High School Scholarship recipient from last year. She came here and enjoyed herself, im sure. Patrick is the author of the land shall be day loosed in blood, a new history of nat turners revolt published by Oxford University press. It is one of the finest books i have read on southern history in a long time. It is a book i assigned to my undergraduates in this spring, and undergraduate are tough customers when it comes to books. Mr. Absolutely enjoyed breens scholarship and writing. Important book, and one thing patrick and i talked about, it is just a shame that one can go to southampton county today were turners revolt took place and you will but you state signage, will have no way of taking a driving tour to see the sites related to that important revolt. It truly is shocking. Patrick has tried to do his part and bring more awareness and attention, so audiences like us to go to battlefields, i suspect if we had the opportunity, we would take a bus to southampton county to look at that historic landscape. It has changed radically. Patrick caneve, speak to this later, that there is a single building that robotic that survives from the revolt. Are there any homes left . There are some. Good. Real pleasure to have patrick at the civil war institute, and he will speak about his book about not turners revolt, patrick breen. [applause] patrick thank you, peter, and thank you all for coming. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here and i am pleased to do it. I want to make a special welcome to the young people, High School Students who are here. As Peter Carmichael said, my daughter applied and got into it last year, and had a great, great experience. I want to encourage you because of two things. My daughter wants to thank you, peter, for not inviting me last year. [laughter] which is fair. And second, i want to tell you guys what i would tell my daughter, but i wont tell my daughter this because she isnt going to listen to me. You guys are at a great age, looking at colleges, doing things, really reach out to people. This is a great opportunity for you guys to learn about the life, and dont be afraid of people who have Pulitzer Prize is and who have written 30 books. I am allowed to be scared of them, but you guys, not so much. And if you are scared of them, talk to me, but get in the habit of talking to these people, find out what you are interested in. This is a great opportunity, peter, and it is a fabulous thing. I want you to get in the habit because when you get to college, you can be the person who is in the front row who meets the speaker afterwards. The people who come to speak love students who are engaged, so i wanted to get you guys in the habit. Today am going to talk about nat turner. Not turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1860 nat turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1863. How do i get you back to 1831 . You know, is a central battle, a place of the most important battle that happened in American History. It is also the place of the gettysburg address. This is a place where history has happened, so people come here, unlike southampton county, where history happened but people dont come. We dont have a woodstock for nat turner. I love this, civil war woodstock. This is awesome. We dont have that. Well, i guess we do, it is like when me and Ken Greenberg get together for drinks. It is not the same. How do i get you guys back there . Aboutt going to tell you 1863 more than you already know. Abrahamtart with this, lincoln. It is his cooper Union Addressing 1860, 1 of the most important speeches he makes. And this is when he is a candidate. That picture from Matthew Brady is taken the same day as the cooper union address. Has anyone ever raged as much in five years . I dont know has anyone ever aged as much in five years . I dont know. In this address, he starts talking about southampton county and asks, what induced the southampton insurrection 28 years ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost as at harpers fairy . Is simple to understand why he is asking this. Republicans are getting blamed for john brown. And lincoln saying, it is not john brown the started slave insurrections, in fact, the john brown slave insurrection was a fiasco. Look at southampton county. And why did they revolt . It wasnt because of the republicans. There were no republicans. So what is it that made the slaves revolt in southampton county . Its a good question that does bear on people who study the civil war, and as you guys are diving into this, it is one you should think about. It is one i will talk about for the next 45 minutes or so. 1831,are going back to not 1832, the year Gettysburg College was founded, 1831. It is not lincoln who is president , it is jackson. That guy. He is on the 20 for at least. Nother 10 years, i hear economics. I want to set this economically. ,hen we look at the civil war one of the things we look at is, this is one of those wars where railroads matter, right from the first battle. We have troops getting delivered by rail, it is a modern war. In 1830. Had a railroad , 18e it is, the tom thumb 30, exactly a year before nat results. We are not in the world of railroads. Theturners world is not world of railroads. Here is a map of Railroad Construction in the United States by decade. In 1830, there is nothing, there is like three dots, a. By d. C. , y charlston, dots, a dote three by d. C. , a dot by charlston. But by 1860 the nation is going to be crossed by railroads, not crossed all the way, but by 1867 it is going to be crossed all the way. Railroad construction is going to explode after nat turner, but they dont know that its coming. What they do have a sense is coming is the cotton revolution. Cottonly, there has been produced forever, but in 1793 there is going to be a tremendous increase in the , aslability of cotton we move from the ability of just being able to produce long staple cotton, to being able to produce short staple cotton, which is going to open cotton production throughout the hinterland of the so there has been an incredible expansion of cotton. Of course, with the cotton production hold on. With the cotton production sorry about that with cotton production is going to come slavery and incredible i dont know what happened to my got to jump ahead. Ok, i dont know where it is. This is what happens when you play with your slides late at night. Here. St happy is im sitting here saying ok, got all these nice slides, hope they show up. Ok, with cotton production, we are going to see the expansion of slavery, and i will show you a map later on. I think we will see what is in the slideshow later on you and me both we are going to see the slideshow later on showing how the slave population is very much going to follow the cotton production in america, right . I mean, we have the Industrial Revolution happening. Cotton is going to become the central ingredient of it. Slavery is going to be the main way the stable of Industrial Revolution is produced. Staple of the Industrial Revolution is produced. That means something important for slavery. In the 1780s and 1790s, slavery is in retreat. Theres no doubt about it, right . I mean pennsylvania is a free state. Why . Because they abolished slavery in 1780 want to help me here . 1780 or 1781 . 1780, ok, there we go. 1833 . Whats 1833 . , thats britain. Thats britain. We are going to see massachusetts, pennsylvania. That ise, the first one going to abolish the slave trade is vermont. Why . Because they are a bunch of pirates. They are up in vermont and want to make sure that new yorkers who actually have slaves dont bring their slaves on to establish their claims on the land, which are actually much more solid claims to the land. Whatever. The point is slavery is in retreat, and theres no doubt about this. A greater compliment of the articles of federation, right, which could not 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 constitutional proof that is going to end the slave trade in america 20 years after its adoption. They did not do it immediately thats unfortunate but they did do it 20 years later. 1780s, you are going to see virginia moving away from slavery. Ups going to free manumission laws making it easier for virginia slaveholders to free their slaves. There is a movement away from slavery. It makes sense in a way because there is an in insatiable demand for slavery. Gin, there will je come insatiable demand. You will see a retreat in antislavery. One of the great institutions of america, i say that, i dont know with italics, american colonization society, think about it, were not talking about ending slavery. We are not talking about ending slavery. We are sending free blacks away. Many emitting blacks many mitting blacksnu and sending them away. The main goal is to get blacks out of the country. 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, there is a promise slavery wont go past 3630, but slavery is there. Slavery as part of the country, part of the world and it is growing. Now, that is not to say there arent opponents of slavery. One more thing. The new york emancipation law. Think about this. New york. New york cant figure out how to emancipate it some slaves. It passes emancipation loss, as does new jersey. Massachusetts, that are poor, that do not have slaves, get rid of slaves immediately. Places like new york, which actually have small but significant slave populations will get rid of slavery by abolishing it gradually, which means everyone born after 1800 is going to be free when they are 21 or 25. What about the people born in 1799 . They will be slaves forever, forever for them, for their whole lives. After all, when the civil war starts, new jersey is a slave state. There are still slaves in new jersey in the 1860 census. Fly . Why . They never abolished slavery permanently. What does new york past . Emancipation law, 1827, those people born before 1800 will be free. Think about how small a step that is. That is a new york. That is not richmond or charleston. This is not the kind of place where slavery, which did look threatened everywhere with the french revolution, the haitian revolution, what was going on elsewhere, it looked threatened in the 1780s and 1790s. By the 1820s, seems like it is there to stay. It is stable. That will lead many, especially black people to go out and try to start up what we think of as modern abolition. The friedmans journal, first black newspaper published in america, and United States, in new york. David walkers appeal, 1829, calling for slaves to fight for their freedom. 1831, William Lloyd garrisons the liberator. We see this movement to start abolition, to start realizing, there has to be something done to stop this institution, to get rid of it actively. They will not just whether away and i. Wither and die. Slavery is established, even in the age of enlightenment. 1831. 1831. 1833, in england, abolition having more success. Keep that in mind. This reflects english slavery is sugarbased, not cot based. It reflects the fact that england is freeing slaves in colonies, primarily jamaica. But, keep in mind, as there is movement against slavery, it doesnt happen everywhere. In america, southampton county, slavery seems strong. Strong in ways we dont always imagine. Yes, things are happening. Garrison is printing. They dont know about it. Stuff is starting up but it is not slavery feels permanent. You can see this well in the average price of a slave over the years before civil war. What does this chart show . Panics, booms and busts. Maybe i dont know how to use this. Whatever. 1819, 1837, panics happen in the world economy, the american economy. Panics happen but slavery is there. The price of slaves growing, 1860, price of slaves is at an alltime high in new orleans. This is not an institution that seems like it is going to leave. Well, slavery is strong. What about southampton county . Where is it . It is right there on the map. South of petersburg, between norfork on the North Carolina border. Here is a map, im not sure how well it appears, part to see. United states, 1830, slave population. Places in red are roughly, orange dots, the middle ones, southampton county, 50 slave. Lots of slaves. Virginia is the heart of slavery. Cotton boom is happening, biggest plantations, which had been in South Carolina will move to mississippi and alabama. Mississippi more than alabama. Louisiana and mississippi. These plantations dont ever change the fact that virginia is the largest slaveholding state in the country in 1860. Virginia has a normas sleigh popular enormous slave populations. If youre going to start a rebellion, you need to know the demographics. What are they in virginia . In virginia, whites outnumber slaves 32, not propitious for a slave revolt. How often do they succeed . Never is an ok answer. Haiti is full credit. It doesnt happen. It is hard for a revolt to succeed in history. Will it succeed in virginia, 32 . That will be really tough. What about southampton county . Southampton county has more slaves than whites. It is not, you know, like, six guys, like the High Schoolers are revolting. [laughter] that would be sort of cool. There are a lot of slaves in southampton county. I also want to go back to this map of cotton production. 1820, cotton production extends into southampton county. When we see where it is going, we know where sleigh production is going. The black belt, the Mississippi River. This will also play an Important Role in the revolt. Why . We see the shift of the slave population from the coast, which is where it is in the 1830 map, to the Mississippi River area. That is, without taking the slave population away from virginia. Virginia still has a slave population, it is just the growth in slave population happens in the west. What is the number of slaves in the country in 1830 . 2 million. In 1860 . 4 million. Enormous growth in slave population in the country. Notice this. Southampton, slaves i dont want to get my numbers reversed southampton county population down. Why . This is not a Central Place of economic growth. Cotton production will be moving away from southampton county. The whites are moving away. The blacks are moving away faster. How is that happening . It is the slave trade. If the slave population of southampton grew at the same rate that it grew elsewhere in the world, what would happen to the slave population between 1830 and 1860 . It would double. 30 decline is astonishing. It is more like 65 decline. Relative to growth in the nation states, where is that growth going . Mississippi, louisiana, georgia. It is going south. What induced the slaves to rebel . One thing that may have done, this may be one of the things, this is not my research, doesnt even make it into my book but a guy named david wrote a really long book which had a great, great provocative question. What happened . He said, one thing he found out was, the week before nat turner announced the revolt to close associates, his son had been mortgaged. Ok. David said that proves that turner did it and this was a response. We dont know that. That is pretty reasonable. Things happen for lots of reasons. Wouldnt you revolt if you found out your son has been mortgaged by a deadbeat and is going to get sold away and you will never see him again . Seems to me not a bad reason to rebel. Even if it is against impossible odds. Keep that in mind. Nat turner never speaks about that. What i want to talk about is not the demographics, which is just the context. I want to explore why slaves are rebelling. What induced the southampton insurrection . At least as we see it in record . Follow the evidence. What induced them to rebel . Nat turner. Who is he . Whites thought he was crazy. Complete fanatic. Thomas gray, the man who wrote down nat turners confessions. They are available online. I encourage you to read it. One of the things my book does is it takes the confessions more seriously than anyone has in the last 50 years. I make arguments about the reliability of confessions. My argument is that they are what they say they are, which is basically what nat turner said, which makes them remarkable sources. You can read them in one hour. If you ever want to find out why not turner rebelled, you can read it online. Thomas gray thought he was a fanatic. Newspapers said the same. A preacher, pretend profit. This fits in with a model of understanding that has lasted and been an important part of our way of understanding slave revolts. The confessions of nat turner, 1967, i suspect many have read it, there he is. He is still life in attic, a little crazy. That is who it is. I think there is a way in which this has been one way of understanding the revolt has been by saying it is just this crazy thing that happened and he is just a jim jones figure. I do not think that is true or that the evidence supports. There is evidence that thomas gray wrote that does not support that. I dont know if thomas gray believes it. Here we are. How do we understand him . The other view is that he is a heroic figure. If anyone has seen the new movie, which again, Ken Greenberg and i saw together, that may have been the entire audience. Birth of a nation did not do well in theaters. It is a new understanding of what happened in the revolt. He is completely heroic. Nat turner is the hero, the man who does great things. This is not new in 2016. It goes back, here he is being the great preacher and the slaves are enthralled by his leadership. That is not how it went down. I want to tell you a little about how it went down and make some comments along the way on how we have to rethink the rebellion. It might make us rethink a little bit about how we think about slaves in the civil war. Unlike the last picture, this is more accurate. First step, conspiracy. What happens . 12 february, 1831, the clips of the sun. You can see the eclipse, which goes through southampton county. It is awesome. Nat turner says in the confessions, and the appearance, immediately the sign appearing in the heavens, the seal was removed from my lips and i communicated a great work laid out for me to do, to florida and whom i had the greatest confidence to four in whom i had the greatest confiden