Robert James Turnbull
American lawyer, planter, writer and politician
Robert James Turnbull (January 1775 - June 15, 1833) was an American lawyer, planter, writer and politician from South Carolina who also published under the name Brutus. His essays in the Charleston Mercury advocating nullification were published as a pamphlet under the title The Crisis: Or, Essays on the Usurpations of the Federal Government, which has been described as "the handbook for nullification and resistance."
Background
Turnbull's father was Andrew Turnbull, a British physician who married a Greek wife (a native of Smyrna, where he had worked for British interests). Dr. Turnbull was given a grant by the British Crown in 1772 to establish a colony in Florida, which was settled by about 15,000 Greeks and other immigrants from the Mediterranean, with the largest number coming from the island of Menorca. The colony was not a large success, and Dr. Turnbull lost his grants. The Turnbull family settled in Charleston, South Carolina, when the British Army occupied the city during the American Revolution. Robert James Turnbull, who was born in New Smyrna, Florida in January 1775, was still an infant when his family moved to Charleston. After the war ended, Dr. Turnbull, Robert's father, refused to take up American citizenship.
“Robert James Turnbull” enters the record as american lawyer, planter, writer and politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, James and Turnbull can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7346055. VIAF identifies the subject as 44683756. The Library of Congress control number is n83165737. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1775, 1833 and 1772.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert James Turnbull” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.