The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt

317 Pages·2016·3.253 MB·English

by  Patrick H. Breen

The Land Shall Be Deluged
in Blood
Men, like other things, have “two sides,” and often a top and a bottom
in addition.
—lunsford lane, 1842
The Land Shall Be
Deluged in Blood
A New History of the
Nat Turner Revolt
z
PaTrick H. Breen
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Breen, Patrick H., author.
Title: The land shall be deluged in blood : a new history of the
Nat Turner Revolt / Patrick H. Breen.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042315 | ISBN 9780199828005 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Turner, Nat, 1800?–1831. | Southampton Insurrection, 1831.
Classification: LCC F232.S7 B74 2016 | DDC 975.5/55203092—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042315
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Katie

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Chronology of the Revolt xiii
Maps xvii
Introduction 1
1. Signs 17
2. The First Blood 37
3. To Jerusalem 57
4. Where Are the Facts? 73
5. The Coolest and Most Judicious Among Us 89
6. Long and Elaborate Arguments 107
7. Willing to Suffer the Fate That Awaits Me 139
8. Communion 155
Conclusion 165
Afterword: From His Own Words 169
Appendix: Slave Population of Southampton County, 1824–1839 181
Notes 183
Bibliography 263
Index 277

Acknowledgments
One of the graces that comes with finishing the book is an opportunity to
thank the people who have helped me along the way. This was a project that
began in graduate school. As a result, my research trips were especially
low-budget affairs. The kind hospitality of Paul Vandegrift in Richmond,
Mark Smith and Daniel Nonte in Charlottesville, my parents in Washington,
D.C., and Emory Thomas, who went above and beyond his role as advisor
when he gave me the keys to the farm, allowed me to visit the research li-
braries where I found the materials that I have used in this study. The visits
were great trips, in part because I got to talk with my hosts about the won-
derful things that I had found in the region’s great libraries. The staffs at the
Library of Congress, the Library of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society,
the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, the Alderman Library at the University
of Virginia, the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and
Mary, the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, the Perkins
Library at Duke University, and the Southern Historical Collection at the
University of North Carolina were unfailingly helpful as they helped me
search their collections for even the smallest piece of evidence about what was
happening in 1831. At the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, Darlene Slater
Herod was especially accommodating when she sent me copies of church
records that Randolph Scully told me I had missed on an earlier visit. The late
Winthrop Jordan kindly responded to a query of mine about sources; the
carefully considered letter was much more than I ever expected to receive
from a man I had never met. Because I have moved twice since starting my
research, I have used as my home base libraries at three different schools: the
University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and
Providence College. The help I was able to get at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill was made possible by Peter Colclanis, who made sure
that I would be able to get access to the material that I needed. At Providence