(NOTE: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 stars means a very good book or a B+. 4 stars means an outstanding book or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit 4 stars}. 5 stars means an all time favorite or an A+ {Only one of 400 or 500 books rates this!).Yet another take on Nat Turner. Foster's novel speculates deeply into Nat Turner's childhood and early years. She writes from a more sympathetic and Christian viewpoint. She totally rejects the alleged confess (NOTE: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 stars means a very good book or a B+. 4 stars means an outstanding book or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit 4 stars}. 5 stars means an all time favorite or an A+ {Only one of 400 or 500 books rates this!).Yet another take on Nat Turner. Foster's novel speculates deeply into Nat Turner's childhood and early years. She writes from a more sympathetic and Christian viewpoint. She totally rejects the alleged confession by Nat Turner. She explains: I wanted to explore how different groups, still polarized today, see Turner as folk hero or cowardly fiend. … (439) On January 23, 2008, I made my way to Courtland/Jerusalem and touched my hands to the Minute Book that holds the records of Nat Turner’s trial … My eyes, adjusting to the script, scanned the page and rested on the following words: … ‘The prisoner Nat alias Nat Turner was set to the bar in custody of the Jailor of the County, and William C. Parker is by the Court assigned Counsel for the prisoner in his defense … pleaded not guilty …’ William Parker? There is no mention of Thomas Gray in the official record of Nat Turner’s trial. Instead, William Parker was Nat Turner’s attorney. Nat Turner pled innocent and offered no confession. ... The truth has been buried for 180 years. I doubt that we will ever know the whole truth, but I know his much is true: some of what we accept as history is no more than fiction. It was a long journey, but it was worth it to bring to light even a bit of truth. I felt that I (440) owed what I was able to decipher - both good and bad - to the descendants of those who died, to those who have previously read the story, too Nat Turner, to his mother. I am not the first to put forward issues with the veracity of Thomas Gray’s Confessions. Historian Henry Irving Tragle - author of The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831, the most in-depth review of documents related to Nat Turner - whose work I learned of after my first visit to Southampton Country, writes: ‘The fascinating thing about the ‘Original Confessions’ is that, while those who wrote about the revolt, or about Nat Turner, used the pamphlet as a primary source, all, without exception seem to have done so without applying to it the normal tests which any historian might be expected to apply to a purported contemporary source. How did it square with other information from recognized sources? Was it consistent with the official records which were available? The book grew out of what I found in the official trial records - of Nat Turner, of slaves and freemen - associated with Nat Turner’s uprising. It is based on the surviving lore provided by people such as Bruce Turner, Rick Francis, and James McGee. I am indebted to them. The Resurrection of Nat Turner is based on nonfictional accounts, as well as fictional accounts provided by such people as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass. It is based on stories my college professor of Southern African literature and African American history, Dr. Eric Adams Welch, told me when I was a second-semesterfreshman at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. (441) … I reread the sworn statement of the Clerk of the County Court of Southampton in the State of Virginia affixed to Gray’s document. James Rochelle was known for being an honest mind. How could Thomas Gary’s account be a lie if an honest man swore that it was true? How could it be a lie if Rochelle swore that Gray read the confession in front of the court? This morning I reread and realized that Rochelle’s carefully worded statement neither verifies the confession nor indicates that it was read in court. Instead, Rochelle names six of the ten judges who sat for Nat Turner’s trial and says they were: ‘… members of the Court which convened at Jerusalem, on Saturday the 5th day of November, 1831, for the trial of Nat alias Nat Turner, a negro slave, late the property of Putnam Moore, deceased, who was tried and convicted, as an insurgent in the late insurrection in the county of Southampton aforesaid, and that full faith and credit are due, and ought to be given to their acts as Justices of the peace aforesaid. (Seal) In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Court aforesaid, to be affixed this 5th day of November, 1831. James Rochelle C.S.C.C. Not a word about Gray of the confession. We see what we expect to see. … Sharon Ewell Foster April 7, 2011
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