THE CAUSES AND PREREQUISITES OF THE NAT TURNER UPRISING IN AMERICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Abstract

In this work the author analyzes the causes and prerequisites of the Southampton slave uprising of 1831 based on the materials of journalistic articles and reports of the XIX century and academic works of the XX-XXI centuries. At the same time, the main emphasis is on considering the dynamics of changes in the interpretation and perception of this event in American historiography. Such an unusual choice of subject is dictated by the fact that it is this question, according to the author, that is decisive in the study of this phenomenon, because it leads to the essential characteristics of the phenomenon under consideration. The author identifies two sets of causes and prerequisites – objective and subjective, describing each of them in detail. In addition, he identifies three key stages in the history of the study of the Nat Turner uprising: 1831-1900 – the first attempts at analysis in the form of journalistic reports, 1900-1971 – the formation of a binary academic perception associated with the release of works by W. Drewry and H. Apteker, 1971-our time – attempts to synthesize two approaches. It is noteworthy that the latter did not lead to the creation of a new concept. As the main method, materialistic dialectics is used, which allows us to consider this phenomenon in dynamics and in accordance with the principle of historicism, as a specific historical method, retrospective analysis is used, which is best suited for establishing and characterizing cause-and-effect relationships.