The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material (review)

188CIVIL WAR HISTORY tack—the first selection in the anthology—was not written by Poe (as Sidney Kaplan pointed out a few years ago) but by Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker. Daniel Aaron Smith College The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material . By Henry Irving Tragle, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1971. Pp. 489. $15.00.) There is by now a substantial body of literature on the uprising of slaves led by Nat Turner in Tidewater Virginia in 1831. The work by Mr. Tragle—a native of that area—is the fullest available; it reflects prolonged and scrupulous effort. In addition to a generous selection of photographs—including all known representations of Nat Turner, himself—the volume contains good maps. The text contains 150 pages of selections from contemporary southern and northern newspapers; the verbatim records of the trials of the rebels; the diary and correspondence of Governor John Floyd in the months just preceding, during and following the outbreak ; fairly full selections from accounts published by later commentators ; texts of interviews held by Mr. Tragle with Black people now living in the locale of the uprising (and retaining keen folk memories thereof); significant official documents, as the governor's reward proclamation , the auditor's accounts for slaves executed or banished—the masters being compensated by the State—from 1819 through 1831; and a good 21-page bibliographical essay. Mr. Traglc's labors convinced him of the shoddy history in William Styron's best-selling historical novel allegedly based on the incident; in the author's words: Styron "revealed procedures, and an attitude toward research, that no historian should rest easy with." Details concerning the event, the trials and the executions are more fully and accurately presented than has been done before. In addition, realities of Virginia at the time—for example, its system of control and repression and the extent of its military preparedness—receive fresh illumination. The accuracy in the book is high; aside from a small number of the apparently inevitable typographical errors, I noted only the repeated misspelling of the name of the well-known historian, Russcl B. Nye. There is, too, an important ambiguity in the book, for Mr. Tragic remarks : "Today, 140 years after the event, it is still not possible to say with any certainty what goal he [Nat Turner] had in mind." Presumably Mr. Tragic does not mean that there is any doubt that Nat Turner sought to deliver a blow against slavery and for freedom, for the evidence (including that in this volume) demonstrates this clearly; perhaps he means in a specific sense the exact nature of Turner's goal is unclear. For what it may be worth, this reviewer believes the latter was BOOK REVIEWS189 to strip Jerusalem (the County seat) of its arms and then to disappear into the nearby Great Dismal Swamp—as so many slaves had done before (and after) Turner. As it reads, however, the quoted sentence is unfortunate. The author observes that the investigation of contemporary sources still remains incomplete; thus, rather mysteriously, a bundle of papers described at the time as containing material pertinent to the rebellion has been lost. Furthermore, the published official Calendar of Virginia State Papers contains no entries for the period from August through November, 1831—the period during which the outbreak commenced and the last rebel was hanged. Hc adds: "Prospective researchers in any subject related to the slave revolt or to Nat Turner, are warned that efforts to examine source material for such a purpose may meet with less than enthusiastic cooperation on the part of the authorities responsible for the custody of these records." The reviewer, who pursued that purpose in that locale some thirty-five years ago, knows very well what this means. But that a white Virginian (and a retired Lieutenant-Colonel , to boot!) should feel obliged to report such behavior in the present period might well provoke, I think, appropriate investigation and action by organizations of historians. Herbert Aptheker Bryn Mawr College Early Stationary Steam Engines in America: A Study in the Migration of a Technology. By Carroll W. Pursell, Jr. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969. Pp. 152. $6.75.) The...