Land shall be deluged in blood, a new history of gnat turners revolt published by Oxford University press. It is a book that i assigned to my undergraduates this spring. And as we all know undergraduates, theyre tough customers when it comes to books. They absolutely enjoy mr. Greens scholarship and especially his writing. It is a bold book, it is an important book and one of the things that patrick and i talked about it is just its just a shame. That one can go to southampton county today, where turners revolt took place. Youll see some state signage, but yowl have no way of taking a driving tour to see the sights related to that important revolt. It truly is shock. I know patrick is trying to do his part and trying to bring more awareness and attention so that audiences like us who go to battlefields, and i suspect if we had the opportunity we would take a bus down to southampton county to be able to look at that historic landscape that has changed radically. I dont believe and patrick can speak to this later, that there is a single building that still survives from the revolt. Is that true . Are there any homes left . There are some. Okay, i was unaware of that. So,a real pleasure to have patrick here, and of course hell be speaking ability his book about gnat turners revolt. Patrick green. Thank you, peter. And thank you all for coming. This is a real honor and a pleasure to be here. Coming to talk to you guys at the Civil War Institute is a real honor and im really pleased to do it. I also want to make a special welcome to the young people, the High School Students who are here as peter car michael said, my daughter actually applied and got into it last year, had a great, great experience. I want to encourage you because if i well, theres two things. Well, my daughter wants to thank you, peter, for not inviting me last year. Which is fair. And second, i want to tell you guys what i would tell my daughter but i wouldnt tell my daughter this because shes not going to listen to me. You guys are at a great age. Youre going to be looking at colleges, youre going to be doing things. Really reach out to people. This is great opportunity for you guys to learn about the life of the mind and dont be afraid of people who have Pulitzer Prizes and whove written 30 books and im allowed to be scared of them, but you guys not so much. Not so much. And if you are scared of them come talk to me. But get in the habit of talking to these people. Find out what youre interested in. This is really, really great opportunity, peter, and i think its a fabulous thing. And i want you guys to get in the habit because when you get to college you could be the person in the front row in college who goes up to meet the speaker. And people love the speaker engaged so i want to get you guys in the habit of it. Its an unbelievable opportunity. Anyway, today im going to be talking about gnat turner. Of course gnat turner didnt happen in gettysburg in 1863. How do i get you guys back to 1831 . Well, gettysburg as you know is, you know, central battle, the place of the most important battle that happened in American History. Its also the place of the gettysburg address. This is place where history has happened. So people come here unlike southampton county where history happens too where people dont come. We dont have a woodstock for gnat turner. I love this thing, civil war wadstocwa woodstock, this is awesome. We dont have that. Anyway, how do i get you guys back there . Its not like im going to del you about 1863 more than you already know. Well, let me start with this. Abraham lincoln. Now, its not his gettysburg address, but its his cooper Union Address in 1860, one of the most important speeches he makes. And this is when hes a candidate and that picture of him from Matthew Brady is taken the same day as the cooper brady address. Has anyone ever aged this much in five years . Anyway, Abraham Lincoln gets up and one of the things he does hes sitting there in and this address he starts talking about southampton county, and he asks his audience of new yorkers what induced the southampton insurrection 28 years ago in which at least three times as many lives were lost since harpers ferry. What happened . Now whys he asking this . I think its pretty simple. Republicans are going to be blamed for john brown. In fact john brown slave insertions are a complete fiasco. Look at southampton county and why did they revolt. It wasnt because of republicans. There were no republicans, so what is it . What is it that made the slaves revolt in southampton county . I think its a good question and one that does bear on people who are studying the civil war and one you guys diving into this should think about. Thats what ill talk about for the next 45 minutes or so. So were going back to 1831. Not 1832 where Gettysburg College was founded, 1831. Its not lincoln whos president , its jackson. That guy. Economics, i want to set this economically. When we look at the civil war many historians know a lot more than civil war actually you guys know more about civil war than i do. One of the things when we look at the civil war we say, boy, this is one where railroads matter. Oh, its a modern war, weve got railroads or railroad i think in 1830. There it is. 1830, exactly a year before nat turners revolt. So were not in the world of railroads. Nat turners world is not that world. Okay, heres a map of Railroad Construction in the United States by decade. 1830, theres nothing. I mean theres like three dots. Theres a dot there by d. C. Theres a dot by south by charleston. Theres two dots in pennsylvania, so that shows how advanced pennsylvania is. Theres no railroads. Theres no railroads. So that is we want to remember theres a good deal more isolation. Now of course by 1860 by 1860 the nation is going to be crossed by railroads. Well, not crossed all the way but 1867 its going to be crossed all the way. Railroad construction is going to explode after nat turner. But they dont know thats coming. They dont know thats coming. What they do have a sense thats coming is the cotton revolution. Okay, obviously theres been cotton produced forever, okay. But in 1793 theres going to be a tremendous increase in the availability of cotton as we move from just being able to produce long Staple Cotton which can grow basically in the sea aisles of georgia to being able to produce short stable cotton which is going to open up cotton production throughout the hinterland of the south. And so cotton production is going to boom. Heres a map of cotton production. Top one is cotton production in 1820. Bottom one is cotton production in 1860. Its a tremendous amount of expansion of cotton production. Keep in mind the 1790 picture of cotton production is just some orange or red right along the coast of South Carolina and georgia. So theres been an incredible expansion of cotton. Now of course with the cotton production with the cotton production sorry about that. With the cotton production is going to come slavery, an incredible i dont know what happened. Ive got to jump ahead. Okay, i dont know where it is. This is what happens when you play with your slides late at night. Im just happy its here. You know, im sitting there saying, okay, ive got all these nice slides, hope they show up. Okay, with cotton production were going to see an expansion of slavery. And ill show you a map later on. I think well see whats in the slide show later on, you and me both, were going to see the slide show later on showing how the slave population is very much going to follow the cotton production in america, right . We have the Industrial Revolution happening. Cotton is going to become the central ingredients of it. Slavery is going to be the main way that the staple of the Industrial Revolution is produced. Okay, so what does that mean . Well, it means something really important for slavery, okay . In the 1780s and 1790s slave reason retreat. Theres no doubt about it. Pennsylvania is a free state. Why . Because they abolished slavery 1780 someone help me here 80 or 81 . Okay, 80. What . 1833 . Whats 1833 . No, no, thats britain. Thats britain. So were going to see massachusetts, pennsylvania, of course the first one thats going to abolish the slave trade is where . Vermont. Why is vermont the first one to abolish the slave trade because theres a bunch of pirates, okay, theyre up in vermont and they want to make sure the new yorkers who actually have slaves dont bring their slaves onto establish the claims to the land which are much more solid claims to the land. The point is slavery is in retreat and theres no doubt about this, the great accomplishment of the articles of confederation, right, which couldnt figure out how to tax the country, it did figure out one thing which was how to keep slaves out of the northwest territories, right . You also have a constitutional proof thats going to end the slave trade in america 20 years after its adoption. They didnt do it immediately, thats unfortunate. But they did do it 20 years later. But remember 1780, slavery isnt attractive. In the 1780s youre going to see virginia moving away from slavery. Its going to free up laws making it easier for virginia slave holders to free their slaves. Theres a movement away from slavery and it makes sense in a way because theres an insatiable demand for slavery. And what youre going to see is see a retreat in antislavery, right . Here we have the one of the great institutions of america. And i say that i dont know with italics or quotes or whatever. The american colonization society, think about it, were not talking about ending shavery, were talking about sending free blacks away. Maybe itll end up freeing slaves but what is it mostly going to do, the main goal is trying to get blacks out of the country. And this is not antislavery. We of course have the missouri compromise. Slavery appears on the national stage. What do we get . We get slavery in missouri, right . Yes, theres a promise slavery wont go past 3630, but slavery is there. Its balanced. Slavery is part of the country, its part of the world. And its growing. Now, thats not to say that there arent opponents of slavery. One last thing the new york emangspation law. Think about this. When new york cant even figure how to emancipate its own slaves it passes an emancipation law as does new jersey. Places with more slaves pass emancipation laws that are gradual. Places like massachusetts that are poor and dont have as many slaves actually do things like get rid of slavery immediately. But places like new york which actually has small but significant slave pawulation is going to get rid of slavery by abolishing it gradually, which means everyone born after 1800 is going to be free when theyre 21 or 25, right . But what about the people who are born 1799 . Theyre going to be slaves forever. Both forever for them, for their whole lives. After all when the civil war starts new jersey is a slave state, right . There are still slaves in new jersey in the 1860 census, why . Because they never came back and abolished slavery permanently. Here we have what does new york pass . It passes an emancipation law that says in 1827 those people who were born before 1800 are going to be free. Think about how small a step that is, and thats in new york. This is not in charleston. This is not the kind of place where slavery which did look threatened with the french revolution, the haitian revolution and what was going on elsewhere, it looked really threatened in the 1780s and 1790s. By the 1820s it seems like its there to stay. Its stable. Well, that of course is going to lead many people, especially many black people to go out and try to startup what we now think of modern abolition. Youre going to see the freedoms journal, the first black newspaper published in the United States, published in new york. Youre going to see david walkers appeal, 1829, calling for slaves to fight for their freedom. Of course in 1831 youre going to see William Lloyd garrisons the liberator. So we see this movement, this movement to start abolition, to start realizing that theres got to be something done to stop this institution, you know, to get rid of it actively. Its not just going to wither away and die. Slavery is something that seems to be reestablishing more firmly established even though were in this age of progress and this age of enlightenment. All right, so thats 1831. Thats 1831. Now, 1833 in england abolition september having much more success. Keep that in mind. This reflects in part english slavery is sugar based, cotton based. It also reflects the fact that england is freeing slaves in its colonies, primarily as theres movement against slavery and as theres abolition it doesnt happen everywhere. And in america, in southampton county slavery seems strong, slavery seems strong in ways i think maybe we dont always imagine. Yes, these things are happening. Yes garrisons printing up his liberator. We dont know about it. This stuff is starting up, but its not slavery seems and feels permanent. And you can see this i think very well in the average price of the slave over the years before the civil war. What does this chart show . This chart shows panics, booms and busts, right . Maybe it works. Maybe i dont know how to use it. Whatever. But you see the peaks. 1819, 1837, these are the panics that happen in world economy, american economy. But what do you see . The panics happen but the slavery is there, in fact the price of slaves are growing. As you know the price of slaves in 1860 is at an alltime high in new orleans. This is not an institution that seems like its going to leave. Point one, slavery seems strong. Point two, what about southampton county . Where is southampton county in this growing world . Well, briefly well, where is southampton county physically . Its right there on the map, bottom sort of south of petersburg, between petersburg and on the North Carolina border. Heres a map and im not sure how well it appears. Its sort of hard to see. This is the United States in 1830, and this shows the slave population. Places in red, the red dots are roughly 50 or sort of orange dots, the middle ones are roughly 50 slave. So there it is. Heres the world, okay. We have lots of slaves. And you have to remember virginia is the heart of slavery. The cotton expansion is happening and the cotton boom is happening and the biggest plantations which had been in South Carolina are going to move to places like mississippi and alabama. Mississippi more than alabama. Louisiana and mississippi. These these plantations dont ever change the fact virginia is the largest slave Holding State in the country in 1860. Right . Virginias gotten an enormous slave population. Well, if youre going to start a rebellion you need to know something about the demographics. What are the demographics in virginia . In virginia whites outnumber slaves 32. Not propitious for slaverable. Never is an okay answer. Haiti, haiti is full credit. It doesnt happen. Its very hard for a slave revoer revolt to succeed in history. Is it going to succeed in virginia, 42 . Thats going to be really tough. What about southampton county . Southampton county actually has more slaves than whites. So its not, you know, like the high school were going to revolt and take over this thing. Although that would be sort of cool, i think. I dont know. No, i mean its there are a lot of slaves in southampton county. Theres a lot of slaves in southampton county. I also want to go back to the map of this cotton production. In 1820 youll see the cotton production actually this map shows the slight cotton production extends up into southampton county which is true. It does. The slight cotton production in southampton county we know where the slave production is going. Its going to go along the black belt, the Mississippi River. This is also going to play an Important Role in the revolt. Well, were going to see the shift of the slave population basically from the coast which is where it is in the 1830 map to the Mississippi River area. Thats without without taking the slave population away from the from virginia. Vurng still has its slave population. Its just the growth of the slave population happens in the west. I mean, important thing and thing you cant see, whats the number of slaves in the country in 1830 . 2 million. Whats the number of slaves in the country in 1860 . 4 million. Okay, so theres been an Enormous Growth in the slave population in the country. But notice this. In southampton the slaves i dont want to get my numbers reversed and i cant see it so its okay. Southampton population is going to go down. Why . Because this is not the center place of the economic growth. Remember cotton production is going to be moving away from southampton county. The whites are moving away, but the blacks are moving away even faster. Hows that happening . Its the slave trade. Okay, now think about if the slave population in southampton grew at the same rate the slave population grew elsewhere in the world what would happen to the slave population between 1830 and 1860 . It would double. So that 30 decline is astonishing. Its really more like a 65 decline. Relative to the growth in the nation states. Where is that population growth going . Its going to mississippi, louisiana and georgia. Its going south. Okay, important things to chemoin mind . Why . What induced the slaves to rebel . Well, one thing that may have induced what induced the slaves to rebel . This may be one of the things. This is not my research. It doesnt even make it into my book, but a guy wrote a really long book which had a great, great provocative question he asked. Why what happened . Why did they do it . He said one thing he found out was the day the week before nat turner announced his revolt to his closest associates, his son had been mortgaged. Okay, now it obviously proves nat turner did it because he knew his son had been mortgaged and this was a response to that. We dont know that. I think its pretty darn reasonable. I think its the right reading. Things happen for lots of reasons but, you know, might you revolt if you find out your son has been mortgaged, a deadbeat has mortgaged your son and hes going to get sold away and youre never going to see him again . Seems to me not a bad reason to rebel. Even if it is against impossible odds. All right, keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. N