guys about it . I think one thing we got to do is we got to be really careful about thinking about sort of slavery as this, you know, simple answer. Slavery is a very complex institution and its going to lead people to respond it in different ways. The ending is going to be a complex event in the civil war and people will respond to it in different ways. Some will be like Frederick Douglas and political. Some will be worried about their families. Some are going to see this in a religious framework. Some people are going to be worried about their lives. Theres going to be lots of different responses and we need to be aware in the way that the historical moment creates opportunities. Last night gary gallaghers talk, which was a great talk, was like you know, we have to remember freedom follows the union army. Thats an important point. You want to think about the relationship of events to moments. One thing you notice within the slave community, there are not a lot of slaves who are going out and saying, this im going to do this no matter what. There are certainly some of those, but what you have is a lot of people making decisions based on what they think is the best way Going Forward not knowing what the future is going to bring and thats how nat turner worked and thats soft story i try to tell in my book. Thank you. [ applause ] so we have time for questions. I think the way it works here is if anyone has a question, they can come up to a microphone. Hi, Curt Collison from illinois. Question for you is, do you think or to what degree do you think that the fear of the slaves among white southerners, how they played into their fighting in the civil war and the postwar antireconstruction. Yeah. Great question. I think the well first, i think i mean i think the fear is overrated. Just the idea that slaveholders are immediately afraid. It doesnt i mean when i see evidence that black are out hunting two months in the middle of the night, blacks are out probably not with guns, probably with dogs, out hunting, thats astonishing. I dont want to just immediately turn to the fear. Theres i think fear is a very powerful emotion and it is certainly one that a lot of people were afraid. After nat turners revolt, a lot of the people were afraid that leaders who declared martial law and prohibited whites from killing black indiscriminately, the slaveholders who did that, a lot of whites in southampton county were upset at that decision. They sent a letter to Andrew Jackson saying, we actually need support, these guys here arent taking this seriously enough. Dont you realize that every house has one of these potential killers in it. All these houses with slaves. Theres slaves everywhere who could just, you know, kill us any time we want. Were completely defenseless against this type of attack. So there are people who are afraid, but there are also people whose fear is different. For the slaveholders and i think in the civil war and certainly in reconstruction, one of the fears the slaveholders have is not the fear that theyre going to get their heads cut off in the middle of the night obviously some people have that the one fear is that they will not be able to control the black population. They have complete control of the black population under slavery and youre going to see the, you know, theyre like hold on, what do we need to do to control the black population. Now the interesting thing is in reconstruction, the fear of black plays into social control, right. They drum up a black is raping a white woman and go out and kill a bunch of black and make sure blacks stay in their place and dont vote or do whatever. In nat turners world, the fear isnt the fear doesnt work that way. The fear of the slaveholders is that if we get so afraid of people, of blacks killing whites, theres nothing that can be done. Think about this. What do you do if you go up and shoot a black person in 1831. Im scared. They take you to they indict you for murder. You can get indicted for murdering a slave. Go what, to a grand jury. I thought it was nat turner. Hes lost, you know. Theres no way youre getting theres no way youre getting convicted. The fear the slaveholders have is that theyre going to lose control of slave property. I think thats something we have to keep in mind. I think the emotional stuff is very easily used and very easy to document and talk about, but i think theres a way we have to think about how theres a fear of theres a fear of losing social control. Thank you. From pennsylvania, what we have for the confessions really is nat turner as interpreted to us through gray. How do you, as a historian, filter out grays point of view so that you can get to nat turner . Well, great question. Actually, when the project began, basically my start was to say, this is a this is a all the historians working in the last 50 years say nat turner, gray messes it up somehow and we dont know where and we dont know how. Then you get historians saying, i hear nat turners voice here. What . How do you know that . I was going to just be more methodical and say, this is all gray until we hear otherwise. And then as i pushed on it and pushed on it, i began to realize that theres a lot in the confegsz that suggest that its not gray. One of the things gray puts in introductory things where he tells his point of view. He also nuts pren theatrical comments where he tells his point of view. You can see where their viewpoints are different, and grays viewpoints of the revolt are different from nat turners. You know, so one of the things theres many reasons, but ive come to see this as a more reliable account, the part in the middle that would be in quotes, i dont think its an exact translation, but its pretty close, so, you know, thats something one of the reasons why there was a great explosion of scholarship on nat turner after william stirenes novel came out in 1967 and basically everyone would grab whatever they wanted from the confegsz and use it willynilly to support their position, sort of ignoring that question about the reliability of it. When that burnt itself out, no one wanted to touch the confessions. I think that when i came back to it, the idea is i think you can basically read it as not a production of thomas gray. Its pretty clear hes written this within three days of the capture of nat turner. Its also pretty clear that he hadnt written it before nat turner had been captured. I mean, ultimately hes going to put editorials in and mess up, but its he might use language differently, i dont know, its not a video recording, but i think its a fairly accurate account of nat turners kconfessions and well worth listening to the voice of nat turner. Hi, riley from new york city. I was wondering, what the extent was the extent to which the killing of women and children influenced the negative feelings of turner . It seems to be one thing to kill like people, but another thing to attack an innocent schoolhouse, seems more violent . A great story. Thank you for that question. A great story about this. Obviously this is a bridge too far and its still a bridge too far. Law professors still writing, okay, makes sense, hes a slave, youre justified and fighting back and to fight back you will kill people and okay, but theres this moment at the first house they go back and slay an infant sleeping in the cradle. That infant wasnt going to get up and sound the alarm. So its like really. This was actually something, its fairly clear they talked about, the rebels, and there was one point of view like we should kill everyone and just scare the bejesus out of the whites, and show the blacks that were not afraid of anything, and another point of view and i think this is probably nat turners point of view, which is, well, we should probably kill the men and maybe we have to kill the women too because they can actually run even if theyre not going to fight, but nat turner but nat turner loses that argument, i think. Im not sure about that. Im not sure which side hes on. They go out and kill women and children. Women and children becomes a huge rallying cry as you saw from the cartoon, the women and children, these guys are savages. No one is thinking about the way that slaveholders treat women and children in slavery. Its not there. Admitted, leaving that to the side, it becomes a great rallying cry. After the revolt, people who are pushing against slavery, this is another thing i dont talk about nearly enough in the book, but other scholars have, after the revolt, virginias seriously talking about ending slavery, right. They have a there are proposals at the Virginia Legislature that gets serious consideration that they should adopt gradual emancipation. Remember the wave of emancipation that stopped around 1804 in new jersey. Theres a movement to get that wave of emancipation going again. So theres a debate. During the debate, there are petitions from women and children saying, we dont want to become involved in politics because thats not our role, but this is a political question that connects to our very safety. So we want slavery to end. Theres actually a series of petitions that had been written by women, one written by a man who signed it as a woman and then had the women of the county sign it in the voice of women saying protect us. It didnt ultimately succeed. The people who are moving for v emancipation in virginia lost. But its really a powerful moment and the supporters of gradual emancipation thought they could use it to support their argument against slavery. Two last questions. Thank you. Yep. Good morning, sir. My name is todd from cape cod, massachusetts. My question is, related to malcolm x during the civil rights movement. Because the south hardened down on slavery and restricted education, religious freedom and implemented harsher laws in response to the slave rebellion, how do you think america would have responded to malcolm x had he been more successful in leading more aggressive revoltsz and perhaps even killing more white people in the name of civil rights instead of mlks peaceful approach to change . Right. Great question. I mean, you know, malcolm x is one of those endearing figures and, you know, what would he think . I think one of the things we have to be careful of is sort of saying, we got to really historyize these things and malcolm x is many different people. If you look at the relatively new biography of malcolm x, reinventing a life, you see these guys change over time. You want to be careful not to sort of say that theres one solid thing. I want to context tulize. Malcolm x theres points hes really trying to he is trying to scare people. He is talking a big game in terms of violence and such. And theres also times hes going to be moving in different directions. You dont want malcolm x had many different positions on race. You dont want to assume theres one position and one thing. You want to sort of hisser to size it. Last question. Pat aiken from the seattle, washington, area. My question about the book confessions of nat turner, way back in 1960, as a young child, a boy, my older brother in high school and my mother were having a discussion about whether or not the book confessions of nat turner should be assigned in high school or High School Kids should read it or too controversial, and so ive always been curious, what was so controversial about that book that well, its pretty easy to answer the controversy about it. Initially it went out and won the pulitzer prize, got great, great initial notices. A couple problems with it that were brought up, 1967 the book is written, one, its a white southerner writing the story of americas most famous black slave in the first person and making him a little crazy and making him flawed. He thinks william stirene argues hes humanizing him but a lot of black power activists, not malcolm x, hes dead at this point, are saying you cant do that. The other thing is that the center of the story becomes the story of the killing of Margaret Whitehead and he william styrene sees that as psychologically important. He doesnt think that he killed Margaret Whitehead per chance. He thinks its meaningful this is the only person he killed. What he ends up telling the story, nat turner loved and hated Margaret Whitehead, which is evoking 100 years of racist history where we have the black rapist, right. Nat turner, americas hero, black hero, is becoming someone who is lusting after white women. That becomes a bridge too far. Those are the two big issues that set off the debate in the 60s. Thank you so much for your attention. [ applause ] this is a special edition of American History tv, a sample of the compelling history programs that air every weekend on American History tv, like lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral history, the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv. Now and every weekend on cspan 3. Heres a look at our prime time schedule on the cspan networks. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan remarks from House Oversight and Reform Committee chair Elijah Cummings on Prescription Drug prices and his recent conflict with President Trump over tweets about his home district of baltimore. On cspan 2, book tv with authors who have written about guns and recent mass shootings. On cspan 3, American History tv, we have the programs on the reconstruction era which followed the civil war. Cspan has live coverage at the iowa state fair starting thursday at 1 45, with montana governor steve bullock, former Vice President joe biden, on friday live with hulen castro and later former congressman beto orourke. Saturday live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern with governor jay inslee, senator kamala harris, senator amy cobashar, senator gillibrand, warren and cory booker. Watch the 2020 president ial candidates live at the iowa state fair starting thursday on cspan. Watch or listen wherever you are on the go using the free cspan radio app. A look at the civil war on American History tv. Up next, West Virginia University Professor Jason Phillips talks about john brown, and the pikes he made for use in a planned slave insurrection. The talk part of the gettysburg institutes conference. Lasts about an hour. Good afternoon. Im peter car michael director of the civil institute at gettysburg and a member of the History Department. It is my pleasure this afternoon to welcome Jason Phillips. Jason phillips is the family professor, civil war studies at West Virginia university. He started his academic career at the university of richmond. Then completed his masters at wake forest before going on to Rice University where he worked with john bowles who is retiring this year. John bowles, very important, famousth
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