Something must have been very special about Southampton County, Virginia, as during the first quarter of the 19th century, four men of African descent, born just a few years and a few miles apart, took different paths to find freedom from the oppressive conditions of slavery. Nat Turner, Anthony Gardiner, Dred Scott, and John “Fed” Brown challenged existing norms and, in doing so, stirred the nation’s slavery debate on the way to its abolition. Southampton County was established in 1749. An agrarian community, its primary rivers, the Blackwater and Nottaway, flow into Albemarle Sound, not Chesapeake Bay. This circumstance limited commerce. Consequently, Southampton had few towns, just a couple of major plantations, and, mostly, small farms. The 1830 census showed the main county products were cotton, corn, brandy, and chattel people. The rapid rise of cotton cultivation in the Deep South prompted the growth of the interstate slave trade, making …