Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion: Including the 1831 "Confessions"

by Herbert Aptheker, Bettina Aptheker (Preface by)

In the summer of 1831, a band of some forty slaves led by Nat Turner attacked slave-owning residents of Southampton County, Virginia. One of the largest and most violent revolts in the history of the young nation, the rebellion took the lives of some sixty white men, women, and children. An outcry against the South's exploitative slave system, the revolt was suppressed within forty-eight hours, and Turner, who eluded authorities for months, was eventually captured, sentenced to death, and executed.
The impact of Turner's uprising was monumental. Abolitionists looked for ways to encourage and support future insurrections while white Southerners took revenge on both slave and free African-Americans. Nearly 200 blacks, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were beaten, tortured, and murdered by white mobs.
Herbert Aptheker's account of the bloodiest slave uprising in U.S. history was the first full-length study of its kind. Meticulously researched, it explores the nature of Southern society in the early nineteenth century and the conditions that led to the rebellion. Described by the Journal of American History as "a thorough and scholarly treatment," the text includes Turner's "Confessions," recorded before his execution in 1831. Plus, the events in this book helped inspire the acclaimed 2016 movie Birth of a Nation .

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Biography, United States, African American

176 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1966

About the author

Herbert Aptheker was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of African American history and general U.S. history, most notably, American Negro Slave Revolts (1943), a classic in the field, and the 7-volume Documentary History of the Negro People (1951-1994). He compiled a wide variety of primary documents supporting study of African-American history.

From the 1940s, Aptheker was a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse. David Horowitz described Aptheker as "the Communist Party’s most prominent Cold War intellectual".[1] He was blacklisted in academia during the 1950s because of his Communist Party membership.

Aptheker's master's thesis, a study of the 1831 Nat Turner slave revolt in Virginia, laid the groundwork for his future work on the history of American slave revolts. Aptheker revealed Turner's heroism, demonstrating how his rebellion was rooted in resistance to the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. His NEGRO SLAVE REVOLTS IN THE UNITED STATES 1526-1860 (1939), includes a table of documented slave revolts by year and state. His doctoral dissertation, American Negro Slave Revolts, was published in 1943. Doing research in Southern libraries and archives, he uncovered 250 similar episodes. It remains a landmark and a classic work in the study of Southern history and slavery.

Aptheker challenged racist writings, most notably those of Georgia-born historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. The latter had characterized enslaved African Americans as child-like, inferior, and uncivilized; argued that slavery was a benign institution; and defended the preservation of the Southern plantation system. Such works had been common in the field before Aptheker's scholarship revealed a much more nuanced society, in which African Americans acted from agency.

Considering himself a protégé of W. E. B. Du Bois, Aptheker long emphasized his mentor's social science scholarship and life-long struggle for African Americans to achieve equality. In his work as a historian, he compiled a documentary history of African Americans in the United States, a monumental collection which he started publishing in 1951. It eventually resulted in seven volumes of primary documents, a tremendous resource for African-American studies.

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an academic monograph first published in 1937. Readers expecting a popular book's flow will be disappointed, but those accustomed to academic texts will find it very readable. Like W.E.B. DuBois's "Reconstruction," the book challenges the obvious white supremacist leanings in previous histories of Turner's Rebellion. In the process, Aptheker not only tells a much more believable story of the Rebellion and its effects, he also provides a great deal of structural context for understanding what Turner's rebellion was, why it occurred, and why is has such lasting effects.

The book is full of moving insights and quotations. "How complexion affects reason!"(p.44) is my favorite. Most importantly, Aptheker paints a beautiful picture that shows the effects of oppression on oppressors (e.g. constant fear), the oppressed, and individuals who are determined to resist. I left the book with a profound sense of renewed inspiration and a much greater understanding of Turner's rebellion.

Also see my additional thoughts on my blog: http://professorialprophecies.blogspo....

[Bob Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

American Wars of Liberation, Part II

When I was a college student in the early `60s, Herbert Aptheker was referred to as a Marxist historian. Maybe he was or maybe that was just part of the spirit of those somewhat cramped times, when anyone who challenged authority or wanted to speak his mind contrary to "accepted wisdom" ran the risk of being labelled Marxist, red, or Communist. Certainly, after reading this book---published by the "radical" Grove Press in 1968---I cannot find anything remotely resembling Communism or leftwing ideas. Perhaps at the time, ideas such as those found in NAT TURNER'S SLAVE REBELLION were considered controversial. Daring to praise the spirit and intelligence of a man who tried to rebel against an evil, ugly system was still radical. It is not so today, at least not so far as slavery is concerned. We have our own, modern bogeymen of whom it is better not to speak.
Aptheker documents the origins, local economic and social conditions, the mood among slaves, and the mood among whites as concerned the very institution of slavery before the two-day rebellion which occurred in Virginia in 1831. He notes the rise in black population vis-à-vis the white population. He uses many quotes from either contemporary writers or those who wrote much later and footnotes everything scrupulously. The bulk of this short work is divided into three sections: the Environment, the Event, and the Effects. I cannot say the book makes thrilling reading, nor will it hold the attention of many. Aptheker ably establishes that Nat Turner's Rebellion belongs in that class of historical movement led by a prophet and disastrously unprepared for real war. Such movements have sprung up everywhere throughout history, from Brazil to India, from the American West to medieval Europe. The most fascinating reading is Nat Turner's "confession" itself, taken after his capture, a few months later. We read the words of a prophet strained through the mind and pen of a local man of average intelligence who believed he was interviewing a dangerous criminal, nothing more. Few such interviews with prophets---even of this quality---exist. Perhaps there are other, better books on Nat Turner. If so, read them. He deserves to be far better known, a would-be American Spartacus. You can see "Birth of a Nation", a film about the events made in 2016, but which might be lacking some 19th century flavor. Aptheker's pioneering work is solid, but difficult reading, hence my grade of only three stars.

[Daniel J. Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Mad Men S05E12 (Commissions and Fees) read by Glen, who's visiting Sally in the city and doing a report. To talk of the episode or the book are very different things.

The episode in question is one of the heaviest and most troubling with so many character shifts, it would really take an essay to go into them. How Nat Turner's revolt relates to the episode is a little tricky. There is a hanging in both the book and episode, but it kind of ends there. The relevance may, like with other books, reveal itself in time.

Aptheker's discussion of the rebellion is quite amazing and important, and very much speaks to the civil rights movement at the time of the Mad Men series. Very worth a read. The Confessions themselves are also very relevant.

[J.E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far too academic for my liking especially if you want a blow by blow account of the rebellion as you would expect from this book. Its more focused on how accurate the historians of the time recorded the event.

[Matthew McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent well sourced account of Nat Turner's slave rebellion that picks a part much of the racist myths and misinformation that was spread in the wake of the rebellion.

[Linds · Rating 1 out of 5]

Takes one of the most passionate and violent events in American history and makes it read like a bank statement.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very interested in learning about the rebellion. All I needed to do was read the confession in the back. The rest was just a bunch of statistics and boredom

[Ayelet Tbeile]

For my first year seminar: Liberation.