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| A drawing of Turner which appeared in Slave Insurrections in Virginia |
Nat, a slave commonly known as Nat Turner,
according to his own testimony was born October 2, 1800 on the plantation of
Benjamin Turner in Southampton County, Virginia. He was taught reading and
writing from the Bible, embraced the Christian religion, and became a preacher.
With only these characteristics to recommend him, he might have been lost to
history, but in August of 1831 he became the leader of a bloody slave rebellion
in Virginia. Because of this his name has passed down in the annals of time.
From the time he was a young child, his family and
other slaves considered him to be a prophet (or at least destined to be
prophet). Turner was very religious and spent much of his free time reading the
Bible, fasting, and praying. Probably sometime between 1825 and 1830 he became
a preacher and preached to other slaves. His ability as a preacher and his
personal charisma allowed him to attract a good number of followers. Turner was
sold several times and no longer part of the Turner plantation by the time of
his rebellion. By that time he worked for Joseph Travis (actually belonging to
Travis’s stepson, Putnam Moore). According to Gray’s report, Nat said, “Since
the commencement of 1830, I had begun living with Mr. Joseph Travis, who was to
me a kind master, and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no
cause to complain of his treatment to me.” (Confessions,
p. 11)
According to most accounts, Nat Turner was a
Baptist preacher (though there is at least one statement by Turner that calls
that into question). Drewry wrote, “He was a careful student of the Bible, a
Baptist preacher, read the newspapers and every book within his reach, and
listened attentively to the discussions of political and social questions by
the best and most enlightened men of the country.” (p. 113; cf. also p. 26)
Turner believed in signs and visions – which would not necessarily be unusual
for a Baptist preacher in the 1830s[ii]
– and it was through these that he eventually interpreted his mission of
insurrection. In 1825 he had a vision of a conflict between black and white
spirits, where “the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams.”[iii]
In his confession, Turner explained another message from God: “the Spirit
instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid
down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on
and fight against the Serpent.” Later he would view an eclipse of the Sun in
February 1831 as a sign to plan the insurrection. It would ultimately be scheduled
for August 21, 1831.
A writer in The
Atlantic Monthly stressed, “He never was a Baptist preacher, though such
vocation has often been attributed to him. The impression arose from his having
immersed himself, during one of his periods of special enthusiasm, together
with a poor white man named Brantley.”[iv]
This refers to Turner’s statement recorded on page 11 of his Confessions: “About this time I told
these things to a white man, (Etheldred T. Brantley) on whom it had a wonderful
effect—and he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a
cutaneous eruption, and the blood ozed (sic) from the pores of his skin, and after
praying and fasting nine days, he was healed, and the Spirit appeared to me again,
and said, as the Saviour had been baptised, so should we be also—and when the
white people would not let us be baptized by the church, we went down into the
water together, in the sight of many who reviled us, and were baptised by the
Spirit—After this I rejoiced greatly and gave thanks to God.” The Atlantic Monthly writer assumes this
account gives rise to the idea that Turner was a Baptist. But a careful reading
of the statement, taking it literally, would mean that though Turner was possibly
a Baptist in sentiment, he was not a Baptist and not a member of a Baptist
Church – that is, if “the white people would not let us be baptized by the
church.” There is reason to question such a literal construction of the
statement, though, since it was common for slaves to be received as church
members and baptized on profession of faith.[v]
One wonders, then, if Turner’s story may have meant that the church objected to
a black slave baptizing a white free man. Perhaps this is a “second” and self-baptism
by Turner to identify himself with the one he is baptizing? Absent finding a
record of Nat Turner joining a Southampton County church, we may never know the
answer to his Baptist connections.
The bloody revolt planned and guided by Turner began
in the early morning hours of August 21, 1831. With his followers Turner led a
series of attacks – going from house to house killing men, women, and children –
beginning with his own master’s household. Most sources (including Confessions, p. 22) relate that about 55
people were killed in Turner’s rebellion. Within two days the rebellion was
broken, but Turner hid successfully for nearly two months before being
captured. He was tried and hung at Jerusalem, Virginia on November 11, 1831. It
might be (and has been) argued that in the long view the Turner Rebellion helped the
anti-slavery cause, but its most immediate effects were executions of blacks (some of whom probably had no connection to the rebellion, and some who were not slaves), harsher laws
against slaves, and stiffening of pro-slavery resolve. Turner had not led his
followers from bondage, but led them to dispersion, death, destruction, and denigration.
Whites lived in fear more slave rebellions. Blacks lived in fear of being lynched.
According to the extremes, Nat Turner may be
considered either a hero or a villain, but certainly he was a man of his times –
a perhaps unusual one as an educated slave, but a man of his times,
nevertheless. It seems that it was important to both Turner and his white
narrators that he not be seen as a man exacting vengeance of those who
mistreated him (though probably for different reasons). Drewry wrote that “Cruel
treatment was not a motive for the rebellion” (Slave Insurrections, p. 115) and Gray explained that the
insurrection “was not instigated by motives of revenge or sudden anger, but the
result of long deliberation, and a settled purpose of mind.” (Confessions, p. 5) Turner himself did
not see the conflict as a matter of personal vengeance against his oppressors,
but a call of God to execute God’s judgment. He confessed that on May 12, 1828,
the Spirit told him he should take on the yoke of Christ and “fight against the
Serpent.” Did Turner couch revenge in spiritual terminology? Perhaps. But his
long-known spiritual tendencies suggest a true sincerity of belief existed (but
that might not have been present in many of the co-conspirators).[vi]
Gray connected the voices and visions with madness, thereby explaining both the
religion and rebellion. All told, the entire account reveals how violence begets
violence that is returned by violence – and that spiritual men need to be
extremely careful how they interpret their spiritual impressions.
[Note: I found this after I finished the article,
so my article does not have the benefit of these sources. The Nat
Turner Project is a digital archive of original documents related to
the Turner rebellion newspaper articles, diary entries, letters, maps, trials
transcripts, census records, pamphlets, petitions, and other types of sources
created at the time the revolt occurred. According to the Project, “The
collection of primary sources in this archive allows you to create your own
interpretations of the rebellion, its black participants, its white targets,
and its enigmatic leader” and “In some respects, the historical documents
available about the revolt raise as many questions as they answer.”]
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| Unknown Woodcut titled “Horrid Massacre in Virginia,” which appeared in Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August Last |
Books about Nat Turner
- Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August Last, by Samuel Warner, New York, NY: Printed for Warner & West, 1831
- The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Va. as told to Thomas R. Gray, Baltimore, MD: Lucas & Deaver, 1831
- The Southampton Insurrection by William Sidney Drewry, Washington DC: The Neal Company, 1900
Links to stories about Nat Turner
[i] In his preface to Slave
Insurrections in Virginia (1830-1865) (p. 7), William Sidney Drewry
wrote, “This attempt to separate truth from fiction has been exceedingly
difficult, owing to the numerous misrepresentations and exaggerations which have
grown up about the subject.” In the attempt, he conducted interviews in
Southampton County, including with former slaves and former masters. I make no
claim that I am able to separate the truth from fiction, but believe the story
is worth telling. If Turner was a Baptist preacher, his story is part of
Baptist history. I have assumed a general reliability of The Confessions of Nat Turner, as told by Gray which purports to be
Turner’s own statement. It was supposedly read to Turner in the presence of
witnesses and he “acknowledged the same to be full, free, and voluntary.” This
is not to say that these people had no interest in shading the truth. Certainly
they were not neutral. On the other hand, at trial Nat Turner was asked whether
he had anything else to say and he replied, “I have not. I have made a full
confession to Mr. Gray and I have nothing more to say.” (See pages 5 and 20.)
This is also not to say whether Turner had an interest in presenting his
rebellion in a certain light – though he must have known that a death sentence
was inevitable regardless of how he told the story.
[ii]
For example, Shubal Stearns claimed a direct revelation from God after a thunderstorm
in September 1769. “As he was ascending a hill in his way home he observed in
the horizon a white heap like snow; upon drawing near he perceived the heap to
stand suspended in the air about fifteen or15 to twenty feet above the ground.
Presently it fell to the ground and divided itself into three parts; the
greatest part moved northward; a less towards the south; and the third, which
was less than either but much brighter, remained on the spot where the whole
fell; as his eyes followed that which went northward, it vanished; he turned to
look at the other, and found that they also had disappeared. While the old man
pondered what phantom the division, and motions of it meant, the thought struck
him: ‘The bright heap is our religious interest; which will divide and spread
north and south, but chiefly northward; while a small part remains at Sandy
Creek’.” (See Morgan Edwards, Materials
Towards a History of the Baptists, Volume 2, p. 94) The visions of Turner are nevertheless extreme compared to the spiritual impressions of most Baptists of his day.
[iii]
The Confessions of Nat Turner, p. 10
[v]
There are numerous historical examples of this. One example can be found in the
history of First African
Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia, roughly 75 miles north of the area
where Nat Turner lived, mentions blacks who were members of the (white) First
Baptist Church of Richmond in the 1830s.
[vi] Turner’s inability to “give
a death blow” to Mr. Travis and Mrs. Newsome, and the struggle to kill Margaret
Whitehead may also suggest he did not have the rage that some of the other
rebels exhibited. (Confessions, pp.
12-134) In fact, Turner only admitted to killing one person.
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