An insurrection was planned, aborted, and rescheduled for August 21,, when he and six others killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other enslaved people in a disorganized insurrection that resulted in the murder of an estimated 55 white people. Afterwards, Turner hid nearby successfully for six weeks until his discovery, conviction, and hanging at Jerusalem, Virginia, along with 16 of his followers. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Turner was an educated minister. Turner reportedly told Thomas Ruffin Gray in a jailhouse interview published in The Confessions of Nat Turner that when he was three or four years old, he could provide details of events that occurred before his birth. His astonished mother and Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton.
By the midth century, Skip to content. Contributor: Patrick H. Slaves Executed for the Nat Turner Revolt. Discovery of Nat Turner. William Preston. Legacy The Confessions of Nat Turner. October 2, Nat Turner is born into slavery in Southampton County. February John W. Reese signs a note that puts Nat Turner's son up as collateral for a debt that Reese had struggled to pay.
February 12, Virginia witnesses a solar eclipse and Nat Turner interprets it as a sign from God to share with four other men his idea to revolt. July 4, Nat Turner postpones the revolt he and four other enslaved men had planned for that day.
August 13, A solar event occurs in Virginia in which the sun appears to have a greenish hue; Nat Turner interprets the event as a sign from God to launch his revolt.
August 21—22, Nat Turner, a slave preacher and self-styled prophet, leads the deadliest slave revolt in Virginia's history, which in just twelve hours leaves fifty-five white people dead in Southampton County. August 28, To stop the indiscriminate killings of suspected enslaved rebels, General Richard Eppes, the leader of the state militia force in Southampton, proclaims martial law.
August 31, In the wake of Nat Turner's Revolt, the trials of suspected slave rebels begin. September 4, —May 11, Eighteen enslaved men and women and one free black man convicted of participating in Nat Turner's Revolt are hanged in Southampton County. October 30, Nat Turner is captured near where the revolt he led began. October 31, James Trezvant and James W. Parker examine Nat Turner and commit him to the Southampton County jail. November 1, The lawyer Thomas R. Gray meets with Nat Turner, accused of leading a slave revolt, in the Southampton County jail.
November 5, Nat Turner is convicted and sentenced to death for leading a revolt of enslaved people. November 10, Thomas R. Gray's account purports to tell the story of Nat Turner's slave uprising in the words of Turner himself.
November 11, Nat Turner is hanged. Further Reading Allmendinger Jr. Nat Turner and the Rising in Southampton County. Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. New York: Columbia University, Breen, Patrick H. New York: Oxford University Press, Drewry, William Sidney. Where was the source produced? Contextualize the Source What do I know about the historical context of this source? What do I know about how the creator of this source fits into that historical context? Why did the person who created the source do so?
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By stopping the killing, white leaders ensured that the surviving rebels would be tried. The trials were by no means fair — the accused slaves were tried by an unsympathetic court of slaveholders — but the most remarkable thing about them was the protections the court offered the accused. Others had their sentence commuted because they were young or reluctant rebels. In the end, Southampton executed eighteen enslaved persons and one free black.
Nat Turner himself remained at large until October 30, , when he was finally captured and brought to the county seat of Southampton. While in jail awaiting trial, he spoke freely about the revolt, and local lawyer Thomas R. Gray approached him with a plan to take down his story. Because the revolt reminded whites about the dangers of slavery, approximately two thousand Virginians petitioned their legislature to do something to end the practice.
It was the last time Virginia would consider a proposal to gradually eliminate slavery until after the end of the Civil War. With this decision, a window of opportunity to abandon slavery in Virginia, and perhaps the rest of the upper South, was shut. In , Thomas R. Dew, a professor at the College of William and Mary, penned a review of the legislative debate in Virginia in which he argued against reform and said slavery was the proper foundation for a rightly ordered society.
This line of thinking was taken up by later southern writers such as George Fitzhugh and politicians such as James Henry Hammond. Despite poor odds for success, what indication did Nat Turner say led him to believe the time was right to lead a slave rebellion?
It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old.
I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands.
According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon.
The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny?
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