In August 1831, a group of enslaved people in Southampton County, Virginia, rose up to fight for their freedom. They attacked their enslavers in their homes and attempted to march on the county seat, from which they planned to launch an uprising across the South. After the rebellion was suppressed, well over a hundred people, Black and white, lay dead or were hanged. As news of the violence spread, it became apparent that the revolt was the idea of a single man: Nat Turner. An enslaved preacher, he was as enigmatic as he was brilliant. He was also something more—a prophet, one who claimed to have received visions from the Holy Spirit urging him to act.

Nat Turner, Black Prophet is the fullest recounting to date of Nat’s uprising, and the first that refuses to tame or ignore his divine visions. It reveals how the direct revelations from God that Nat described were central to his authority as a leader, and sets his prophecies in the context of nineteenth-century Methodism, with its revivals, camp meetings, interracial churches, and Black preachers. The rebellion and its aftermath marked a significant turning point, with Southern states further restricting the personal freedoms of the enslaved as the ongoing threat of revolt shaped the country’s politics. With this work of narrative history, the late historian Anthony E. Kaye and his collaborator Gregory P. Downs have given us a new understanding of one of the nineteenth century’s most decisive events.