The book, “The Fires of Jubilee” is an outstanding take on slavery in Virginia, told mostly through slave, Nat Turners point-of-view on how the events of his fierce revolution had occurred. The Author, Stephen B. Oates, is a history professor who went out to do research on Nat Turner and used documents and witness accounts to put together the book with the most liable accounts of Nat’s rebellion. Today I’ll be discussing my confusion of the book, how the events were horrific, what I think of what they did, and how Nat’s rebellion actually caused more harm than good. The Fires of Jubilee is a confusing book to begin with. I was unsure how the book was being told and believed the story was being told as if from Nat Turners perspective. After
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At several points the book would render me speechless from how detailed Stephen B. Oates had gone to describe every situation. Although I did find the book confusing at points, too gory at certain scenes, and I didn’t really agree with Nat’s choices, I did really enjoy the book and would recommend it to any one fascinated about history or just in search of a great story. Nat might have gone about things differently than I would have but I understand his intense need for freedom. He was a Christian man only looking to do what the bible had told him was right. Religion truly mattered to him and if the whites had practiced what they preached, like love thy neighbor and own no man, then the New World would have been a more of the “Land of the Free” as they had speculated it to be. No man should have to kill or fight for his freedom, every man should be born free of constraints and equal to each other. This is what our country was founded upon and this is what many neglected to see, even to this day, and probably for the rest of our lives. As Frederick Douglass had stated, “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
At several points the book would render me speechless from how detailed Stephen B. Oates had gone to describe every situation. Although I did find the book confusing at points, too gory at certain scenes, and I didn’t really agree with Nat’s choices, I did really enjoy the book and would recommend it to any one fascinated about history or just in search of a great story. Nat might have gone about things differently than I would have but I understand his intense need for freedom. He was a Christian man only looking to do what the bible had told him was right. Religion truly mattered to him and if the whites had practiced what they preached, like love thy neighbor and own no man, then the New World would have been a more of the “Land of the Free” as they had speculated it to be. No man should have to kill or fight for his freedom, every man should be born free of constraints and equal to each other. This is what our country was founded upon and this is what many neglected to see, even to this day, and probably for the rest of our lives. As Frederick Douglass had stated, “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many