Nat Turner's Uprising

Nat Turner's Uprising (1831).The bloodiest slave rebellion in American history, organized and led by Nat Turner, broke out on 22 August 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. In this remote tidewater county where African Americans outnumbered whites, Turner and a group of slaves killed more than fifty whites over a two‐day period. Turner's revolt panicked southern slaveholders and crystallized the tensions between proslavery forces and abolitionists.

Born in 1800, Nat Turner took the name of his original owner, Benjamin Turner. During his years on the plantation, Turner's literacy and his carpentry skills gained him the respect and admiration of his fellow slaves. In sermons to other slaves, he told of seeing visions and hearing voices. Turner's father is said to have escaped from the Virginia plantation to seek refuge in the North, and Nat himself fled in 1821 but returned a month later. Turner's owner went bankrupt in 1822 and sold him to a neighboring planter. Six years later, Turner had a religious vision that instructed him to liberate his fellow slaves by killing every white person residing between his master's plantation and the nearest town of Jerusalem. Three years later, he interpreted a solar eclipse as the sign that he should carry out his plan. Recruiting up to sixty slaves from nearby plantations, Turner and five co‐conspirators murdered fifty‐nine whites before local authorities quelled the uprising. In the days following, local whites detained and executed a number of African Americans, many of whom had no involvement in the rebellion. Turner evaded capture for two months by hiding in the woods. Following his arrest, Turner was tried and found guilty on 5 November. Six days later, he was hanged.

Nat Turner's rebellion radicalized opponents of slavery and provided a preview of the impending sectional crisis. In the North, the nascent antislavery movement intensified. Only emancipation, abolitionists argued, could prevent future outbreaks of violence. The revolt also alarmed southern slaveholders in general and Virginia masters in particular. In the immediate aftermath, Virginia legislators considered abolishing slavery. A number of politicians, including Governor John Floyd, proposed plans of gradual abolition to prevent any future uprisings. Floyd's proposal was defeated in January 1832, however, and proslavery forces passed legislation tightening controls on both slaves and free blacks. Other southern states followed suit. These new restrictions silenced African‐American slave preachers; limited the independence of free black churches and schools; and, in some cases, called for the removal of free people of color. Despite the ferocity of the reaction, however, African Americans seized hope and strength from Nat Turner's uprising as a fierce assault on the institution of slavery.
See also African American Religion; Antebellum Era; Slavery: Slave Uprisings and Resistance; South, The.

Bibliography

Henry Irving Tragle , The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material, 1971.
John B. Duff and Peter M. Mitchell, eds., The Nat Turner Rebellion: The Historical Event and the Modern Controversy, 1971.
Stephen B. Oates , The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion, 1975.
James Baker Thomas , Nat Turner: Cry Freedom in America, 1998.

Jane E. Dabel