1831 — Aug 23-31, White response to Turner revolt, Blacks killed without trial, VA/NC–~32-~54
Blanchard Note 1: See Aug 21, 1831 for Nat Turner slave revolt and massacre of Whites.
Blanchard Note 2: We are primarily interested here in the indiscriminate killing of Blacks who were not participants in the uprising, or at least not proven to be.
Blanchard Note 3: For determination of Aug 23-31 as the period of retribution, we rely on Thomas C. Parramore, “Covenant in Jerusalem,” in Kenneth S. Greenberg, Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003). Parramore writes that there were “ten days of rebellion and retribution…” The rebellion started the night of the 21st and the confrontation between the rebels and the white militia which ended the uprising was morning of 23rd. Then began the retribution. (Breen, though, thinks the time-frame shorter.)
Blanchard estimate of Blacks killed without benefit of trial, thus including innocents.
–~32-~54 Blanchard tally of Southampton County, VA and neighboring NC.[1]
— 22-~44 Southampton County, VA; blacks killed without trials. (Breen 170.)
— ~10? NC. White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009.[2]
Blacks executed by VA government for participation in the insurrection/revolt:[3]
— 1 Will “the executioner” killed at Harris plantation on Aug 23 by Greenville cavalry.[4]
— 55 Executed by VA: Nat Turner and 54 other men who had participated in the rebellion.[5]
— ~20 Executed by VA government. (Aptheker. American Negro Slave Revolts, 1970, 302.)[6]
–~16 slaves executed by Virginia prior to execution of Nat Turner on Nov 11.[7]
— 3 free blacks executed by Virginia prior to execution of Turner on Nov 11.[8]
— 1 Execution of Nat Turner by hanging on Nov 11, 1831.
— 19 Berry writes that in addition to Turner, “eighteen of his companions were executed.”[9]
Blacks Massacred (as well as innocent blacks and suspected rebels otherwise killed):
–Hundreds. Eric Foner, intro. to Nat Turner: Great Lives Observed, 1971, 5; in Breen, 158.
— 200-300 “…white mobs turned on blacks who had played no role in the uprising.”[10]
— 100-300 Parramore. “Covenant in Jerusalem,’ in Greenberg, ed. Nat Turner; in Breen, 158.[11]
— <200 Aptheker, “Nat Turner,” Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 1982, 612; Breen, 157.
–>148-178 Breen, 159.[12]
— 120 in “little more than one day’s work.” Cited by Higginson in 1861; Breen, 157.[13]
— >120 Oates, The Fires of Jubilee; in Breen, p. 158 (all of country not just Southampton).
— >114 Aptheker. American Negro Slave Revolts. 1970, p. 301.[14]
— >100 Southern Advocate, Huntsville, AL, 10-15-1831; in Aptheker. Slave Revolts, p. 301.
— 22-44 Breen, p.170. Writes “from twenty-two to the low forties” which we translate as 44.[15]
— 33-38 Blanchard tally of “individual” “reports” of deaths.[16]
— ~40 Richmond Whig editor; in Aptheker (American Negro Slave Revolts), p. 301.
— 31 John Wheeler letter, Aug 25; in Breen, p. 127.
— ~15 Decapitated by VA militia “in order to terrorize the local African American population…”[17]
Individual cases:
— 1 Free black farmer, just inside Southampton county line; shot by Richmond “troops.”[18]
— 1 Blunt’s farm, Aug 23. Slave who had helped whites, shot by group of whites.[19]
— 1 Slave on errand to carry message from his owner shot by “company of soldiers…”[20]
— 1 Samuel Blunt plantation, Aug 24. White militiaman shoots Fitzhugh slave.[21]
— 1 Alfred, Levi Waller slave, executed by Greensville troops, over objection of Waller.[22]
— 1 Female black suspected by mob, even though white vigilante tried to save.[23]
— 3 Suspected rebels; by man noted above who sought to protect black woman.[24]
— 1 Summary execution; female slave of Lavania Francis, who reportedly tried to kill her.[25]
–10-15 “…one white man bragged that he had killed between ten and fifteen prisoners himself…”[26]
— 1 Free black male, before Aug 30, outside his home, by whites, because he tried to hide.[27]
— 12 Captives, suspected of participation, reportedly tortured to death seeking confessions.[28]
Blacks, NC:
–~10? White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009; accessed 1-22-2018.[29]
Narrative Information
Aptheker (American Negro Slave Revolts): “Massacre followed [the insurrection]. Phillips simply notes, ‘a certain number of innocent blacks shot down,’ and Ballagh asserts, ‘A most impartial trial was given to all, except a few decapitated’ in Southampton, while Drewry thought ‘there was far less of this indiscriminate murder than might have been expected.’[30] Just how much ‘indiscriminate murder’ one ought to ‘expect’ is not clear, but this statement by General Eppes, the officer in command of the affected county, leads one to believe that these historians were rather uncritical in dealing with this phase of the event.
He {the General} will not specify all the instances that he is bound to believe have occurred, but pass in silence what has happened, with the expression of his deepest sorrow, that any necessity should be supposed to have existed, to justify a single act of atrocity. But he feels himself bound to declare, and hereby announces to the troops and citizens, that no excuse will be allowed for any similar acts of violence, after the promulgation of this order, and further to declare, in the most explicit terms, that any who may attempt the repetition of such acts, shall be punished, if necessary, by the rigors of the articles of war. The course that has been pursued, he hears, will in some instances be the means of rendering doubtful the guilt of those who may have participated in the carnage….This course of proceeding dignified the rebel and the assassin with the sanctity of martyrdom, and confounds the difference that morality and religion makes between the ruffian and the brave and the honorable.[31]
“The editor of the Richmond Whig also referred ‘with pain’ to this ‘feature of the Southampton Rebellion…We allude to the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity.’ He thought that about forty had thus been killed. A Reverend G. W. Powell, writing August 27, when the reign of terror was by no means over, reported, ‘many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known.’[32] The reverend gentleman was correct, but it appears certain that more, many more, than forty were massacred. The Huntsville, Alabama, Southern Advocate of October 15, 1831, declared that over one hundred Negroes had been killed in Southampton. It seems accurate to say that at least twice as many Negroes were indiscriminately slaughtered in that county, as the number of white people who had fallen victim to the vengeance and bondage-hating spirit of the slave….” (pp. 298-301)
Baker: “….The whites coming to the rescue were equally ferocious. They raced into Southampton County and no black was safe, however innocent he was of complicity in the revolt.[33] …. The savagery of the whites’ response to the uprising also demonstrated how far away the rural South was from the rule of law for which men like john Marshall had worked so long.
Breen: “Capehart[34] reported that ‘we have killed a great many of the villains + have caused the rest to take to the woods.’ John Wheeler,[35] who wrote a letter on Thursday [Aug 25], also recognized that blacks paid dearly for the whites’ sense of safety. According to his sources, ‘exactly’ thirty-one ‘negroes have been killed and the Gaol in Jerusalem is full to overflowing.’ Wheeler may have been relating intelligence about the retribution in Southampton fathered first-hand. According to Drewry, Wheeler was the leader of the Murfreesboro troops who went to Southampton and captured and shot several suspected rebels.[36]
“The murder of blacks was not something restricted to those in the neighborhood of the revolt or to the times of peak panic. On the same day that Wheeler ‘supposed them [the rebels] entirely suppressed’ and wrote that those who had routed the rebels in Virginia needed no ‘further aid from us,’ an unlucky black man crossed through Murfreesboro on his way north. The man, who was not named in any source, was from Ahosky Ridge, and the defenders of Murfreesboro guessed that he was ‘bending his course towards Southampton.’ Murfreesboro’s guards decided to shoot, certain that they knew enough to act. Eight or ten shots rang out as the man walked through the middle of Murfreesboro. The whites then decapitated the dead man. They stuck his head ‘on a pole and planted the pole at the cross streets,’ to serve as a warning to any blacks who did not have the sense to stay completely out of sight. His body was discarded, left to rot in some bottomland outside of town.[37]
“The same day, another black man came to the attention of the defenders of Murfreesboro. In this case, the whites had no reason to think that the man wanted to join the revolt that had ended two days earlier. Instead, he was guilty of a different crime: impudence. Apparently, he had been assigned to drive his mistress and her children to town, suggesting that even as whites inflicted violent retribution on many blacks, some people had begun to resume typical activities. Despite the signs of a return to normalcy, something the driver said or did set his mistress on edge, and when she arrived in town, she informed Murfeesboro’s guards about her chauffeur. When she complained that she was scared “almost to death,” her accusation doomed the man. The guard decided that the slave’s behavior was unacceptable, and they executed him on the spot.[38] ….” (pp. 128-129)
Breen (from Chapter 8, Retribution): “After the rebels had been dispersed, whites focused their efforts on finding those men who took part in the revolt. There were few moments in American history when the balance between protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty had been as far skewed to vengeance as it was in Southampton, especially in the immediate aftermath of the revolt. Inspired by the murders that the rebels committed, many whites wanted revenge, even if that meant killing innocent blacks.
“One story, which may be apocryphal, described the randomness of the danger that faced blacks. Thomas Wentworth Higginson described how troops from Richmond hoped to kill ‘every colored person they saw in Southampton County.’ Nearing the scene of the revolt, some whites stop to ask ‘a free colored man, who was hoeing by his little field,’ if they had reached Southampton. When he told them that they had just crossed the line, ‘They shot him dead and rode on.’ No doubt some blacks were killed by men who did not care if they had been involved in the revolt. General Richard Eppes reported how ‘some had been shot at sight, without knowing who they were.[39]
“Similarly, in a footnote proving that ‘some innocent negroes suffered,’ William Sidney Drewry described how on the Tuesday morning that the rebels were finally dispersed [Aug 23], a startled Howell Harris shot ‘a negro servant, while [the servant was] getting the saddles to harness the horses.’ A fuller version of a similar story appeared in a note that the future Confederate General Robert E. Lee wrote to his mother-in-law, recounting the news from the officers who returned from Southampton to Fort Monroe. Lee described the events on Blunt’s farm on Tuesday morning, including the role of Blunt’s slaves in dispersing the rebels. After the rebels had left, three of Blunt’s slaves who had helped the whites ‘ran in great haste for the horses for them to escape on.’ They were spotted by another group of whites drawn to the commotion, and one of the whites shot and killed ones of the slaves.[40] Whether or not these are two versions of the same story, it is perfectly clear that some enraged whites acted barbarously, killing blacks indiscriminately. In Southampton County and the nearby area, for the days after the revolt, few blacks could feel confident that they were safe. At the height of the panic, a minor misstep could
end in a lynching.
“During the bloody reaction, even loyal slaves were in jeopardy. One nameless ‘poor innocent negro’ was enlisted to help convey a message for the whites. He ‘was sent … upon an errand to the next neighbor, and commanded to go quick.’ The slave did as he was told, but his obedience cost him his life. ‘[W]hile he was riding along rather fast, a company of soldiers, supposing him an enemy fleeing, let in a whole volley upon him, and killed both man and horse.’” (pp. 142-143)….
“Little protected blacks from the brutal reprisals of the white population. Even black women –only one of whom was reported to having joined the rebels –were subject to summary judgement. One white man, who himself had killed suspected rebels upon capture, told John Hampden Pleasants how he tried to ‘save a negro woman whom he thought innocent.’ The crowd rejected the man’s pleas to spare the woman. According to the story related by Pleasants, the man himself was nearly killed as the mob shot the black woman. Drewry has another account of a strikingly similar episode: two of the women from Francis’ plantation, Charlotte and Easter, had been arrested and taken to Cross Keys where Nathaniel Francis found them. According to former slave Allan Crawford, Charlotte had been one of the two women arguing over her mistresses ‘clothes and things’ while Lavania Francis hid. When Francis emerged from her hiding place, Charlotte was the one who, according to Drewry, tried to kill her mistress with a knife. Whatever versions of these stories Nathaniel Francis heard, he decided not to wait for a court to decide Charlotte’s fate. He took her out of the makeshift jail and tied her to an oak tree. Francis’ shot was followed by a volley from other whites seeking revenge. According to Drewry, the tree to which Charlotte was tied died as a result of the massive barrage it took during Charlotte’s execution.[41]
“Other nameless people were “shown no quarters” when they were captured by angry whites. One report described summary execution as the norm for suspected rebels who had been captured. Since many of the known rebels survived and were tried, summary execution was clearly not ubiquitous, but no one doubts that it occurred. John Hampden Pleasants, who traveled to Southampton County with the Richmond troops, described a response “hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents.” He acknowledged of one or two instances when the “enraged inhabitants” murdered their captives forthwith. In later article, he recounted how one white man bragged that he had killed between ten and fifteen prisoners himself, something that was not entirely unbelievable to Pleasants as he reflected on the “sanguinary temper of the population who evinced a strong disposition to inflict immediate death on every prisoner.[42]
“In most cases of the blacks killed without trials, one cannot determine the identities of the victims, let alone their roles in the revolt. Their deaths were often as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and there is no consistent pattern for which rebels were slain as the whites tried to capture them, which rebels were lynched after they had been arrested, and which survived to face trials….
“At least one unnamed free black who whites believed to be involved in the revolt was also killed as the whites were trying to round up the rebels. According to one of the earliest reports from Jerusalem, whites had gone to this man’s house. When the whites arrived at the house, the black man did not appear to be at home. Before they left, one of the whites spotted the accused man trying to hide. If the evidence of the man’s involvement was not enough to kill him, the whites interpreted the decision to hide as a confession of guilt. They shot him on the spot. The possibility that the free black man hid only to escape being manhandled or killed by brutal whites was not considered, at least by the author of the only letter that noted the man’s death.”[43] (pp. 150-152.)
“Prisoners suffered greatly and not only from the wounds from battle. Torture was not unprecedented in Southampton County….Some whites hoped that their use of torture would expedite their investigation. One New England native wrote to his parents about the heavy-handed use of torture. Twelve suspected rebels, he reported, ‘have been tantalized to death, in try[ing] to make them disclose the plot…’[44] (p. 153.)
“In several instances, after the suspected rebels were killed, whites cut off the rebels’ heads. In part, this was a continuation of the sadistic ritual of the execution, but it also served as a crude but effective form of social communication. Whites displayed the heads of the fallen blacks so that everyone would know exactly what had happened to those who had tried to rebel. Most importantly whites wanted the fate of the dead men to be a warning to other blacks. After the rebel who was thought to have killed his master was decapitated, whites took his head and ‘spiked it to the whipping [post] for a spectacle and a warning for other negroes!!!!!!’” (p. 155.)
“All of the names of those blacks killed as the revolt was suppressed will never be discovered; the number of dead in the black community will never be known exactly. Those keeping records were far less worried about dead blacks than dead whites….” (p. 156.)
“….in a 1982 encyclopedia entry on Nat Turner, Aptheker had apparently decided that the caution in his early work [Masters thesis and Slave Revolts] misrepresented the amount of bloodshed. In this entry, Aptheker’s only comments on the scale of the bloodshed is a guess that
‘perhaps as many as 200 Negroes were killed in Southampton.’….” (p. 157.)
“While not enough evidence exists to yield an exact number, evidence suggests a range for the number who died during the repression that followed the revolt. In law, slaves were property. As property, Virginian slaves over the age of twelve were subject to taxes, just as horses, gigs, and carriages were. In the spring of each year, tax collectors enumerated the property on each farm, dutifully counting the slaves over twelve and collecting the appropriate taxes. When John Gurley and George Gray counted the Southampton slaves in 1831, their tally was 4145. The following year, they completed the same assessment. They counted 3967 slaves over the age of twelve. This meant a net of 178 slaves who were counted on the 1831 tax list had died, moved, escaped, were sold away, or otherwise disappeared. Since the number of slaves in Southampton County had been steadily declining after reaching a highpoint of 4262 in 1827, presumably because of ordinary events, historians can reasonably use the number of 178 as a high-end estimate for the casualties among Southampton’s slave population during and after the revolt.[45]…How many of the 178 uncounted slaves were among the dead after the revolt? Nat Turner and twenty-nine others were found guilty by the white courts for their involvement in the revolt. They were all sentenced to die. Although some had their sentences reduced to transportation, all thirty convicted slaves were absent from the 1832 tax survey. As a result, it is likely that fewer than 148 Southampton slaves lost their lives during the extra-legal reaction to the revolt….” (pp. 158-159.)
White and Walbert: “….to terrorize the local African American population, some of the militia decapitated about fifteen of the captured insurgents and put their heads on stakes. Then, as fear spread through the white population, white mobs turned on blacks who had played no role in the uprising. An estimated two to three hundred African Americans, most of whom were not connected to the rebellion, were murdered by white mobs. The governor of Virginia tried to put a stop to this vigilante justice, insisting that those who had participated in the rebellion should be tried and executed by the state to reinforce the supremacy of the law for both blacks and whites. In the aftermath of the rebellion, the state legislature of Virginia considered abolishing slavery, but instead voted to tighten the laws restricting blacks’ freedom in hopes of preventing any further insurrection.
In nearby North Carolina, several slaves were accused — falsely — of being involved in Turner’s rebellion and executed. Rumors spread that slaves in North Carolina were plotting their own uprising, and white mobs murdered a number of enslaved men, while other slaves were arrested, tried, and a few executed. North Carolina, like Virginia, passed new legislation further restricting the rights of both enslaved people and free blacks. The legislature made it illegal for slaves to preach, to be “insolent” to white people, to carry a gun, to hunt in the woods, to cohabitate with a free black or white person, to own any type of livestock. These new codes also forbade white people from teaching an enslaved person to read.” (White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009; accessed 1-22-2018.)
Sources
Annapolis Republican, MD. “Insurrection in Virginia. Extract of a letter from a gentleman to his friend in Baltimore, dated Richmond, August 23d.” 8-27-1831. Accessed 1-24-2018 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/annapolis-maryland-republican-aug-27-1831-p-3/
Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. New York: International Publishers, 1970. Accessed 1-23-2018 at: https://www.scribd.com/document/204919722/American-Negro-Slave-Revolts-Herbert-Aptheker
Aptheker, Herbert. Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion, Including the 1831 ‘Confessions.” Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1996, 2006. Google preview accessed 1-22-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=UsepDQzh0FkC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Baker, Leonard. John Marshall: A Life In Law. New York and London, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1974.
Berry, Mary Frances. Black Resistance White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Breen, Patrick H. Nat Turner’s Revolt: Rebellion and Response in Southampton County, Virginia. Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, 2005. Accessed 1-24-2018 at: https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/breen_patrick_h_200505_phd.pdf
Childs, Emery E. A History of the United States In Chronological Order From the Discovery of America in 1492 to the Year 1885. NY: Baker & Taylor, 1886. Google digitized. Accessed 9-4-2017: http://books.google.com/books?id=XLYbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Gray, Thomas R. The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, VA, As fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray. Baltimore: Thomas R. Gray, Lucas & Deaver, print., 1831. Accessed 1-23-2018 at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html
United States Central Publishing Co. Important Events of the Century: 1776-1876. NY: U.S. Central Pub. Co., 1876. Google preview accessed 1-22-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=OGZt1HGsgmEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Wood, L. Maren and David Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC (North Carolina Digital History). 2009. Accessed 1-22-2018 at: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4574
[1] We accept Breen as best source on Southampton, VA and use White and Walbert for NC estimate.
[2] “In nearby North Carolina, several [>3?] slaves were accused — falsely — of being involved in Turner’s rebellion and executed….white mobs murdered a number of [>3?] of enslaved men, while other slaves were arrested, tried, and a few [>3?] executed.”
[3] See end of Gray’s Turner Confessions, for a listing of the disposition of many blacks who were detained or arrested. It is clear that many were cleared of charges and let go. Others, it would appear, were jailed.
[4] Breen. Nat Turner’s Revolt: Rebellion and Response in Southampton County, Virginia. 2005, p. 122.
[5] White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009; accessed 1-22-2018. We make assumption this number is a combination of rebels killed in action, executed by VA militia, and executed by VA government.
[6] Breen: VA law provided for the reimbursement to owners “for the value of slaves condemned in court.” (p. 10.)
[7] Aptheker. American Negro Slave Revolts. 1970, p. 302.
[8] Aptheker. American Negro Slave Revolts. 1970, p. 302.
[9] Berry. Black Resistance White Law…Constitutional Racism in America. 1995, p. 23.
[10] White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009; accessed 1-22-2018.
[11] Breen: “Most recently, Thomas C. Parramore estimates that ‘in the ten days of rebellion and retribution, at least 100 blacks and possibly several times that figure were killed, though no more than a handful had taken any part in the uprising.’” In that several times 100 would be at least 300, we thus derive our range.
[12] Breen goes on to note this is not his estimate of deaths, just the range of what it might have been limited to if tax records were ones only source — could not have been more than 178. See below for Breen’s own estimate.
[13] Referenced report was by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, noted in Tragle, p. 337.
[14] The number is ours based on statement that “It seems accurate to say that at least twice as many Negroes were indiscriminately slaughtered in that county [Southampton], as the number of white people who had fallen victim…” On page 298 Aptheker writes that over fifty-seven whites were killed by revolting slaves — thus at least 114.
[15] This is an “estimate of the number of blacks killed without trials. Breen digests and analyzes the possible death toll beginning at page 159, continuing through 170, in order to derive his estimate. It appears compelling to me.
[16] We put “individual” and “reports” within quotation marks to draw attention to the unrealizable report of a NC vigilante boasting that he had killed 10-15 Blacks. We simply note the tally and do not seek to disagree with Breen.
[17] White and Walbert. Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Learn NC. 2009; accessed 1-22-2018.
[18] Breen: “…troops from Richmond hoped to kill ‘every colored person they saw in Southampton County.’ Nearing the scene of the revolt, some whites stop to ask ‘a free colored man, who was hoeing by his little field,’ if they had reached Southampton. When he told them that they had just crossed the line, ‘They shot him dead and rode on.’” Breen cites Thomas Wentworth Higginson description in Tragle, 333. Also notes: Works Progress Administration. The Negro in Virginia. New York: Arno Press, 1969, p. 180.
[19] Breen, p. 143. Shot on sight on suspicion of collaboration.
[20] Breen, p. 143. The slave was on horseback and riding quickly (as told to do), and was presumed to be a rebel.
[21] Breen, p. 146, who notes that militia reinforcements had been sent to the Blunt plantation after the first attack, on intelligence that it would be attacked again. Group stayed through the night and were so concerned that they would be overwhelmed stacked weapons for the slaves to use near the front door. During an early morning alert, “Amid the confusion and panic of the alarm, one of the white militiamen ‘a young man by the name of Harris’ saw Fitzhugh’s man [slave of J. Drew Fitzhugh] carrying a gun. Forgetting that the slaves on the plantation had been armed, or more likely, not taking the time to determine if Fitzhugh’s slave were a rebel, Harris shot and killed Fitzhugh’s slave.”
[22] Breen, pp. 148-149, who notes, Alfred was on the way home, when militia led by Alexander Peete came across him and questioned him trying to determine if he was involved in the uprising. Not being able to decide, one of them (Sampson Reese) “maimed Alfred, cutting both of his Achilles tendons.” Later, his owner, Levi Waller “happened upon his wounded slave and was bandaging his leg when a contingent of Greensville cavalry, under the command of Dr. Scott appeared. According to a report written shortly after…Scott and ‘a strong party of horse’ were determined to pursue the rebels ‘until every man of them was taken or destroyed.’….According to Waller, Scott and his men ‘deemed that his [Alfred’s] immediate execution would operate as a beneficial example to the other Insurgents.’ Drewry reported that ‘after a severe reprimand to the master [Waller], he [Scott} ordered the negro to be tied to a tree and shot.’” Breen cites: Petersburg Intelligencer, 26 August 1831, in Tragle, 40; Drewry, 64, fn. 2.
[23] Breen: “One white man, who himself had killed suspected rebels upon capture, told John Hampden Pleasants how he tried to ‘save a negro woman whom he though innocent.’ The crowd rejected the man’s pleas to spare…[her]. According to the story related by Pleasants, the man himself was nearly killed as the mob shot the black woman.”
[24] As noted in footnote above, this man had said he had killed “several” blacks he suspected were rebels. For the sake of a number we translate “several” into three.
[25] Breen notes that a vigilante (my word) named Nathaniel Francis, heard that Charlotte had attacked her mistress, so “he decided not to wait for a court to decide Charlotte’s fate. He took her out of the makeshift jail and tied her to an oak tree. Francis’ shot was followed by a volley from other whites seeking revenge. According to Drewry, the tree to which Charlotte was tied died as a result of the massive barrage ti took during Charlotte’s execution.” Cites, in footnote 15, p. 150: Richmond Constitutional Whig, 3 September 1831, in Tragle 69; Drewry 48 and 85, fn. 2.
[26] In Breen, p. 151, citing John Hampden Pleasants, “who traveled to Southampton County with the Richmond troops…” Breen notes that this was “something that was not entirely unbelievable to Pleasants…”
[27] Breen, 152. See Narrative section below for description.
[28] Breen, citing a letter from a New Englander to his parents, reported in New Hampshire Post, 9-14-1831. Breen notes that not one admission of participation was elicited.
[29] “In nearby North Carolina, several [>3?] slaves were accused — falsely — of being involved in Turner’s rebellion and executed….white mobs murdered a number of [>3?] of enslaved men, while other slaves were arrested, tried, and a few [>3?] executed.”
[30] Aptheker fn. 27, p. 300, cites: U. B. Phillips, op. cit., p. 481; J. C. Ballagh, op. cit., p. 93; Drewry, op. cit., p. 36.
[31] Cites, in footnote 28, page 300, Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 6, 1831.
[32] Cites, in footnote 29, page 301: Richmond Whig, September 3, 1831; N.Y. Atlas, September 17, 1831; N.Y. Evening Post, September 5, 1831; The Liberator, October 22, 1831. Then notes: “See also Samuel Warner, Authentic and Impartial Narrative, p. 15.
[33] Baker footnote: “Ambler, Floyd, p. 155. See pp. 156-68 for excerpts from Gov. Floyd’s diary concerning the revolt. For the best modern account of the uprising, see Henry I. Tragle, “Slave Revolt,” American History Illustrated, Nov. 1971, p. 4 passim.
[34] Murfreesboro, NC, resident F. M. Capehart, in letter to his father.
[35] Murfreesboro, NC, postmaster. (p. 127)
[36] Cites, in footnote 8: Portsmouth and Norfolk Herald, 29 August 1831; F. M. Capehart to Benajah Nicholls, 23, 24, 25, 26 August 1831, Benajah Nicholls Papers. Drewry, 85.
[37] Cites, in footnote 9: Robert S. Parker to Rebecca Mannet, 29 August 1831, John Kimberly Papers.
[38] Cites, in footnote 10: Robert S. Parker to Rebecca Mannet, 29 August 1831, John Kimberly Papers.
[39] Breen, fn. 1, p. 143: “Eppes quoted by James McDowell, Jr., Richmond Constitutional Whig 26 March 1832.”
[40] Breen, fn 2, p. 143: “Drewry, 85, fn. 1; Robert E. Lee to Mary Fitzhugh Custis, September 1831, Lee Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society.”
[41] Cites: Richmond Constitutional Whig, 3 September 1831, in Tragle 69; Drewry, 48, and 85, fn 2.
[42] Cites: Norfolk American Beacon, 26 August 1831, in Tragle, 42; Richmond Constitutional Whig, 29 August 1831, in Tragle, 52; Richmond Constitutional Whig, 3 September 1831, in Tragle, 69.
[43] Cites: Richmond Enquirer, 30 August 1831, in Tragle, 45.
[44] Cites New Hampshire Post, 14 September 1831.
[45] Cites, in footnote 32, p. 159, Southampton County Tax Lists, 1824.1839.