Showing results for "turner" in Historical

In 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed 55 whites, mostly women and children. After more than two months in hiding, Turner was captured, and quickly convicted and executed. In the Matter of Nat Turner penetrates the historical caricature of Turner as befuddled mystic and self-styled Baptist preacher to recover the haunting persona of this legendary American slave rebel.

Nat Turner, enslaved preacher and prophet, marshaled dozens of his followers for a violent revolt that left fifty-five white people dead in Southampton County, Virginia. As the myth of the contented slave dissolved, the South panicked. Captured, tried, and convicted, Turner dictated his confessions to a local lawyer. Though some questions endure around the reliability of the narrative, as well as the place that such a complex figure should occupy in our historical consciousness, what is inarguable is that this 1831 rebellion marked an inflection point in America’s racial conflict.

Years of painstaking research have uncovered more detail on Thomas Ward Custer, the younger brother of the legendary General George Custer. Historians are now coming to understand the full influence of Tom Custer on his brother and American life, from his heroic exploits during the Civil War to his legendary bravery during the Indian Wars, where he served under his brother as his aide-de-camp. Had Tom not been overshadowed by his more famous brother, he might well have become one of the more notable characters and military officers of the American West.

Frederick Jackson Turner, American historian during the early twentieth century, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 1910, and then at Harvard University. He was known primarily for his frontier thesis. He trained many PhDs who went on to become well-known historians. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with an emphasis on the Midwestern United States.

James Edward Oglethorpe turned his back on Oxford University, his family's Jacobite schemes, and a career as courtier to a prince to settle as an English country squire. But history was not to let him stay unnoticed. As a member of Parliament in the eighteenth century, Oglethorpe fought for debtors? rights and prison reform, and when he gained them, volunteered to found a new colony in America. Under his direction, settlements were established, strong bonds were formed with the Creek Indians, and the colony of Georgia flourished.

In American history, there are few people as controversial or consequential as Nat Turner, who was one of millions of slaves in the South before the Civil War but ultimately led the nation's most notorious slave uprising. In August 1831, Turner led a rebellion that terrorized Virginia for several days, killing dozens of Whites and freeing slaves as his band moved from plantation to plantation.