Tomorrow Jerusalem
The Story of Nat Turner and the Southampton Slave Insurrection
by
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INTRODUCTION
In August of 1831, in the peaceful countryside southwest of the Nottoway River and the town of Jerusalem in Southampton County, Virginia, the forces of history powerfully converged -- and the future of humanity changed.
There, where it seemed least likely to happen, the slaves rose up.
The rising was brutal but brief.
So was the immediate reaction.
But the consequences were vast and enduring.
It was the beginning of the end of slavery in the United States.
Yet the Southampton Slave Insurrection -- one of the most influential events in American history -- remains obscure.
And its leader -- one of the most influential people in American history -- is a unique mystery.
May the obscurity and the mystery begin to end here and now.
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This is the story of Nat Turner.
But it is not his story alone.
This is also the story of the other people of Southampton, white and black, who shared his time and place -- most of them ordinary God-fearing, Jesus-loving sons and daughters of Virginia, and of Africa, hard-working folks living very modest lives, with limited horizons.
It so happened that their Southampton was a fertile seedbed for the continuing American Revolution -- a place unique, where the pressures and contradictions, combined with the presence of Nat Turner, made an eruption of the slaves inevitable.
Remarkably, nine other people who shared Nat's time and place would help to make the future different -- five of them in critical roles during the final years of the slavery crisis.
All of the people in this story once lived and breathed, laughed and cried, and knew the meanings of family and community.
Their story belongs to all of us.
May their tragedy enlighten us.
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About the Book
Tomorrow Jerusalem
This account combines an unprecedented synthesis of the existing historical literature with the results of substantial new research. Enhanced by appropriate fictionalized scenes, the work represents a significant advance in understanding what happened in Southampton in 1831, and the man who made it happen.
In 1990, Tomorrow Jerusalem was formally endorsed by the Southampton County Historical Society, for its historical integrity.
About the Author
A native of Virginia now living in Williamsburg, Bill Bryant is a former newspaper journalist who has devoted the past three decades to civic activism and writing, seeking to contribute to the progress of the continuing American Revolution. Because his father’s family is from Southampton, where the insurrection happened, Bryant has been interested since childhood in the story of Nat Turner and became a serious student of the story during the 1970s. He began work on Tomorrow Jerusalem in 1990.