Episode Details

1867
Historical Foundations of the Enslaved Peoples' Rebellions
Alan Taylor, author of Tower Hill: A Plantation on the Edge of Rebellion: Taylor examines the Blow family plantation in Virginia during the nineteenth century. He highlights Simon, an enslaved cooper whose specialized skills provided him rare leverage and defiance against his enslavers. Taylor places this daily resistance within the broader context of earlier uprisings led by Gabriel and Samson, which paved the way for Nat Turner's famous 1831 slave rebellion. Celestial events inspired Turner's timing, though miscalculations altered the planned scope. Taylor also notes how subsequent generations heavily edited historical correspondence to obscure those brutal realities. (6)