Impressive archival work that adds a rich body of substantive evidence to a topic many felt had been mined exhaustively. -- Peter H. Wood, Duke University Meticulously researched and deftly argued, Allmendinger's account of Nat Turner's rebellion sheds new light on one of America's bloodiest slave revolts. It illuminates the desperate, violent world of Virginia slavery and reveals in exceptional detail the motives, alliances, tactics, and confessions of Turner's enslaved rebels and their white prosecutors. -- Richard Follett, University of Sussex
List of Maps and Tables
Acknowledgments
Note on Surnames
Introduction: The Key Account
Part I: Masters
1. A History of Motives
2. Lines of Descent: The Turners
3. Alliances: Turner, Francis, Reese
4. Successors: Capt. Moore and Mr. Travis
Part II: Rebellion
6. The Inner Circle
7. The Zigzag Course
8. Toward the Town
9. The Rising
Part III: Telling Evidence
10. The Inquiry
11. Confession
12. Closing Scenes
Appendixes
A. Roster of Insurgents
B. Insurgents Who Separated before Parker's Field
C. Coerced Participants
D. Insurgents at Buckhorn Quarter
E. White Victims
F. Atrocities and the Tax Rolls
A Note on Historiography: Rebellion and Local History
Notes
Index
David F. Allmendinger Jr. is professor emeritus of history at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in Nineteenth-Century New England and Ruffin: Family and Reform in the Old South.
[David Allmendinger] has dug deeply into property records, wills, and court judgments, some extending back to the eighteenth century, to provide a scaffolding of information about the web of anonymous lives amid which Turner grew to maturity. A remarkable amount of fresh research undergirds this volume. -- Daniel W. Crofts Virginia Magazine of History and Biography In this long-awaited study, based on prodigious archival research, University of Delaware professor emeritus of history David F. Allmendinger Jr. presents a richly detailed, country-level microhistory of the 1831 Virginia slave uprising commonly known as Nat Turner's Rebellion. Journal of American History "The exhaustive research Allmendinger presents greatly enriches our historical understanding of the Southampton Rebellion through the eyes of its key victims. Nat Turner and the Rising in Southampton County reveals important dimensions of the rebellion's local history and contextualizes the event, as Nat Turner did, within the context of slavery in Southampton County. Reviews in History Allmendinger's great achievement is that he made full use of 'new' primary sources related to the uprising of 1831-new sources hitherto hidden in plain sight. Most importantly, he understood the significance of this material and knew exactly how to mine it for valuable new insights into virtually every aspect of Nat Turner's rebellion. Reviews in American History No one has done more to corroborate and sync the details, nor to illuminate Turner's inspirations and goals. Nat Turner and the Rising in Southampton County is a model of historical methodology, and goes further than any other previous work in helping readers understand Turner's motives and meaning African American Intellectual History Society We are all in David Allmendinger's debt for the labor of research that has given Nat Turner and The Rising in Southampton County its absent material context. Law and History Review Though the subject of countless histories, novels, videos, and websites, Nat Turner, the leader of the largest slave insurrection in U.S. history, remains an enigma; yet, in this new and challenging study, the life and times of the legendary revolutionary come into much better focus. A must-read for historians of slave resistance and all others interested in the history of antebellum Virginia and in particular Southampton County. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Allmendinger approaches a well-trodden historical event from a distinctive perspective. [He] provides the most complete historical context surrounding the rebellion. Ultimately, Allmendinger succeeds in providing a more complete understanding of the community of Southampton, Virginia, and offers a better explanation for the motivations that led Turner and his followers down such a bloody path in 1831. Choice
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