Hidden History
A tour of Virginia's major slave rebellion sites serves as a vivid reminder of a prejudiced past.

By Robert Burke
They say Nat Turner was a well-treated slave, as if that would make any difference. In the middle of an August night in Southampton County in 1831, Turner took a hatchet and tried to split open his master’s skull.

He missed, the blade glancing off Joseph Travis’ head. But another slave, Will, was there with an ax, and he finished off both Travis and his sleeping wife, Sally. The two men then swept into the night, joining a small band of rebellious slaves on a mission to kill every white person in their path.

They terrorized the county for nearly two days. Fifty-five men, women and children were shot or stabbed or hacked to death by Turner’s army, which grew from barely half a dozen to more than 40 men. At one stop they killed 10 children. At another, a young Methodist minister was killed, soon followed by his mother, his four sisters and an infant.

Eventually the alarm went out and whites assembled a local militia. Some insurgents were killed, others captured. Turner, the purported leader, hid in the woods for two months. He was caught, tried and hanged in a tree just a few hundred yards from the county courthouse in the tiny crossroads of Jerusalem, known today as Courtland.

Turner’s Rebellion — or the South-ampton Insurrection, as it is also known — was a pivotal event in American history. It stunned the nation, scared the hell out of whites and changed the way many people viewed slavery. It was one of three major revolts against slavery that occurred in Virginia in the 1800s, sandwiched between an 1800 rebellion in Henrico County led by a slave named Gabriel and John Brown’s 1859 raid in Harper’s Ferry, W.Va., then part of Virginia.

But unlike the myriad Civil War statues and battlefields across Virginia, there is little in Southampton to explain the events of the insurrection or the role it played in the country’s slave history. In a way, though, that makes a trip to Southampton’s sandy farmland more rewarding. Discovering the trail of the rebels is like experiencing history in the raw. Despite neglect and the effects of time, a handful of houses the rebels attacked still remain and can be seen on a driving tour.

Background reading includes historian Stephen B. Oates’ "The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion," or Tidewater native William Styron’s "The Confessions of Nat Turner," a semi-fictional account of the rebellion. Libraries should also have Henry Irving Tragle’s book "The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1832: A Compilation of Source Material." The original source for many is "The Confessions of Nat Turner" — a confession supposedly given by Turner to Southampton lawyer Thomas Gray just months after the events, while Turner was jailed.

It helps, too, to get directions from someone like Peggy Johnson, a lifelong county resident who has grown up with the stories of Nat Turner. Johnson and her husband, Earl, own land holding two of the dozen or so houses.

About a half-mile behind Johnson’s house on White Meadow Road is the Catherine Whitehead house, where the Methodist minister was killed. Others lived there after the killings, but today it is an empty shell of weathered wood and plaster wrapped in vines and brush. The bodies of the victims were supposedly buried in a mass grave in the garden, Johnson says, but the grave isn’t marked and the garden’s location is lost. Johnson says she’s heard the headstones were tossed down an empty well years ago, but nobody knows where the well is, either.

The floors of the house have caved in, and one chimney has collapsed. It is a haunting site. "Our insurance people advised us to burn it, but we’d hate to," Johnson says. Students from Norfolk State University come out nearly every year to see it, she says.

The path of the insurgents turned north after leaving the Whitehead house. Up Route 712, known as Porter House Road, is the Porter house, also owned by the Johnsons. It is just a few feet off the road, gray and empty but in remarkably good shape. Richard Porter and his family weren’t killed; their slaves warned them of the impending attack. Porter died in 1855; his grave is hidden among a clump of trees across the road.

The house of Richard Porter, who escaped with his family after slaves gave warning of the coming attack.

From the Porter house the rebels continued north. A mile away they reached the house of Peter Edwards, a wealthy planter. Edwards’ family had been warned, too, and escaped. Today the house is privately owned and in some disrepair but still sturdy. It sits a few hundred yards off Route 724, known as Peter Edwards Road.

One of the houses from the insurrection, the Simon Blunt house near Capron, has been restored and is in private hands, says Katherine Futrell, a retired librarian and local expert on the Turner Rebellion. In Courtland, the county seat, finding sites linked to the rebellion is difficult. Futrell points out the site where the hanging tree was — about 15 feet off the south side of Bride Road, just a few hundred yards from the county courthouse. Turner and 20 other insurgents died there; today it is just a low spot in the side yard of a private home. After execution, insurgents whose bodies weren’t claimed by relatives were buried across the road from the hanging tree in what was then the county’s potter’s field. Today, the field is still empty except for a few old trees, but there’s no trace of any graves. A road was cut through years ago, and a railroad track borders one side.

Futrell is wary when talking about the county’s treatment of the rebellion. The historical society owns Nat Turner’s sword. Until last year, it was on display at the courthouse in a glass case near Confederate officers’ swords. Out of concern the sword could be stolen, Futrell says, it was stored away in a vault and will stay out of sight "until we can properly display it to the satisfaction of everyone."

Virginia’s first slave rebellion of the 1800s is a bit easier to retrace than the Turner Rebellion. On Aug. 30, 1800, Gabriel, a 24-year-old slave and blacksmith in Henrico County, was set to lead a band of slaves in an attack on the city of Richmond with the hope of capturing the city’s arsenal and Gov. James Monroe. Three weeks before the planned attack, the rebel slaves from the city of Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Caroline counties gathered at Young’s Springs in Henrico and elected Gabriel their general. Today, the spring is the best place to start an exploration of the insurrection, known as Gabriel’s Rebellion. Visitors can see the spring, which is part of Spring Park Historic Site, just across the city limits off Lakeside Avenue. The park includes an interpretive marker describing the events of the rebellion. The county’s Parks and Recreation Department also offers a brochure with the same information.

The rebel slaves numbered in the hundreds by some historical accounts. They were inspired by Gabriel, a physically imposing man about 6 feet 3 inches tall, and by a slave revolt in 1791 in Haiti. They were also inspired by talk among free white men of liberty and the American Revolution.

As it turned out the rebels never got their chance. On the night Gabriel planned to launch the attack, a violent thunderstorm drenched the countryside and washed out roads and bridges. That same day on the nearby Meadow Farm Plantation, two slaves, Tom and Pharaoh, revealed the plot to their owner, Mosby Sheppard. He sent warning to his neighbors and to Monroe, who dispatched the state militia and stopped the rebels. Gabriel escaped down the Chickahominy River to Norfolk, but he was eventually caught and convicted. He and more than 20 other rebels were executed.

Though there isn’t much left to see, the county’s brochure gives a sense of the scale of the planned attack. The rebels planned to set fire to the Rocketts, a warehouse district near Dock and Pear streets in Richmond, and then secure the Mayo Bridge across the James River. Though Brookfield Plantation no longer exists, visitors can go to Meadow Farm Plantation on nearby Mountain Road. The brochure also marks the site of the city gallows at Broad and 15th streets, where Gabriel was hanged.

The best-known and best-preserved site of a rebellion against slavery is in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. It was here on the night of Oct. 16, 1859, that abolitionist John Brown and his "Provisional Army of the United States" attacked the federal armory and arsenal in this small town. Brown wanted the weapons so he could arm slaves and spark an uprising against slavery. Brown’s band of men, 16 whites and five blacks, had been preparing for the attack at the Kennedy Farm five miles away in Maryland. They met little resistance at the arsenal and easily captured its cache of 20,000 weapons.

Two days after their assault, though, a dozen Marines broke through the door of the armory’s fire engine house. Ten men were killed, including Brown’s sons Watson and Oliver. Brown and six others were captured. Five others escaped. Brown’s men killed five people. Brown was tried in nearby Charlestown for murder, treason against the commonwealth of Virginia and inciting slave insurrection. He was convicted on all counts and hanged there on Dec. 2, 1859.

The National Park Service operates the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park and owns many of the sites related to Brown’s raid. Visitors can see the reconstructed engine house building, now known as "John Brown’s Fort," and view accounts of Brown’s raid at the John Brown Museum. Rangers lead group tours daily.

Coming in May is the 200th anniversary of John Brown’s birth, and the park service is marking the event with an exhibit on slavery, titled "Before Freedom Came," and the opening of renovated portions of the museum.

There are plans to bring the American slavery experience even more to the forefront. Since 1993, former Gov. Doug Wilder has been working on plans to build a national slave museum near the site in Jamestown where the first African slaves arrived in 1619.

Wilder says most details of the design and content of the museum haven’t been decided yet. He’s been working to secure land off the Colonial Parkway next to the James River. He hopes to soon sign a lease with the owners and hold a groundbreaking there, though the museum wouldn’t open for several years. While Virginia "has a story to tell" about its slave history, the museum would have a broader focus. "We’re talking about the institution of slavery, how it started, when it started," he says. "This is a national slavery museum. It’s a matter of education and a matter of telling a part of an American story that hasn’t been told."