Nat Turner’s Rebellion: A Chronicle of Major Events

Abstract

Nat Turner’s Rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831 is one of the most iconic and at the same time well-studied and documented events in American history. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that Russian American studies have never paid due attention to this issue. Not a single major study has been published so far. Even the course of the rebellion is described in Russian-language literature in a superficial manner mainly in popular science and journalistic works, which are mostly translations or compilations of several American journalistic materials. In this article, the author tried to fill this gap and to reconstruct the overall picture and chronicle of events, relying on the sources and works of leading foreign experts in the field of African American History (Black History).⁎ The article retraces in detail the advance of the rebel group through Southampton County and the main events that took place in the active phase of the rebellion, i.e. in the period between 10 p.m. on August 21 and 5 a.m. on August 23, 1831. The author deliberately omits the questions of identifying the causes and prerequisites of the rebellion as well as its immediate preparation, focusing exclusively on the description of the course of the armed slave uprising. The author proposes his own periodization of the rebellion and also determines the range of reasons for its defeat.

Keywords

• nat turner
• southampton insurrection
• virginia slave rebellion of 1831
• nat turner’s rebellion
• slavery
• abolitionism
• american historiography
• chronicle of events
• black history