The Campaign of Nat Turner: The Complete Text of the Confessions of the Leader of the Most Successful Slave Revolt the [sic] United States History Book

While reading this short pamphlet what occurred to me frequently was the question of its authenticity. Not that I wondered whether Nat Turner led a slave uprising in Virgina that resulted in several whites being slaughtered and many slaves, both those involved and those not involved in the uprising itself, being killed in retaliation by gangs of frightened slaveholders. But, rather, whether these "confessions" of Nat Turner, supposedly written down accurately by a white lawyer while Turner was in prison awaiting execution, are really Turner's words or not. Since this pamphlet contains the only information we'll likely ever have about Turner (primary evidence, that is), an answer to this question is unlikely. I just find it interesting that Turner supposedly suffered from "religious mania" and attributes his uprising to this source: he heard the voice of God or an angel tell him to do this (he was insane, in other words). Isn't it more likely that the inhumanity of the system caused a slave uprising (which is perfectly understandable) and that the white establishment, afraid of encouraging a similarly successful repetition (not to mention fueling the fires of Northern abolitionists by showing that slaves were actually NOT happy and singing people loving their masters) then manufactured some cock and bull story of one insane slave who led a revolt? Part of my ambivalent acceptance of this theory derives, in part, from the text of the "confessions," during which it appears that Turner "led" very little in terms of actual killing or action: during many (perhaps most of the killings) in the text, Turner was absent or not involved. I don't know. A historical curiosity, perhaps, but little of substantive value here.