High School Scholarship recipient from last year. She came here and enjoyed herself, im sure. Patrick is the author of the land shall be day loosed in blood, a new history of nat turners revolt published by Oxford University press. It is one of the finest books i have read on southern history in a long time. It is a book i assigned to my undergraduates in this spring, and undergraduate are tough customers when it comes to books. Mr. Absolutely enjoyed breens scholarship and writing. Important book, and one thing patrick and i talked about, it is just a shame that one can go to southampton county today were turners revolt took place and you will but you state signage, will have no way of taking a driving tour to see the sites related to that important revolt. It truly is shocking. Patrick has tried to do his part and bring more awareness and attention, so audiences like us to go to battlefields, i suspect if we had the opportunity, we would take a bus to southampton county to look at that historic landscape. It has changed radically. Patrick caneve, speak to this later, that there is a single building that robotic that survives from the revolt. Are there any homes left . There are some. Good. Real pleasure to have patrick at the civil war institute, and he will speak about his book about not turners revolt, patrick breen. [applause] patrick thank you, peter, and thank you all for coming. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here and i am pleased to do it. I want to make a special welcome to the young people, High School Students who are here. As Peter Carmichael said, my daughter applied and got into it last year, and had a great, great experience. I want to encourage you because of two things. My daughter wants to thank you, peter, for not inviting me last year. [laughter] which is fair. And second, i want to tell you guys what i would tell my daughter, but i wont tell my daughter this because she isnt going to listen to me. You guys are at a great age, looking at colleges, doing things, really reach out to people. This is a great opportunity for you guys to learn about the life, and dont be afraid of people who have Pulitzer Prize is and who have written 30 books. I am allowed to be scared of them, but you guys, not so much. And if you are scared of them, talk to me, but get in the habit of talking to these people, find out what you are interested in. This is a great opportunity, peter, and it is a fabulous thing. I want you to get in the habit because when you get to college, you can be the person who is in the front row who meets the speaker afterwards. The people who come to speak love students who are engaged, so i wanted to get you guys in the habit. Today am going to talk about nat turner. Not turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1860 nat turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1863. How do i get you back to 1831 . You know, is a central battle, a place of the most important battle that happened in American History. It is also the place of the gettysburg address. This is a place where history has happened, so people come here, unlike southampton county, where history happened but people dont come. We dont have a woodstock for nat turner. I love this, civil war woodstock. This is awesome. We dont have that. Well, i guess we do, it is like when me and Ken Greenberg get together for drinks. It is not the same. How do i get you guys back there . Aboutt going to tell you 1863 more than you already know. Abrahamtart with this, lincoln. It is his cooper Union Addressing 1860, 1 of the most important speeches he makes. And this is when he is a candidate. That picture from Matthew Brady is taken the same day as the cooper union address. Has anyone ever raged as much in five years . I dont know has anyone ever aged as much in five years . I dont know. In this address, he starts talking about southampton county and asks, what induced the southampton insurrection 28 years ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost as at harpers fairy . Is simple to understand why he is asking this. Republicans are getting blamed for john brown. And lincoln saying, it is not john brown the started slave insurrections, in fact, the john brown slave insurrection was a fiasco. Look at southampton county. And why did they revolt . It wasnt because of the republicans. There were no republicans. So what is it that made the slaves revolt in southampton county . Its a good question that does bear on people who study the civil war, and as you guys are diving into this, it is one you should think about. It is one i will talk about for the next 45 minutes or so. 1831,are going back to not 1832, the year Gettysburg College was founded, 1831. It is not lincoln who is president , it is jackson. That guy. He is on the 20 for at least. Nother 10 years, i hear economics. I want to set this economically. ,hen we look at the civil war one of the things we look at is, this is one of those wars where railroads matter, right from the first battle. We have troops getting delivered by rail, it is a modern war. In 1830. Had a railroad , 18e it is, the tom thumb 30, exactly a year before nat results. We are not in the world of railroads. Theturners world is not world of railroads. Here is a map of Railroad Construction in the United States by decade. In 1830, there is nothing, there is like three dots, a. By d. C. , y charlston, dots, a dote three by d. C. , a dot by charlston. But by 1860 the nation is going to be crossed by railroads, not crossed all the way, but by 1867 it is going to be crossed all the way. Railroad construction is going to explode after nat turner, but they dont know that its coming. What they do have a sense is coming is the cotton revolution. Cottonly, there has been produced forever, but in 1793 there is going to be a tremendous increase in the , aslability of cotton we move from the ability of just being able to produce long staple cotton, to being able to produce short staple cotton, which is going to open cotton production throughout the hinterland of the so there has been an incredible expansion of cotton. Of course, with the cotton production hold on. With the cotton production sorry about that with cotton production is going to come slavery and incredible i dont know what happened to my got to jump ahead. Ok, i dont know where it is. This is what happens when you play with your slides late at night. Here. St happy is im sitting here saying ok, got all these nice slides, hope they show up. Ok, with cotton production, we are going to see the expansion of slavery, and i will show you a map later on. I think we will see what is in the slideshow later on you and me both we are going to see the slideshow later on showing how the slave population is very much going to follow the cotton production in america, right . I mean, we have the Industrial Revolution happening. Cotton is going to become the central ingredient of it. Slavery is going to be the main way the stable of Industrial Revolution is produced. Staple of the Industrial Revolution is produced. That means something important for slavery. In the 1780s and 1790s, slavery is in retreat. Theres no doubt about it, right . I mean pennsylvania is a free state. Why . Because they abolished slavery in 1780 want to help me here . 1780 or 1781 . 1780, ok, there we go. 1833 . Whats 1833 . , thats britain. Thats britain. We are going to see massachusetts, pennsylvania. That ise, the first one going to abolish the slave trade is vermont. Why . Because they are a bunch of pirates. They are up in vermont and want to make sure that new yorkers who actually have slaves dont bring their slaves on to establish their claims on the land, which are actually much more solid claims to the land. Whatever. The point is slavery is in retreat, and theres no doubt about this. A greater compliment of the articles of federation, right, which could not 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 constitutional proof that is going to end the slave trade in america 20 years after its adoption. They did not do it immediately thats unfortunate but they did do it 20 years later. 1780s, you are going to see virginia moving away from slavery. Ups going to free manumission laws making it easier for virginia slaveholders to free their slaves. There is a movement away from slavery. It makes sense in a way because there is an in insatiable demand for slavery. Gin, there will je come insatiable demand. You will see a retreat in antislavery. One of the great institutions of america, i say that, i dont know with italics, american colonization society, think about it, were not talking about ending slavery. We are not talking about ending slavery. We are sending free blacks away. Many emitting blacks many mitting blacksnu and sending them away. The main goal is to get blacks out of the country. 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, there is a promise slavery wont go past 3630, but slavery is there. Slavery as part of the country, part of the world and it is growing. Now, that is not to say there arent opponents of slavery. One more thing. The new york emancipation law. Think about this. New york. New york cant figure out how to emancipate it some slaves. It passes emancipation loss, as does new jersey. Massachusetts, that are poor, that do not have slaves, get rid of slaves immediately. Places like new york, which actually have small but significant slave populations will get rid of slavery by abolishing it gradually, which means everyone born after 1800 is going to be free when they are 21 or 25. What about the people born in 1799 . They will be slaves forever, forever for them, for their whole lives. After all, when the civil war starts, new jersey is a slave state. There are still slaves in new jersey in the 1860 census. Fly . Why . They never abolished slavery permanently. What does new york past . Emancipation law, 1827, those people born before 1800 will be free. Think about how small a step that is. That is a new york. That is not richmond or charleston. This is not the kind of place where slavery, which did look threatened everywhere with the french revolution, the haitian revolution, what was going on elsewhere, it looked threatened in the 1780s and 1790s. By the 1820s, seems like it is there to stay. It is stable. That will lead many, especially black people to go out and try to start up what we think of as modern abolition. The friedmans journal, first black newspaper published in america, and United States, in new york. David walkers appeal, 1829, calling for slaves to fight for their freedom. 1831, William Lloyd garrisons the liberator. We see this movement to start abolition, to start realizing, there has to be something done to stop this institution, to get rid of it actively. They will not just whether away and i. Wither and die. Slavery is established, even in the age of enlightenment. 1831. 1831. 1833, in england, abolition having more success. Keep that in mind. This reflects english slavery is sugarbased, not cot based. It reflects the fact that england is freeing slaves in colonies, primarily jamaica. But, keep in mind, as there is movement against slavery, it doesnt happen everywhere. In america, southampton county, slavery seems strong. Strong in ways we dont always imagine. Yes, things are happening. Garrison is printing. They dont know about it. Stuff is starting up but it is not slavery feels permanent. You can see this well in the average price of a slave over the years before civil war. What does this chart show . Panics, booms and busts. Maybe i dont know how to use this. Whatever. 1819, 1837, panics happen in the world economy, the american economy. Panics happen but slavery is there. The price of slaves growing, 1860, price of slaves is at an alltime high in new orleans. This is not an institution that seems like it is going to leave. Well, slavery is strong. What about southampton county . Where is it . It is right there on the map. South of petersburg, between norfork on the North Carolina border. Here is a map, im not sure how well it appears, part to see. United states, 1830, slave population. Places in red are roughly, orange dots, the middle ones, southampton county, 50 slave. Lots of slaves. Virginia is the heart of slavery. Cotton boom is happening, biggest plantations, which had been in South Carolina will move to mississippi and alabama. Mississippi more than alabama. Louisiana and mississippi. These plantations dont ever change the fact that virginia is the largest slaveholding state in the country in 1860. Virginia has a normas sleigh popular enormous slave populations. If youre going to start a rebellion, you need to know the demographics. What are they in virginia . In virginia, whites outnumber slaves 32, not propitious for a slave revolt. How often do they succeed . Never is an ok answer. Haiti is full credit. It doesnt happen. It is hard for a revolt to succeed in history. Will it succeed in virginia, 32 . That will be really tough. What about southampton county . Southampton county has more slaves than whites. It is not, you know, like, six guys, like the High Schoolers are revolting. [laughter] that would be sort of cool. There are a lot of slaves in southampton county. I also want to go back to this map of cotton production. 1820, cotton production extends into southampton county. When we see where it is going, we know where sleigh production is going. The black belt, the Mississippi River. This will also play an Important Role in the revolt. Why . We see the shift of the slave population from the coast, which is where it is in the 1830 map, to the Mississippi River area. That is, without taking the slave population away from virginia. Virginia still has a slave population, it is just the growth in slave population happens in the west. What is the number of slaves in the country in 1830 . 2 million. In 1860 . 4 million. Enormous growth in slave population in the country. Notice this. Southampton, slaves i dont want to get my numbers reversed southampton county population down. Why . This is not a Central Place of economic growth. Cotton production will be moving away from southampton county. The whites are moving away. The blacks are moving away faster. How is that happening . It is the slave trade. If the slave population of southampton grew at the same rate that it grew elsewhere in the world, what would happen to the slave population between 1830 and 1860 . It would double. 30 decline is astonishing. It is more like 65 decline. Relative to growth in the nation states, where is that growth going . Mississippi, louisiana, georgia. It is going south. What induced the slaves to rebel . One thing that may have done, this may be one of the things, this is not my research, doesnt even make it into my book but a guy named david wrote a really long book which had a great, great provocative question. What happened . He said, one thing he found out was, the week before nat turner announced the revolt to close associates, his son had been mortgaged. Ok. David said that proves that turner did it and this was a response. We dont know that. That is pretty reasonable. Things happen for lots of reasons. Wouldnt you revolt if you found out your son has been mortgaged by a deadbeat and is going to get sold away and you will never see him again . Seems to me not a bad reason to rebel. Even if it is against impossible odds. Keep that in mind. Nat turner never speaks about that. What i want to talk about is not the demographics, which is just the context. I want to explore why slaves are rebelling. What induced the southampton insurrection . At least as we see it in record . Follow the evidence. What induced them to rebel . Nat turner. Who is he . Whites thought he was crazy. Complete fanatic. Thomas gray, the man who wrote down nat turners confessions. They are available online. I encourage you to read it. One of the things my book does is it takes the confessions more seriously than anyone has in the last 50 years. I make arguments about the reliability of confessions. My argument is that they are what they say they are, which is basically what nat turner said, which makes them remarkable sources. You can read them in one hour. If you ever want to find out why not turner rebelled, you can read it online. Thomas gray thought he was a fanatic. Newspapers said the same. A preacher, pretend profit. This fits in with a model of understanding that has lasted and been an important part of our way of understanding slave revolts. The confessions of nat turner, 1967, i suspect many have read it, there he is. He is still life in attic, a little crazy. That is who it is. I think there is a way in which this has been one way of understanding the revolt has been by saying it is just this crazy thing that happened and he is just a jim jones figure. I do not think that is true or that the evidence supports. There is evidence that thomas gray wrote that does not support that. I dont know if thomas gray believes it. Here we are. How do we understand him . The other view is that he is a heroic figure. If anyone has seen the new movie, which again, Ken Greenberg and i saw together, that may have been the entire audience. Birth of a nation did not do well in theaters. It is a new understanding of what happened in the revolt. He is completely heroic. Nat turner is the hero, 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 his leadership. That is not how it went down. I want to tell you a little about how it went down and make some comments along the way on how we have to rethink the rebellion. It might make us rethink a little bit about how we think about slaves in the civil war. Unlike the last picture, this is more accurate. First step, conspiracy. What happens . 12 february, 1831, the clips of the sun. You can see the eclipse, which goes through southampton county. It is awesome. Nat turner says in the confessions, and the appearance, 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 florida and whom i had the greatest confidence to four in whom i had the greatest confidence. The eclipse. Who did nat turner tell . Four. Not a great number to start a rebellion. More like 40 times 4 or 4 million times 4 is a little better. Why four . It is pretty clear. In the newspaper article investigating this, found, the rebels decided not to tell more people because the word always leaked. More like 40 times 4 or 4 million times 4 is a little it raises a question. How did they study the history of this . I wish i knew. What are they thinking about . I dont know. They did know their history enough to know that slave revolts are hard. What you have to do . You have to have one person, what did ben franklin say about a secret, three can keep a secret as long as one is dead. This is not an easy thing to do. A slave rebellion is dangerous. One person just has to get queasy you are the one person i like, just dont hang around sunday. Why not . Boom. Slave rebellions are hard. Do fanatic sit there and say i am only going to tell four people . Think about it. Im not sure he is fanatic in the sense that, when people say that, they need more than that. Here he is, telling about the plan. How do you set up a slave revolt . Lets start with the premises i have. One is, he is not crazy. Two, white out number slaves 32 in virginia. How do you revolt . If you can answer this, please come to the microphone and tell us. Not allowed to use zombies in your answer. It is hard. It is not obvious. I have a phd. I thought about it. I dont know how you do it. It is not clear. I have a phd. I could not start a revolt even if i wanted to. Talk to the hand. What is he going to do . They came up with the idea of starting on july 4, another meaningful moment. Why july 4 . July 3 is a great day. July 15 gives you nine more days to plan. Why july 4 . Obvious. July 4 is a meaningful date. There was a document signed famously, i dont know if you have heard of it . It announces all men are created equal. Just remember, that is not the constitution. That is the declaration of independence. You get full credit in college. All men are created equal. It is political. I find this interesting. How many people are involved in the revolt at this point . Five. What are they doing . They are saying, we are thinking about this revolt in political terms. Is turner thinking about it in political terms . Is he thinking about it like Frederick Douglass does . I dont think so. I think he is religious. Right . In fact, when they say, july 4 comes around, what happens . This is what he said. It was intended to us to begun the work july 4 last. It affected my mind to such degree that i fell sick and the time passed without our coming to any determination on how to commence. He got worried. Another sign he is not crazy. Ok, we are going to die. Why . God wants me to. What you going to do . Start on july 4. Not so sure. Wasnt confident. I get that. You want me to join a rebellion . Not going to do it. 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 they will die. Do you want to die . No. Do you want to die any political war . No. This is meaningful. Life . Net tur turner sees it in a religious framework. Find. What does that mean . His group has expanded to five people and they are already looking at the revolt differently. Some people are seeing it like Frederick Douglass. Some people are seeing it as a political move. This is one of the important lessons we need to pass along to the civil war scholars and students. People do things for different reasons. Ok. It doesnt mean, you dont want to sit there and say, they did it for one reason, another reason that means they like slavery, or something stupid. You want to be open to the differences in views of people. Turner is now expanding. What is the other thing . If there are differences between five people, are these people following turner blindly . No. They have their own interpretations. They will join the result. Why . Because they want to. Well. What did give turner the confidence it was time to begin . A new sign . What was the sign . The sun appeared blue. I am not into reading harbingers in the sky but that would make me think twice. Ok. Yeah. All right. That is weird. Everyone must sit down. Time to begin. Revolt begins. Heres the map where the revolt will take place. They start at Joseph Traviss house, the man who is turners owner not his owner, his guardian of his owner anyway, they will set out and follow this path toward jerusalem. Ok . What do they do . They start squabbling in the yard of Joseph Travis is about who will hit first. Turner says, you are talking, lets go do it. Nah. You begin first. Why . They did not trust him. They wanted to make sure he couldnt walk away and washed his hands and say, i dont know what youre talking about, those guys are crazy. If you take a swing, everyone knows you are going to die. These people werent following him blindly. They werent his disciples. What do they do . They go in and they kill the travis family. Then they jump francis. Some of these pictures are from the wpa, the actual pictures from 100 years later, from the farms. This is just a shack. They knock on the door, come on out. We have a message. Grab him. Kill him. Revolt begins initially taking advantage of surprise. Then, in the morning, they start going quickly. They get horses and move. This is on the swing back. They go to catherine whiteheads house and Peter Edwards and richard porters and new terraces. Nine on horseback, six are walking, they are making their way back toward jerusalem. When they get to catherine whiteheads plantation, a bigger plantation, turner will kill the only person he killed, Margaret Whitehead. Lots have been made of this, as this graphic novel picture makes. William styron made a tremendous amount of this. The explanation was simple. Turner was riding in the back and he saw her escape, he had a sword. He try to kill her with it. He took a fence post and bludgeon her to death. Then, they are going as fast as i can, killing as many as they can, on monday morning, they realized they have been discovered. What do they do . Turner reassembles the group. He says, i have divided wings, which makes sense if youre going as fast as possible, horseback is going faster. Then, we have been detected. Lets bring them together so we can fight back against whatever response comes in. Once they realize word has spread, once they come to plantations abandoned, they come together. They come together at the harris plantation and they are up to 40 slaves at this point and they are all excited about what is happening. As they make their way toward jerusalem, theyre going to have, theyre going to attack a schoolhouse, which is on levi wallers form, and theyre going to kill women and children. The men on the farm escape. Which of course, will be a big thing, as people look to tell the stories about the brutality. Ultimately, they make it a mile from jerusalem to parkers gate where they have a battle. A still from the movie, birth of a nation. The battle is a complete mess up. Imagine this, a battle between two sides, none of them know anything about what they are doing. It is a complete disaster. Turner doesnt know what happened that day when he is captured a couple months later. The revolt has taken place. Turners army, 40 guys drinking, ends up chasing off the field a small group of a dozen whites who had happened upon them. They ran into another group of whites who heard the sounds of the battle and they dispersed turner and his men. The next day, the revolt falls apart. People dispersed. It is a mess. Tremendous amounts of, the county will be up in arms. What happens to turner . He escapes. For the next two months, he is away, until midoctober. Negroesgross two having started to go hunting a dog. Ross turner had hidden in his hiding space. Having gone to walk about, discover to me and sparked, on which thinking myself discovered, on making myself known they fled from me. What happens here . Turner is like, some blacks are out hunting with their dog in the middle of the night. Blacks are out hunting on october 15 . What is going on . It doesnt make sense. After the revolt, the revolt was put down and in fact immediately after the revolt, the whites in charge realize the danger was not from the blacks who were put down in a day or two. The danger to the slaveholders was from the whites. There was nothing they could do if regular whites decided they wanted to kill all the blacks they came across. Martial law was passed in southampton county. The county the fighting was really does the repercussions against the black community was much less than people thought. Why . The slaveholders needed protectable property. That is what happened. Turner is found. He is discovered. He knows the blacks are not going to hide him and he is eventually going to lead more hiding out but they are chasing him and know where he is. They discover him. When he is finally captured, what is one of the great documents in American History . The confessions of nat turner. That is a quick telling. I wrote a longer book but what i wanted to tell you about is just one thing we have got to do is be careful about thinking about slavery as this simple answer. Slavery is a complex institution. It is going to lead people to respond to it in different ways and the ending of slavery is going to be complex and the civil war. People are going to respond to it in different ways. Some people are going to be like Frederick Douglass. Some people are worried about families. Some are worried about are going to see this in a religious framework. Some are worried about their lives. There is going to be lots of different responses and we need to be aware in the way that the historical moment creates opportunities. At ed gallaghers talk, he was like freedom follows the union army. That is important because think about the relationship of events to moments. One thing you notice in the Slave Community is there are not a lot of slaves who are going out and saying, i am going to do this no matter what. There are some. 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. That is how nat turner worked and that is the story i try to tell in my book. Thank you. [applause] breen we have time for questions. The way it works is if anyone has a question, they can come up to a microphone. Hello, dawson from illinois. My question is, to what degree do you think that the fear of the slaves among white southerners, how that played into their fighting in the civil war and the post breen the idea that slaveholders are immediately afraid. When i see evidence that blacks are out hunting two months after slaveholding in the middle of the night, blacks are out probably not with guns, probably with dogs come out hunting, that is astonishing. I do not want to turn to the fear. There is a powerful motion and it is one that a lot of people are afraid of. After turners revolt, a lot of people were afraid that the leaders who declared martial law and prohibited whites from killing blacks indiscriminately, the slaveholders who did that a lot of whites were upset at that decision. They sent a letter to Andrew Jackson saying we need to support these guys. Dont you realize that every house has one of these potential killers . All of these houses with slaves . There are slaves everywhere. You could just kill us anytime you want. We are defenseless against this. Our people who are afraid to but there are also people whose fear is different. For the slaveholders, and i think in the civil war and reconstruction, one of the fears the slaveholders has is not the fear that they are going to get their heads cut off in the middle of the night. Some people have that. The one fear they have is they are not able to control the black population. They have complete control of the black population under slavery. They are like, hold on. What do we need to do to control the black population . In reconstruction, the fear of blacks plays into social control. They drum up all the lacks raping a white woman and kill a bunch of blacks and makes her blacks stay in their place or do whatever. In nat turners world, the fear does not work that way. The fear of the slaveholders is if we get so afraid of blacks killing whites, there is nothing that can be done. Think about this. What do you do if you go up and shoot a black person in 1831 . I am scared. They indict you for murder, which you can get indicted for murdering a slave. You do what to a grand jury . I thought it was nat turner. There is no way you are getting convicted. The fear the slaveholders have is they are going to lose control of slave property. Thank you. What we have for the confessions is nat turner is interpreted to us through grade. How to you as a historian filter out grays point of view so that they can get to nat turner. Breen when the project began, basically my start was to say this all historians who have been working for the last 50 years say, gray messes it up somehow and we do not know where you we do not know how. Then you get historians saying why should nat turners voice here . I was going to be more methodical and say this is all great until we hear otherwise. As i pushed on and pushed on, i began to realize there is a lot in the confessions that suggests it is not great. One thing grape within ray puts in is introductory things. He puts in. Medical comments from his point of view so you can see where viewpoints are different. Grays viewpoints of the revolt are different from that turners. So one of the things there are many reasons but i have come to see this as a more reliable account. The part in the middle that would would be an exact translation would be pretty close. That is one of the reasons why. There is a great explosion of scholarship on nat turner after a novel came out in 1967. Everyone would grab whatever they wanted from the confessions and use it willynilly to support their position, ignoring the question about the reliability of it. When that burned itself out, no one wanted to search the confessions. When i came back to it, the idea is you can read it as not a production it is clear he had not written it before that turner had been captured. Ultimately, he is going to mess up but it is he might use linguisticly. It is not a video recording. I think it is a fairly accurate account of man nat turners confessions and it is well worth listening to the voice of nat turner. I was wondering the extent to which the killing of women and children influenced the negative feelings of turner because it seems to be one thing to kill people but another thing to attack an innocent school. It is more violent. Breen there is a great story about this. It is a bridge too far. You have a law professor writing about it makes sense. It is a slave and to fight back you kill people and ok. There is this moment where at the first house, they slay an infant sleeping in the cradle. This is something that is fairly clear they talked about, the rebels and there was one point of view which is, we should kill everyone and show the blacks we are not afraid of anything. Another point of view and this is probably nat turners point of view is, we should probably kill the men and we have to kill the women because they can run even if they are not going to fight. But nat turner loses that argument. I am not sure which side he is on but they kill women and children and women in children and children becomes this huge rallying cry. The women and children, these guys are savages. No one is thinking about the way slaveholders treat women and children in slavery. Leaving that to the side, it becomes a rallying cry. After the revolt, people who push against slavery and this is another thing i do not talk about enough in the book but other scholars have. After the revolt, virginia is talking about ending slavery. There are proposals at the Virginia Legislature that get serious consideration that they should adopt gradual emancipation. Remember that wave that stopped around 1804 in new jersey . There is a movement to get that going again. There is a debate and during that debate there are petitions from women and children saying, we do not want to become involved in politics but this is a political question that connects to our safety. We want slavery to end. There is a series of petitions that have been written by women and one was written by a man who signed it as a woman and then had the women of augustine county sign it. It did not succeed. The people moving for gradual emancipation lost but it is a powerful moment and the supporters thought they could use it to support their argument against slavery. Two last questions. I am from massachusetts. My question is, because down on restricted slavery and in response to the aggressive slave rebellion, how do you think america would have responded to malcolm x had he been more successful in meeting aggressive revolts and perhaps even killing more white people in the name of civil rights instead of mlks peaceful approach to change . Breen great question. Malcolm x is one of the enduring figures and what would he think . One thing we have to be careful of is saying we have the size these things. Malcolm x is many different people. If you look at the new biography, you see these guys change over time and you to be careful not to say there is one solid thing. I want to contextualize. There are points at which he is looking, at which he is trying to scare people. He is talking a big game in terms of violence and such. There are times when he is moving in Different Directions so you do not want malcolm x had many different positions on race and you do not want to assume there was one position. You want to historic size it. Thank you. Last question. I am from the Washington Area and my question is about the book, the confessions of nat turner. My oldest brother in high school and my mother were having a discussion about whether or not the book should be breen it went out on the Pulitzer Prize. It got great initial notices. There are a couple problems with it that were brought up. This is 1967 the book is written. One is, is a white southerner writing the story of americas most famous black slave in the first person . He is making him a little crazy and making him flawed and he thinks he is humanizing him but a lot of black power activists, guys not malcolm x. But guys say you cannot do that. The other thing is, the center of the story becomes the story of the killing of Margaret Whitehead. He and William Styron see that as psychologically important. He does not think he killed Margaret Whitehead perchance. He thinks it is meaningful this is the only person he killed. Nat turner actually loved and hated Margaret Whitehead, which is 100 years of racist historiography where we have the black racist. Nat turner, americas black hero, is becoming someone lusting after white women. That becomes something that is too far. These are big issues that set off the debate in the 1960s. Thank you so much for your time. [applause] American History tv is on social media. Follow us at cspan history. Cspan cities tour is exploring the american story. Join us the first and third weekends of each month as we take book tv and American History tv on the road and to watch videos from all of the cities we have visited, go to cspan. Org citiestour and follow cspan cities. We now continue our tour of. Aramie we are in the womens hallway of the Laramie Plains museum. In this