Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at a slave uprising as documented in Stephen Oat's book Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. It analyzes the main character of the book, Nat Turner and how his seemingly small scale revolution set the wheels in motion for the eventual abolishment of slavery.

From the paper:

"Stephen Oates, in his book Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion, crafts a compelling story. The story of this slave rebellion is indeed so compelling a one that it would be hard to imagine a telling of it that was not fascinating. But in the end Oates, despite his credentials, does a disservice both to Turner and to the larger forces at work in the decades before the Civil War. In order to assess Oates's treatment of Turner, it would be useful to examine what is generally known and agreed to about Turner. He was born on a plantation in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1800 and was from a very early age a popular religious leader among his fellow slaves. In part due no doubt to whatever had motivated him to become interested in preaching and in part because he was so popular with other slaves who came to listen to him talk about God, Turner became convinced that he had been chosen by God to lead his people to freedom."

More papers on Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion:

• Analytical Essay # 9080 : "The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion," by Stephen B. Oates"
• Analytical Essay # 16878 : "Nat Turner's Rebellion"
• Book Review # 118020 : "Fires of the Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion"

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