As part of working on the Nat Turner rebellion and the trials afterward I wondered a lot about how to interpret Turner. There was a lot of discussion in the white community about the role of abolitionist literature in spurring the rebellion. Virginia's governor collected several recent pamphlets as evidence of the ideas that were being discussed in the north -- the pamphlets included David Walker's Appeal, William Garrison’s An Address Delivered Before the Free People of Color in Philadelphia, New York, and other Cities (1831), and the Minutes and Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the People of Colour (1831). Turner may not have read much beyond the Bible, and perhaps never read David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens, but he inhabited a world of ideas and possibilities that set loose ideas about freedom. This is a key question of the history of the book project -- to try to trace out whether ideas are propagated by print or by other means.
That invites a further question about how to interpret Turner's motivations. One of my favorite letters that emerged from the rebellion was written by Rachel Lazarus to her relatives in Raleigh. She asked whether the impetus was the desire for freedom or blood lust: “I know not whether to ascribe [Turner’s rebellion] to the evil inherent in man, or the powerful influence [of] that noble principle the love of freedom." Historians have been asking the same question ever since.
I have used a photograph of Rebecca Vaughan's house in Southampton, which is the last home where rebels killed anyone. I took this last spring when I was passing through Courtland. They've done a great job of restoring the house since I first visited Southampton back in 2009.