Scholarship recipients from last year. Correct . 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 as we all know, undergraduates are tough customers when it comes to books. They absolutely enjoyed mr. Breens scholarship and especially his writing. It is a bold book, important book, and one thing patrick and i talked about, it is just a shame that one can go to southampton county today where turners revolt took place and you will see some state signage, but you will have no way of taking a driving tour to see the sites related to that important revolt. It truly is shocking. Patrick is trying to do his part and bring more awareness and audiences likeat us who 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. I dont believe, 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. Good. I was not aware of that. So it is a real pleasure to have patrick at the Civil War Institute, and he will speak about his book about nat turners revolt, patrick breen. [applause] patrick 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. 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 actually applied and got into it last year, and had a great, great experience. I want to encourage you because there is two things. My daughter wants to thank you, peter, for not inviting me last year. [laughter] patrick 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, you are going to be looking at colleges, doing things, really reach out to people. This is a great opportunity for you guys to learn about the life of the mind, and dont be afraid of people who have Pulitzer Prizes and who have written 30 books. I am allowed to be scared of them, but you guys, not so much. 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 really, really 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 in college who meets the speaker afterwards. We love that. The people who come to speak love students who are engaged, so i wanted to get you guys in the habit. It is an unbelievable opportunity. Anyway, today im going to talk about nat turner. Nat turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1863. Here i am talking gettysburg. How do i get you back to 1831 . Gettysburg, as you know, is a it is also a place of the gettysburg address. This is a place where history has happened. People come here, unlike southhampton county. We do not have a woodstock for nat turner. Civil war woodstock, this is awesome. We dont have that. I guess we do, it is like when be in can green that she and Ken Greenberg can get together for drink. How do i get you guys back there . It is not like im going to tell you about 1863 more than you already know. Let me start with this. Abraham lincoln. It is not his gettysburg address but his cooper union address. One of the most important speech he makes. Candidate,n he is a that picture of him from Matthew Bradys is taken the same way as the Coopers Union address. In anyone ever aged as much five years . One of the things he does as he is sitting there, and in this address he starts talking about southampton county. He asks his audience of new yorkers, what induced the southampton insurrection . 28 years ago . Three times as many lives were lost as at harpers ferry. What happened . Why is he asking this . I think it is simple to understand. The republicans are getting blamed for john brown. Not johns saying it is brown starting the slave insurrections. In fact john brown was a complete fiasco. If you want to look at a real slave insurrection look at southampton county. Why did they revolt . It was not because of republicans. There were no republicans. So what is it . The slavesthat made revolt in southampton county . It is an important question and one that does bear on people studying the civil war. One that you guys were diving into this should think about. It is when i will talk about for the next 45 minutes or so. Back to 1831 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 another 10 years i hear. Economics. I want to set this economically. When we look at the civil war, many historians who know a lot one ofcivil war the things we look at the civil war as we say this is one of those wars where railroads matter. Right from the first battered battle. He look at manassas, you have troops being delivered by rail. It is a modern war. Railroad in 1830. There it is. Exactly one year before nat turners revolt. We are not in the world of railroads. World is not that world. Heres a map. Construction in the United States by decade. 1830, there is nothing. There is like three dots there. There is a. By selfcare charleston. Two dots in pennsylvania. No railroads. We want to remember that there is a good deal more isolation. , the nation is going to be crossed by railroads. Not crossed all the way, but 1867 is going to be cross all the way. Railroad construction is going to explode after nat turner. They do not know that is coming. What they do have a sense that is coming is cotton revolution. Has been cotton produced forever. Is going to be a tremendous increase in the availability of cotton. Move from just being able cotton, tolongform produce short Staple Cotton which is going to open a production throughout the of the south. Cotton production is going to boom. Heres a map of cotton production. 1820. Bottom one is cotton production in 1860. Tremendous amount of expansion in cotton production. Keep in mind, the 1790 production is just some oratory read along the coast of South Carolina and georgia. There has been an incredible expansion of cotton. Of course, with cotton production, holland. Hold on. With the cotton production, is going to come slavery. I dont know what happened to my i got to jump ahead. Ok. I dont know where it is. This is what happens when you play with your slides late at night. [laughter] i am just happy it is here. I am saying ok, i have got all these nice slides i hope to show up. Ok. With cotton production, we are going to see an increase in slavery. Very going to see a slideshow later on we are going to see a slideshow later on about how the slave population is going to follow cotton production in america. We have the Industrial Revolution happening. Cotton is going to become the central ingredient. Slavery is going to be the main way that the staple of the Industrial Revolution is produced. What does that mean . It means something really important for slavery. In the 1780s and 1790s, slavery is in retreat. There is no doubt about it. State. Vania is a free why . They abolished slavery. Help me out here . 1780 . What . Whats 1833 . No, that is britain. To see massachusetts, pennsylvania, the first one to abolish the slave trade is vermont. Why is vermont the first to abolish the slave trade . Because there are a bunch of pirates. They are up in vermont and they want to make sure the new yorkers who have slaves do not bring their slaves on to establish their claims to the land. Whatever. The point is, slavery is in retreat. There is no doubt about this. The great accomplishment of the articles of confederation 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. You also have a constitution approved that is going to end the slave trade to america 20 years after its adoption. They did not do it immediate, which was unfortunate, but they did it 20 years later. Remember, 17 80s, slavery is unattractive. In the 1780s youre going to see virginia moving away from slavery. Laws,going to free up making it easier for virginians to have virginian slave owners to free their slaves. There is a movement away from slavery. It makes sense in a way. There is an insatiable demand for slavery. With the expansion that is going to become insatiable demand. What youre going to see is a antislavery. Right . Here we have the one of the great institutions of america i say that with italics or quotes or something. Think about it. We are not talking about ending slavery. Were talking about sending free blacks away. Up a freeing end exercise, but what is it mostly going to do . The main racist goal is to get blacks out of the country. This is not antislavery. Missouri compromise. Slavery appears on the national stage. What do we get . We get slavery in missouri. Right . Thatthere is a prominence slavery wont go but slavery is there. It is balanced. Slavery is part of the country. It is part of the world. It is growing. Say that there are not opponents of slavery. One more thing, the new york emancipation law think about this. New york cant even figure out how to enhance emancipate its own slaves. It passes a law that as does places with more slaves past antislavery loss that are more gradual. Places that are poorer get rid of slavery immediately. Aaces like new york which has small but significant slave population is going to get rid of slavery by abolishing it. Any slave born after 1800 is going to be free when they are 25. In 1799 . T people born theyre going to be slaves forever. For them. After all, that its been the civil war starts, new jersey as a slave state. There are still slaves in new 1860y in 1867 is the census because they never came back and abolished it permanently. Pass . Oes new york they pass an emancipation law that says in 1827, those people who are born before 1800 are going to be free. Think about how small a step that is. That is in new york. This is not in richmond, 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, it seems like it there to stay. It is stable. That is going to lead many a ple especially many black people to go out and start would be consider modern abolition. You will see the first black newspaper published in the United States, published in new york. Goings to see david walker appeal, 1829, calling for slaves to fight for their freedom. 1831, you see William Woods theilliam lloyd garrisons liberator. We see this movement to start abolition. To start realized that there has got to be something done to stop this institution, to get rid of it actively. It is not just going to wither away and die. Slavery is something that seems to be reestablished, and more firmly established even though we are in the stage of progress and enlightenment. Is 1831. England, abolitionism is having more success. Keep that in mind. This reflects come a in part, is sugar based, not cotton based. It also reflects the fact that england is freeing slaves in its colonies, primarily jamaica. The thing i want to to keep in mind is as there is movement against slavery, it does not happen everywhere. In america, in southampton county, slavery seems strong. Slavery seems strong in ways that we dont always imagine. Yes, these things are happening. Yes garrison is printing the liberator. This stuff is starting up, but it is slavery seems and feels permanent. You can see this very well in the average price of a slave over the years. What does this show . Booms and panic, busts. I think this works. Maybe i dont use it. Peaks, 1837. These other panics that happen in a world economy. What you see . The panics happen, but slavery is there. He price of slaves is growing the price of slaves in 1860 unit the price of slaves in 1860 is at an alltime high in 1860. Indoor lets. What about southampton county . Where is it physically . It is right there on the map. The bottom. Sort of south of petersburg between petersburg and norfolk on the North Carolina border. Heres a map. I am not sure how well it appears. It is hard to see. Ins is the United States 1830. This shows the slave population. Places in red the red dots the orange dots cover the middle one, are roughly 50 slave. Here is the world. We have lots of slaves. You have to remember, virginia is part of slavery. The cotton expansion is happening, the cotton boom is happening. The biggest plantations which had been in South Carolina are going to move to places like mississippi and alabama. Mississippi more than alabama. And louisiana. These plantations do not change the fact that virginia is the largest slaveholding state in the country in 1860. Virginia has got an in orbis slave population. An enormoushas got slave population. The demographics in virginia . Slaves 32. Mber how often do slave revolt succeed . Never is an ok answer. Credit, it haitis doesnt happen. It is difficult for a slave revolt to succeed. Is it going to succeed in virginia 32 . That is going to be tough. What about southampton county . Set happen county has more slaves than whites. Southhampton county has more slaves than whites. It is not like the High Schoolers here going like hey, we are going to revolt. Although, that would be sort of cool. [laughter] there are a lot of slaves in southampton county. A lot of slaves. I also want to go back to this map of the cotton production. In 1820, you will see cotton production this map shows slight cotton production extends up into southhampton county which is true, it does. See where it is going, we know wesley production is going. It is going to go along the Mississippi River. This is also going to play an important role. Why . We are going to see the shift of the 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 is still the it is just the growth in the population happens in the west. Whathing you cant seek, is the number of slaves in the country in 1830 . 2 million. 1860 . 4 million 4 million. Notice this. Southhampton, the slaves i do not to get my numbers reversed. Southampton county plus population is going down. Why . This is not a center place of economic growth. Cotton production is going to be moving away from southampton county. Away, but are moving the blacks are moving away faster. How is that happening . Slave trade. Think about it. If the slave population of thousand southhampton grew in the same way it grew in the rest of the world, what would happen . It would double. Astonishing. Ne is it is more like a 65 decline. Relative to the growth in the nation. Where is that population growth going . Mississippi, louisiana and georgia. South. Oing important things to keep in mind. Inducedg that may have the slaves to rebel, this may be one. This is not my research. It does not even make it into my book but i guy name david whichd anger wrote a book had a great provocative question. He asked why what happened . Why did they do it . One thing he found out was that weeks before net turner announced the revolt to his his son hadates, been mortgaged. David says a lot of that that turned in it because he knew his son had been mortgaged and this was a response. We do not know that. I think that is reasonable. I think it is the right reading. Things happen for lots of reasons, but mighty revolt if you found out that your son has been mortgaged . And is going to get sold away echo never to be seen 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 today the demographics. Which is just i think the context for it. I want to explore why the slaves are rebelling. What induced the southhampton insurrection . In thet as we see it records. Follow the evidence to what that says. What induced the slaves to rebel . Nat turner. Who is nat turner . Whites thought that nat turner was crazy. He was a fanatic. Who wrote downs nacht turners confessions which are readily available online. I encourage you to read it. One of the things my book does, i am not going to talk about this today as it takes the confessions more seriously than anyone has in the last 50 years. I make arguments about the reliability of these confessions. My argument you can read it if you want is that they actually are what they say they are basically what nat turner said. Sourceakes me remarkable which makes him a remarkable source. You can read it in an hour. If you want to find out why he rebelled, you can read it online. Newspaper reports said he was a fanatic. He is a preacher, and a pretend profit. This is the model that has lasted. It is important part of our way, the slaver vault. Turner sions of nat there he is. He is still a fanatic. He is still a little crazy. That is who it is. Whichk there is a way in this has been one way of understanding nat turners revolt is just by saying its just this crazy thing that happened and nat turner is a jim jones figure. I do not think that is true. I think the evidence that thomas gray wrote does not support that. If thomas gray believes it. How do we understand that turner. The one view is that he is a fanatic, the other is that he is a heroic figure. New nachthas seen the turner movie which can greenberg and i saw together, that may have been the entire audience. It did not do well in theaters, but it is a new understanding of what happened in nat turnerss revolt. He is completely heroic. He is the hero. He is the man who does great things. This is not new in 2016. The ghost here he is being a great preacher and the slaves are enthralled. By his leadership. That is not how it went down. On to tell you a little bit about how it went down and make comments on the way to talk about how we have to rethink about nat turner because it might make us rethink a little bit about how we th