Nat Turner Insurrection Trials: A Mystic Chord Resonates Today Book

The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials is the first book to contain a detailed study by a legal scholar of the insurrection and its aftermath, including the 50 trials of slaves and free blacks charged with insurrection. Of the 45 slaves tried, 15 were acquitted, an acquittal rate in excess of 30%. Of the 30 convicted slaves, nearly half were granted mercy. It also contains one of the most detailed factual descriptions of the insurrection itself. The Nat Turner insurrection marked the crest of a wave of insurrections in Virginia between 1800 and 1831. Following the Nat Turner insurrection trials there were no further slave insurrections in Virginia until John Brown's raid in 1859.