rstand what could have caused such a horrific act was never fully understood. Southamptonjust wanted to forget about the most violent slave revolt in United States history that sent ashiver down every slave holders spine in the south. With the little documented history in the libraries in Southampton, I feel Oates portrayedwhat happened decently to some extent. Considering what had to work with, he tried to makethe book as unbiased as he could One problem I do have with the book is Oates using Nat’sconfession, under the conditions Nat must have been in at that time I feel he was most likelypursued into saying things that the public wanted to hear. For that reason, it is very hard to makea judgment on how to portray Nat Turner himself. Since he did only kill one person during hisrebellion, I feel that Nat wanted his freedom but didn’t want to partake in the actual revolution.Oates portrayed Nat very well by not making him into a hero. Nat was a slave that drew up aplan to wipe out every white person that they came across including women and children. Oateswas very graphic with the details of what the slaves did to the white families to let the readerunderstand how brutal these slaves were with the whites. He made sure the reader understoodthat these slaves were not out just to take revenge on their masters but to take revenge on thewhole white race.Stephen B. Oates wanted to give recognition to a revolutionary that had been removedfrom mainstream history criteria. With only scattered documents, and controversial confession,Oates attempted to give a fair interpretation of what happened in Southampton county in 1873. Though doing this might have not been what the people in Southampton wanted, but Oates knewit was necessary and it revitalized a time in history that had not been fully researched....
