Really great piece as always and very interesting! I always find it interesting how different sites may work through their interpretations on similar subjects.
I live not too far from Moore's Creek Battlefield and there is a road there that was once named a racial slur "head" road as well. I had the chance to interview the park staff on not just the history behind that road being renamed but on their work and decisions to interpret the real history behind that road and why it had that name. That road was used to traffic enslaved people into NC, towards Wilmington, and the road was also lined with the deceased. The name change of that road also stirred the local community as well with people claiming it would "erase history" or others claiming it was finally a step in the right direction. It made for a really really interesting conversation and I was really impressed with the work they have done! Highly reccomend a visit!
This is an excellent piece and touches on some of the fundamental challenges of writing history. At a 50,000 foot level, we know what happened, yet it can be extremely difficult to understand exactly what happened and what it meant to the people of the time. That is especially true when important actors were denied literacy and so the ability to leave any written evidence that a modern historian might ponder. “Objective” history will always be elusive. What we do know is that slavery is a system based on domination and brutality. The operators of that system in the South had an understandable need to put a spin on that reality, justifying it with racist propaganda and appeals to tradition, but the multitude of mixed race babies that the system spawned puts the lie to all of that. We will never know what was in Nat Turner’s head or what was the triggering moment, but we do know that a system like the one operated in the South inevitably pushes people to the breaking point, and when that happens, things break. We also know that there were people around in that time, many of them with no slaves or significant property, who just experienced the system as the oxygen that they breathed. Let’s respect the complexity of the past, understand it as best we can based on the evidence that we have at hand, and accept that parallel narratives can both be worth consideration. Let’s seek for truth while accepting that much remains elusive.
And I think that George Thomas is one of the great unsung heroes of that time. And an important contrast to R.E.L.
My parents had a paperback copy of Styron's 'Confessions of Nat Turner' on their bedroom bookshelf from about 1967 when I was fourteen until long after I had left home so I had ample opportunity to read it growing up, but never really did, though I did poke around in it some looking for passages that might determine if I really wanted to pursue it. I don't know if either of my parents actually read it. The book may have been something they bought because they'd seen it mentioned in Harpers, the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly to which they subscribed and generally I read those magazines more than my parents did. He's generally classed as a terrific prose stylist in the Southern Gothic tradition, which is great if that's your thing. Dismissing it as a "fabrication" is rather mild condemnation for something which is described and sold as fiction. It's a novel about the place where he was born and raised written by someone with an unusual sensitivity to the presence of ghosts. I can't imagine we'd still be talking about Nat Turner in 2024 if not for William Styron. 'Black Prophet' is an interesting title for the book that appears to have revived this discussion. Makes me think of Tenskwatawa, the younger brother of Tecumseh, the Shawnee warrior. Tenskwatawa was known as the Prophet of Prophetstown, which was destroyed by eventual president, William Henry Harrison, and the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison whose fort the military still uses to train their new recruits to write PR for the Stars and Stripes. History books tell us that the War of 1812 was about maritime law and the impressment of American sailors. But the war actually started in 1811 when Harrison burned down Prophetstown on the Wabash in Indiana. Tecumseh died in battle in that war. Tenskwatawa died in 1831, the year of the Nat Turner Slave Revolt and the date by which Indian Removal was supposed to have been accomplished.
\I've been thinking about Nat Turner and Gabriel for some time. Had a chance to hear Douglas Edgerton speak at St. John's Church a couple of years ago and buy his book, "Gabirell's Rebellion." I've driven a bit in that area, too, where it happened, but I haven't gone more deeply into it. I was struck by the fact that George Thomas as a 15-year-old, long before he was the Rock of Chickamauga, fled across fields and through woods to get to Jerusalem (now Courtland) with his family...and yet refused to turn his back on the USA in 1861.
Because of my motorcycle-meets-history writings for a couple of magazines, I'm thinking that a ride into that southeastern part of Virginia is in order. I'm thinking that I need to dive more deeply into the history and the place. And I need to thank you so much for sharing this and for this series of substacks on Turner.
Really great piece as always and very interesting! I always find it interesting how different sites may work through their interpretations on similar subjects.
I live not too far from Moore's Creek Battlefield and there is a road there that was once named a racial slur "head" road as well. I had the chance to interview the park staff on not just the history behind that road being renamed but on their work and decisions to interpret the real history behind that road and why it had that name. That road was used to traffic enslaved people into NC, towards Wilmington, and the road was also lined with the deceased. The name change of that road also stirred the local community as well with people claiming it would "erase history" or others claiming it was finally a step in the right direction. It made for a really really interesting conversation and I was really impressed with the work they have done! Highly reccomend a visit!
This is an excellent piece and touches on some of the fundamental challenges of writing history. At a 50,000 foot level, we know what happened, yet it can be extremely difficult to understand exactly what happened and what it meant to the people of the time. That is especially true when important actors were denied literacy and so the ability to leave any written evidence that a modern historian might ponder. “Objective” history will always be elusive. What we do know is that slavery is a system based on domination and brutality. The operators of that system in the South had an understandable need to put a spin on that reality, justifying it with racist propaganda and appeals to tradition, but the multitude of mixed race babies that the system spawned puts the lie to all of that. We will never know what was in Nat Turner’s head or what was the triggering moment, but we do know that a system like the one operated in the South inevitably pushes people to the breaking point, and when that happens, things break. We also know that there were people around in that time, many of them with no slaves or significant property, who just experienced the system as the oxygen that they breathed. Let’s respect the complexity of the past, understand it as best we can based on the evidence that we have at hand, and accept that parallel narratives can both be worth consideration. Let’s seek for truth while accepting that much remains elusive.
And I think that George Thomas is one of the great unsung heroes of that time. And an important contrast to R.E.L.
My parents had a paperback copy of Styron's 'Confessions of Nat Turner' on their bedroom bookshelf from about 1967 when I was fourteen until long after I had left home so I had ample opportunity to read it growing up, but never really did, though I did poke around in it some looking for passages that might determine if I really wanted to pursue it. I don't know if either of my parents actually read it. The book may have been something they bought because they'd seen it mentioned in Harpers, the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly to which they subscribed and generally I read those magazines more than my parents did. He's generally classed as a terrific prose stylist in the Southern Gothic tradition, which is great if that's your thing. Dismissing it as a "fabrication" is rather mild condemnation for something which is described and sold as fiction. It's a novel about the place where he was born and raised written by someone with an unusual sensitivity to the presence of ghosts. I can't imagine we'd still be talking about Nat Turner in 2024 if not for William Styron. 'Black Prophet' is an interesting title for the book that appears to have revived this discussion. Makes me think of Tenskwatawa, the younger brother of Tecumseh, the Shawnee warrior. Tenskwatawa was known as the Prophet of Prophetstown, which was destroyed by eventual president, William Henry Harrison, and the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison whose fort the military still uses to train their new recruits to write PR for the Stars and Stripes. History books tell us that the War of 1812 was about maritime law and the impressment of American sailors. But the war actually started in 1811 when Harrison burned down Prophetstown on the Wabash in Indiana. Tecumseh died in battle in that war. Tenskwatawa died in 1831, the year of the Nat Turner Slave Revolt and the date by which Indian Removal was supposed to have been accomplished.
\I've been thinking about Nat Turner and Gabriel for some time. Had a chance to hear Douglas Edgerton speak at St. John's Church a couple of years ago and buy his book, "Gabirell's Rebellion." I've driven a bit in that area, too, where it happened, but I haven't gone more deeply into it. I was struck by the fact that George Thomas as a 15-year-old, long before he was the Rock of Chickamauga, fled across fields and through woods to get to Jerusalem (now Courtland) with his family...and yet refused to turn his back on the USA in 1861.
Because of my motorcycle-meets-history writings for a couple of magazines, I'm thinking that a ride into that southeastern part of Virginia is in order. I'm thinking that I need to dive more deeply into the history and the place. And I need to thank you so much for sharing this and for this series of substacks on Turner.
Thank you
You are very welcome.