The Landscape through Nat Turner’s Eyes

Summary

Landscape, to some degree, is in the eye of the beholder. In the late summer of 1831 in Southampton, Virginia, enslaved African Nat Turner led one of the largest slave revolts in U.S. history. Devoutly religious, Turner believed God summoned him to violently rise up against the white master class to end slavery. Where once Turner had gazed upon a bleak rural landscape of captivity—farms, fields, and woods, intersected by dirt roads and footpaths, as he led his insurrection, Turner saw the landscape as a battlefield. Farms became potential recruitment stations. The complex network of roads and pathways became avenues of approach and withdrawal. Historians have disagreed on fundamental questions such as the route Turner led his forces during the two chaotic days of the rebellion. Perhaps we can better come to understand his motives and methods if we attempt to look at Southampton County through Nat Turner’s eyes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Reckoning: Landscapes and Legacies of Slavery   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 927