Nathanial “Nat” Turner (1800-1831) was a black American slave who led
the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S.
history. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set
off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education,
movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened pro-slavery,
anti-abolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the
American Civil War (1861–65).