| Part ofevents leading to the American Civil War andNorth American slave revolts | |
 Location of the rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia | |
| Date | August 21–23, 1831 (1831-08-21 –1831-08-23) |
|---|---|
| Duration | 3 days |
| Location | Southampton County, Virginia, United States |
| Coordinates | 36°46′12″N77°09′40″W / 36.770°N 77.161°W /36.770; -77.161 |
| Also known as |
|
| Type | Slave rebellion |
| Organized by | Nat Turner |
| Outcome | Rebellion suppressed Participants tried and executed or sold |
| Casualties | |
| 56 to 85 White men, women, and children | |
| 10 to 120 Black men, women, and children | |
| Part ofa series on |
| North American slave revolts |
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 |
Before 1700 (Spanish Florida, victorious)
(Real Audiencia of Panama,New Spain, suppressed)
(Veracruz,New Spain, victorious)
(New Spain, suppressed)
(New Spain, suppressed)
|
18th century (BritishProvince of New York, suppressed)
(BritishJamaica, victorious) (BritishChesapeake Colonies, suppressed)
(Louisiana,New France, suppressed) (DanishSaint John, suppressed)
(BritishProvince of South Carolina, suppressed) (BritishProvince of New York, suppressed)
(BritishJamaica, suppressed) (BritishMontserrat, suppressed) (BritishBahamas, suppressed)
(Louisiana,New Spain, suppressed) (Louisiana,New Spain, suppressed) (DutchCuraçao, suppressed)
|
19th century (Virginia, suppressed)
(St. Simons Island,Georgia, victorious)
(Virginia, suppressed) (Territory of Orleans, suppressed) (SpanishCuba, suppressed)
(Virginia, suppressed) (BritishBarbados, suppressed)
(South Carolina, suppressed) (Cuba, suppressed) (Virginia, suppressed)
(British Jamaica, suppressed)
(off theCuban coast, victorious)
(off theSouthern U.S. coast, victorious) (Indian Territory, suppressed)
(SpanishCuba, suppressed) (South Carolina, suppressed) (Virginia, suppressed) |
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as theSouthampton Insurrection, was aslave rebellion that took place inSouthampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led byNat Turner, the rebels, made up of enslavedAfrican Americans, killed between 55 and 65White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt for the latter racial group in U.S. history. The rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, atBelmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for approximately ten weeks afterward: six weeks only leaving his hiding place "in the dead of night" for water; two weeks eavesdropping on the neighborhood at night, for the purpose of gathering intelligence, and returning to his hiding place before dawn; and two weeks being "pursued almost incessantly", having been discovered by a dog.[1]
There was widespread fear among the White population in the rebellion's aftermath. Militias and mobs killed as many as 120 enslaved people and free African Americans in retaliation. After trials, the Commonwealth of Virginiaexecuted eighteen enslaved people accused of participating in the rebellion, including Turner himself; many Black people who had not participated were also persecuted in the frenzy. Because Turner was educated and a preacher, Southern state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting the education of enslaved people and free Blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil liberties for free Blacks, and requiring White ministers to be present at all worship services.
Lonnie Bunch said that the "Nat Turner rebellion is probably the most significant uprising in American history".[2]
Nat Turner was enslaved inSouthampton County, Virginia in the early 19th century.[3][4] Turner said he wanted to spread "terror and alarm" among Whites.[5] And the group decided that "until [they] had armed and equipped [themselves], and gathered sufficient force, neither age nor sex was to be spared."[6] According to a letter sent toRichmond Enquirer by an initial interviewer of Turner after his capture, "women and children would afterwards have been spared, and men too who ceased to resist."[7][8]
Turner began communicating his plans to a small circle of trusted fellow slaves. "All his initial recruits were other slaves from his neighborhood".[9] These scattered men had to find ways to communicate their intentions without revealing the plot. Songs may have tipped the neighborhood members to movements: "It is believed that one of the ways Turner summoned fellow conspirators to the woods was through the use of particular songs."[10] According to author Terry Bisson, Turner entrusted his wife, Cherry, with "his most secret plans and papers".[11] According to a report byJames Trezvant immediately following the uprising, Cherry said that Nat had been "digesting" a plan for the revolt "for years".[12]
Turner eagerly anticipated God's signal to "slay my enemies with their own weapons".[13] He began preparations for an uprising against the slaveholders in Southampton County. Turner said, "I communicated the great work laid out to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence": fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam.[13]
Beginning in February 1831, Turner interpreted atmospheric conditions as signs to prepare for the revolt. Anannular solar eclipse on February 12, 1831, was visible in Virginia and much of the southeastern United States; Turner envisioned this as a Black man's hand reaching over the sun.[14] Illness prevented Turner from starting the rebellion as planned onIndependence Day, July 4, 1831. The conspirators used the delay to extend planning.[15] On August 13, an atmospheric disturbance made the Virginia sun appear bluish-green, possibly the result of a volcanic plume produced by the eruption ofFerdinandea Island off the coast ofSicily.[16] Turner took this as a divine signal and started the rebellion a week later, on August 21.[3][16]
The rebellion expanded from several trusted slaves to over 70 enslaved and free Blacks, some of whom were on horseback.[17][18] They were armed with knives, hatchets, and blunt instruments; firearms were too difficult to collect and would have drawn unwanted attention.[19] Additional weapons were collected as the rebels moved from house to house; they also added to their numbers, growing from fifteen to fifty or sixty.[20]
The rebels killed White people without discriminating by age or sex.[21][22] Turner's slaveowner and his family were the first to be killed. Over the course of 48 hours, the rebels then traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing Whites.[19][20] HistorianStephen B. Oates writes that Turner called on his group to "kill all the white people".[23]
According to theRichmond Enquirer, "Turner declared that 'indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they attained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm.'"[24] A few homes were spared "because Turner believed the poor White inhabitants 'thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes.'"[23] The rebels also avoided the Giles Reese plantation, even though it was en route, likely because Turner wanted to keep his wife and children safe.[25] Turner confessed to killing only one person, Margaret Whitehead, whom he killed with a blow from a fence post.[19] The last house to be attacked was theRebecca Vaughan House.
The state militia suppressed the rebellion atBelmont Plantation on the morning of August 23.[26] The rebels killed between 55 and 65 White people, of which 20-30 were children, before being defeated by the militia, making it the deadliest slave revolt in U.S. history.[23][4][27] The militia had twice the manpower of the rebels and three companies of artillery.[28] Turner was not immediately captured; he survived in hiding for approximately 10 weeks afterward.[29]
Within a day of suppressing the rebellion, the local militia was joined by detachments from theUSS Natchez andUSS Warren inNorfolk and militias from neighboring counties in Virginia andNorth Carolina.[28] Brigadier GeneralWilliam Henry Brodnax commanded the Virginia militia.
In Southampton County, Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia, and "their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation".[30] A local road (nowVirginia State Route 658) was called "Blackhead Signpost Road" after it became the site of one such display.[31][32]
Rumors quickly spread that the slave revolt had spread as far south asAlabama. Fears led to reports in North Carolina of slave "armies" on highways, burning and massacring the White inhabitants ofWilmington, North Carolina, and marching on the state capital.[23] The fear and alarm resulted in White violence against Blacks on flimsy pretenses. The editor of theRichmond Whig described the scene as "the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity".[33] The violence continued for two weeks after the rebellion. General Eppes ordered a halt to the killing:
He will not specify all the instances that he is bound to believe have occurred but pass in silence what has happened, with the expression of his deepest sorrow, that any necessity should be supposed to have existed, to justify a single act of atrocity. But he feels himself bound to declare, and hereby announces to the troops and citizens, that no excuse will be allowed for any similar acts of violence, after the promulgation of this order.[34]
In a letter to theNew York Evening Post, Reverend G. W. Powell wrote that "many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known."[35] A company of militia fromHertford County, North Carolina, reportedly killed forty Blacks in one day and took $23 and a gold watch from the dead.[36] CaptainSolon Borland, leading a contingent fromMurfreesboro, North Carolina, condemned the acts "because it was tantamount to theft from the White owners of the slaves".[36]
Modern historians concur that the militias and mobs killed as many as 120 Blacks, most of whom were not involved with the rebellion.[37][38][39]
Turner eluded capture for approximately ten weeks but remained in Southampton County. According toTerry Bisson, Turner's wife Cherry was "beaten and tortured in an attempt to get her to reveal his plans and whereabouts."[11] After a raid on the Reese plantation, theRichmond Constitutional Whig reported on September 26 that "some papers [were] given up by his wife, under the lash."[40] According toThe Authentic and Impartial Narrative, also published in 1831, journal entries by Turner were "in her possession after Nat's escape."[41]
On October 30, Benjamin Phipps, a farmer, discovered Turner hiding in Southampton County in a depression in the earth created by a large, fallen tree covered with fence rails.[42] Around 1 p.m. on October 31, Turner arrived at the prison in Jerusalem.[40] While awaiting trial, he confessed knowledge of the rebellion to attorney andslavery apologistThomas R. Gray.[43]
Dozens of suspected rebels were tried by courts specially convened for the rebellion. Turner was tried on November 5, 1831, for "conspiring to rebel and making insurrection", and was convicted and sentenced to death.[44][45] His attorney wasJames Strange French.James Trezvant served on the jury. Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831, in the county seat ofJerusalem, Virginia (nowCourtland).[46] According to some sources, he was beheaded to deter further rebellion.[47][48] The body was dissected andflayed, and the skin used to make souvenir purses.[49][50] In October 1897, Virginia newspapers reported that Dr. H. U. Stephenson ofToano, Virginia, was using the skeleton as a medical specimen.[51]
Most of Turner's alleged conspirators were tried in Southampton County, with some trials in neighboringSussex County or other nearby counties. French represented many of the defendants, along withWilliam Henry Brodnax and Meriwether Brodnax.[52] Thirty slaves were convicted, of whom eighteen were hanged and twelve were sold out of state; fifteen were acquitted.[42] Four of the five free Blacks tried were acquitted; one was hanged.[53]
During the rebellion, theVirginia General Assembly targeted free Blacks with anAfrican relocation bill, and a police bill denying themtrials by jury and criminal punishment by slavery and relocation.[54] The General Assembly received petitions from at least seven slave owners asking to be compensated for slaves lost without trial because of the insurrection; they were all rejected.[52]
The General Assembly debated the future of slavery the following spring. Some urged gradual emancipation, but the pro-slavery side prevailed after Virginia's leading intellectual,Thomas Roderick Dew, president of theCollege of William and Mary, published "a pamphlet defending the wisdom and benevolence of slavery, and the folly of its abolition".[55] Laws were passed in all slave states exceptMaryland,Kentucky, andTennesseecriminalizing teaching Blacks to read and write, and restricting Blacks from holding religious meetings without a licensed White minister.[56][57]
Other Southern slave-holding states also enacted legal restrictions on Black activities.[58] Possession of abolitionist publications was criminalized in Virginia and other Southern states.[59]
On September 3, 1831,William Lloyd Garrison published an article, "The Insurrection", in theabolitionist newspaperThe Liberator.[60] On September 10, 1831,The Liberator published excerpts from a letter to the editor saying that many people in the South believed the newspaper had a link to the revolt and that if Garrison were to go to the South, he "would not be permitted to live long... he would be taken away, and no one is the wiser for it... if Mr. Garrison were to go to the South, he would be dispatched immediately... [an] opinion expressed by persons at the South, repeatedly."[61]
In November 1831, Thomas R. Gray publishedThe Confessions of Nat Turner, based on research he conducted while Turner was in hiding and from conversations with Turner before the trial. The pamphlet sold 40,000 to 50,000 copies, making it a noted source about the rebellion at the time.[62] But a November 25, 1831, review of the publication byThe Richmond Enquirer said:
The pamphlet has one defect—we mean its style. The confession of the culprit is given, as it were, from his lips—(and when read to him, he admitted its statements to be correct)—but the language is far superior to what Nat Turner could have employed—Portions of it are even eloquently and classically expressed.—This is calculated to cast some shade of doubt over the authenticity of the narrative, and to give the Bandit a character for intelligence which he does not deserve, and ought not to have received.—In all other respects, the confession appears to be faithful and true.[63]
Gray's work is the primary historical document about Turner but some modern historians, specifically David F. Allmendinger Jr., have also questioned the validity of his portrayal of Turner.[64][65]
In the aftermath of the revolt, Whites did not try to interpret Turner's motives and ideas.[5] Antebellum enslavers were shocked by the rebellion and feared further slave violence; to them, Turner became "a symbol of terrorism and violent retribution."[23] Images were published depicting armed Black men attacking White men, women, and children; these " haunted White southerners and showed slave owners how vulnerable they were."[66] Northern and Southern states shared many of the same fears; a proposal to create a college for African Americans inNew Haven, Connecticut was overwhelmingly rejected in theNew Haven Excitement.
The fear Turner's rebellion caused and the concerns raised in the emancipation debates that followed resulted in politicians and writers defining "slavery as a positive good";[67] Thomas Dew was among those writers.[68] Other Southern writers began to promote a paternalistic ideal of improved Christian treatment of slaves, in part to avoid such rebellions. Dew and others believed they were civilizing Blacks, who were then still mostly American-born through slavery. The writings were collected inThe Pro-Slavery Argument, As Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States (1853).
Some Virginians wanted to remove all Blacks from the state Tidewater and Piedmont regions or deport all from the state.[69] In 1852, the Virginia branch of theAmerican Colonization Society sent 243 Black Virginians toLiberia.[69]
African Americans have generally regarded Turner as a resistance hero for avenging the suffering of Africans and African Americans.[23] James H. Harris, who has written extensively about the history of theBlack church, says that the revolt "marked the turning point in the black struggle for liberation." According to Harris, Turner believed that "only a cataclysmic act could convince the architects of a violent social order that violence begets violence."[70]
In an 1843 speech at theNational Negro Convention,Henry Highland Garnet, a former slave and activeabolitionist, described Nat Turner as "patriotic", saying that "future generations will remember him among the noble and brave."[71] In 1861,Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a White Northern writer, praised Turner in a seminal article published in theAtlantic Monthly. He described Turner as a man "who knew no book but the Bible, and that by heart who devoted himself soul and body to the cause of his race."[72]
In 1988, Turner was included in the Black Americans of Achievement biography series for children, with the bookNat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader byTerry Bisson.[73] The book's introduction was written byCoretta Scott King.
In 2012,Lonnie Bunch, the then-director of theNational Museum of African American History and Culture, later to become the 14th Secretary of theSmithsonian, said that the "Nat Turner rebellion is probably the most significant uprising in American history."[2]
The sword Turner is believed to have used in the rebellion is displayed at the Southampton County Courthouse.[74] In 1991, theVirginia Department of Historic Resources dedicated the "Nat Turner Insurrection" historic marker onVirginia State Route 30, near Courtland, Virginia.[75][76] In 2021, the Virginia Department of Cultural Resources dedicated the "Blackhead Signpost Road" historic marker at the intersection ofVirginia State Route 35 and Meherrin Road.[76][31]
In 2004, theSouthampton County Historical Society purchased theRebecca Vaughan House for restoration and inclusion in their museum; this was the last surviving house where Whites were killed by participants in the rebellion.[76] The Vaughan House was added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 2006.[76] The society has also created a driving tour of the sites and locations associated with the rebellion.[76]
Nat Turner's Rebellion is celebrated as part ofBlack August.[77]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)Parramore 98.10 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).High estimates have been widely accepted in both academic and popular sources.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Recent studies which review various estimates for the number of enslaved and free Blacks killed without trial, giving a range of from 23 killed to over 200 killed.
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