This evening marks the 182 anniversary of the beginning of the Nat Turner rebellion. I thought that you might like to see some of the scenes where the rebellion took place. There are some terrific nineteenth century photographs of Southampton in the Library of the University of Virginia. Those are some really amazing photographs — they convey a real sense of what the landscape looked like (though they're all, so far as I can tell post-war photographs).
Of particular interest to me are the images of Belmont, where the rebellion unraveled; the home of James W. Parker, one of the judges in the trials afterward, and Thomas Ridley's residence, where the rebels spent the evening after the first day. Ridley owned around 70 human beings, so there is some speculation that the rebels went there because they knew people and because they were trying to recruit some of them.
My paper on "The Nat Turner Trials," which talks some about the rebellion and its violent aftermath — but mostly about the trials of the accused rebels — is here.
The image is of the Southampton County Courthouse. This was built shortly after the rebellion, so it is not the place where the rebels were tried. That courthouse no longer exists.
"I would rather die on my feet, than to live on my knees"!