Nat Turner's rebellion and its impact on American slavery

Local Historical Importance: Nat Turner's Rebellion

One of the most historically significant events in Virginia history began on August 21, 1831 in Southampton County, when a slave by the name of Nat Turner led a small group of slaves in the most successful slave revolt ever on United States' soil. As anyone familiar with American history knows, Nat Turner's Rebellion, as it came to be called, was ultimately unsuccessful. Despite plans to slaughter any whites that they encountered, thus preventing anyone from escaping and getting help to quash the rebellion, Turner and his followers committed a fatal mistake by permitting some people to live. The survivors did manage to seek help and the militia came in and killed all of the rebel slaves, and a significant portion of slaves in the area who had not participated in the rebellion. Nat Turner was captured and executed for his role in the rebellion. In fact, the entire episode resulted in freedom for no slaves and actually led to an increase in restrictions on slave behavior in Virginia and throughout the slaveholding states. Despite these caveats, one cannot look at Nat Turner's rebellion without recognizing it as a success. First, Turner's rebellion managed to kill more whites than any other slave rebellion in U.S. history, and the large-scale participation of slaves in the rebellion exploded the myth that slaves were content to live in bondage. The rebellion also signaled slave-owners and non-slave-owning whites that they faced the danger of additional uprisings, leading them to increase restrictions on slaves. These increased restrictions only fueled abolitionists who believed that the practice of slavery was barbaric and inhumane. The fact that Turner was believed to be gifted both intellectually and spiritually led to increased restrictions on education and on religious instruction towards slaves. Finally, while the system of slavery explains black fear of whites, it does little to explain the institutionalized white fear of blacks. However, the black violence against white slave-owners, which was not viewed as justifiable by whites, helped foster white fear of free or freedom-seeking blacks, which continues to play a part in Virginia's social, economic, and political life.

Nat Turner

Nat Turner was born in October 1800 in Southampton County. He was born to a slave who belonged to Benjamin Turner. Nat Turner was widely recognized as a bright and intelligent boy, and he learned to read and write at an early age. He was also extremely religious, a trait that would serve and inspire him throughout his life. Nat related this religiosity to an experience that he had at a young age. According to Nat, curing his childhood he was telling a story about events that occurred before he was born, as confirmed by his mother and other witnesses. This event made his mother and grandmother believe that Nat was destined for a great purpose, as did certain birthmarks on his body (Gray, 1831). From a young age, he devoted any of his free time to prayer and to scientific experiments. He also became involved with some of the more rebellious blacks in the neighborhood, going with them to plan criminal activities. His reputation as smart and deeply religious was well-established among whites and blacks, and Nat began to cultivate it, withdrawing from society and beginning to devote an increasing amount of time to fasting and prayer.

Nat ran away from his owner at 21, but, believing that he had received a vision from God instructing him to do so, he returned to his master's plantation (Silvester, 2009). Interestingly enough, Nat relates that he ran away from the overseer, rather than the master (Gray, 1831). This was not very surprising, given that Nat's father had successfully run away from his master. However, after 30 days in the woods, Nat returned to the plantation, believing it was his religious duty to submit to his master. When Samuel Turner, the son of Nat's first master who had inherited Nat upon his father' death, died, Nat was sold to Thomas More. On More's plantation, Nat began preaching to the other slaves. That was also where he began to receive visions regarding his role in the fight against slavery. Nat's rebellion was intimately related to his religiosity, and in 1828 he began interpreting having religious visions related to the end of slavery. Initially, this work was not violent. Nat related converting Etheldred T. Brantly, a vicious white man, away from his evil ways. He also went with a group of slaves to be baptized, despite white prohibitions against baptizing slaves in the church. However, he interpreted a solar eclipse on February 12, 1831 as a sign that he should begin actively working towards a rebellion. He believed that he was to begin "the work of death" (Gray, 1831). That is when he began to recruit others to help him with the rebellion.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Nat planned the revolt carefully, giving thought to how best effectuate the rebellion. His original plan was that no whites should be spared. In addition, the slaves armed themselves with tools such as knives and axes, rather than guns. First, they worried that gunfire would alert people and halt the rebellion. Second, the slaves were more likely to gain access to such tools than they were to firearms, so that it would be impossible to plan the rebellion counting on slaves with firearms.

Drawing on American religious history, the rebellion was initially planned for July 4th. However, Nat became ill, and they postponed the rebellion. On August 20th, Nat and his fellow rebels planned a dinner in the woods, at which they would finalize plans for the rebellion. Nat had been living with Joseph Travis, in a type of contract-labor arrangement, and, according to Nat Travis was a "kind master" (Gray, 1831). However, Nat determined that they would begin the rebellion by attacking the Travis home. At 2 a.m. On August 21, 1831, the rebellion began. They attacked the Travis family first, and then went from house to house, freeing slaves and killing the masters. The rebels rode on horseback, in order to accomplish the rebellion more quickly and also because they believed it would cause more terror to the inhabitants of the houses. During the course of the rebellion, the rebels, which consisted of a core force of between 40 and 70 blacks, both freeman and slaves, killed 60 men, women and children (Silvester, 2009). Despite the preparations to prevent discovery, white men were almost immediately in pursuit of the slaves. Five or six of the rebels were wounded, which prompted Nat to order an attack on the nearby town of Jerusalem, with the goal of securing ammunition and arms. However, the local militia came together to fight the rebels. The militia tracked the rebels down, killing or capturing most of them, though a few did manage to escape.

Virginia Militia's Response to the Rebellion

Though it was the most successful slave rebellion in the United States, Nat Turner's Rebellion was over within 48 hours. Militia and sailors from ships anchored in Norfolk, Virginia, came to Southampton County to help quash the revolt. They killed approximately 100 blacks in the next few days; many more than had participated in the rebellion. Nat was able to escape from the militia, successfully hiding in the swamps around the Travis farm. According to Nat, when the rebels dispersed when confronted by the militia:

I gave up all hope for the present; and on Thursday night, after having supplied myself with provisions from Mr. Travis, I scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails in a field, where I concealed myself for six weeks, never leaving my hiding-place but for a few minutes in the dead of the night to get water, which was very near. Thinking by this time I could venture out, I began to go about in the night, and eavesdrop the houses in the neighborhood - pursuing this course for about a fortnight, and gathering little or no intelligence, afraid of speaking to any human being, and returning every morning to my cave before the dawn of day. I know not how long I might have led this life, if accident had not betrayed me. A dog in the neighborhood passing by my hiding-place one night while I was out was attracted by some meat I had in my cave, and crawled in and stole it, and was coming out just as I returned. A few nights after, two Negroes having started to go hunting with the same dog, and passed that way, the dog came again to the place, and having just gone out to walk about, discovered me and barked; on which, thinking myself discovered, I spoke to them to beg concealment. On making myself known, they fled from me. Knowing then they would betray me, I immediately left my hiding-place, and was pursued almost incessantly, until I was taken, a fortnight afterwards, by Mr. Benjamin Phipps, in a little hole I had dug out with my sword, for the purpose of concealment, under the top of a fallen tree (Gray, 1831).

Turner was captured on October 30th, tried and found guilty six days later. Turner was hung on November 11th, and then his body was skinned, helping establish a tradition of mutilating blacks accused of wrongdoing, which would survive well into Jim Crow era of the 20th century.

Consequences

When one views the rebellion in light of what white Virginians knew had occurred in Haiti a generation prior to Nat Turner's rebellion, it seems that the only response Virginia's could have had was to respond with violence and terror against the free and slave black populations. While that did occur, what is interesting is that the rebellion actually provoked serious discussion about the rights and wrongs of slavery. In the Old South, the system of slavery was predicated upon a series of lies, and one of those lies was that blacks did not desire freedom and needed the paternalistic protection of whites in order to survive. While overseers and others involved in the daily brutalization of black slaves were almost certainly aware that slaves did not benefit from their bondage, it is conceivable that many whites who were not involved in the daily business of slave-driving actually believed the paternalistic nonsense. After all, because slaves were not given the same access to resources and education as whites and were forced to live in subhuman conditions, they almost certainly appeared more brutish and less intelligent than their white counterparts.

What Nat Turner's rebellion made clear is that slaves were not content to live in bondage. Nat was not an isolated slave who murdered a brutal master, as had occurred many times before. Instead, he worked with a number of people, started by killing a master that he acknowledged was a kind man, and the rebellion revealed a degree of hatred for whites, including children, that the white population was probably surprised to discover in the slave population. After all, whites routinely left their children in the care of black slaves, whom they expected to love and care for their children without resentment or danger. So, one unexpected result of the rebellion was that the Virginia legislature actually debated abolishing slavery. However, they did not abolish slavery, and the immediate response by the Virginian people was violent and bloody. In the immediate aftermath of the rebellion, whites killed and injured hundreds of blacks, far more than had actually been involved in the rebellion. Moreover, while there is not documentation supporting this, one can surmise that whites became more brutal to blacks, both slave and non-slave. There would have been no reason to document this brutality, as whites continued to see themselves as benign and paternalistic, and believed that they were merely responding to a threat posed by blacks.

The legal response, however, is documented, and makes it clear that Virginians increased the brutality of slavery. In the aftermath of the rebellion, the General Assembly of Virginia prohibited the teaching of slaves to read or write, for any reason. Blacks, whether slave or free, were subject to 20 lashes if they were caught learning how to read. Whites who taught free blacks to read or write could be fined up to $50 and imprisoned for up to two months (Lewis, 2009). In addition, the General Assembly prohibited blacks from meeting for religious purposes. These measures were repeated in slaveholding states throughout the south, contributing to the brutality of slavery.

Conclusion

While the reasons for the Civil War were mainly political and not humanitarian, many prominent Northerners were concerned about the brutal realities of slavery. These realities became harder to minimize and ignore when rebellions like Nat Turner's made it clear that slaves, en masse, were not content to live in bondage. Moreover, the Southern response to the rebellion, which was to increase restrictions on slaves, preventing them from gathering for worship or obtaining even a basic education, certainly dramatized the dehumanization that is inherent in slavery. While the whites in power may have been content to broker an end to the Civil War that did not involve the freeing of slaves, when faced with the level of the atrocities committed against these slaves, they could not do so. Therefore, while Nat Turner's rebellion may have been unsuccessful as a revolt, it was one of the many puzzle pieces necessary to end the practice of slavery.