William H. Brodnax was a member of the House of Delegates (1818–1819, 1830–1833) and of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829. A native of Brunswick County, he studied and then practiced law in Petersburg and lived on a 1,600-acre plantation in Dinwiddie County. During the constitutional convention, he supported policies that extended white male suffrage while retaining most political advantages enjoyed by eastern Virginians over their western counterparts. As a brigadier general of the state militia, he led the welcoming escort of the marquis de Lafayette in 1824 and, in 1831, commanded the forces that put down Nat Turner’s Rebellion. During the debate on slavery in the ensuing session of the General Assembly, he chaired a select committee and proposed a plan to colonize the state’s free and enslaved African Americans. A member of the Whig Party and a supporter of states’ rights, he died of cholera in 1834.
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