HISTORIC RELIC OF NAT TURNER'S REBELLION

Relic of the "Southampton Insurrection" (Nat Turner Rebellion). Fragment of floorboard from the Whitehead Plantation, Southampton County (near present-day Courtland), Virginia, August 1831. Wood fragment, 3¼ × 16 in., one long edge with darkened discoloration.

This floorboard fragment was preserved from the Whitehead Plantation, one of the first sites attacked by Nat Turner and his insurgents on 22 August 1831. The edge of the piece bears an old dark stain, described as a blood mark from the killings in the house, where period accounts attest that such stains remained visible years after the revolt. A paper label affixed to one side reads: “Relic of the Nat Turner Insurrection, blood stained fragment of the floor of the Whitehead Plantation (near present Courtland) Southampton Co., Va. Collected ca. 1970 by P.B. Ennis of Toronto, Canada.” A second tag, in manuscript, notes: “Given to Gregory A. Coco May 4, 1989 by P.B. Ennis for my collection, Bendersville, Pa."

The Whitehead household was among the most notorious episodes of the uprising. Richard Whitehead, a Methodist minister, was killed in a cotton patch before Turner and his men entered the home. Catherine Whitehead, the matriarch, was struck down on the porch, and her daughter Margaret, aged about eighteen, was pursued and killed by Turner himself. In all, seven members of the family perished at the plantation. The uprising, which lasted two days, resulted in the deaths of some fifty-five to sixty white inhabitants of Southampton County. In its aftermath, Turner was captured and executed, and retaliatory killings claimed the lives of dozens of Black men and women, often through extreme acts of brutality meant to terrify the enslaved population into submission.

Very few tangible objects survive that can be associated with the Southampton Insurrection. The National Museum of African American History and Culture preserves a brick from the Whitehead house, but we trace no other examples. 

Provenance: Gregory Coco (1946–2009) served for decades as a National Park Service Ranger and Licensed Battlefield Guide. A prolific historian, he authored sixteen books and numerous articles on the Civil War, including A Strange and Blighted Land and A Vast Sea of Misery, both regarded as enduring classics of Gettysburg scholarship.

[Relics, Militaria] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Pamphlets, Publications, Ephemera, Books, Rare Books, Tracts]