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).
He was born on the Virginia
plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in
reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and
hired out to John Travis (1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader
of African-American slaves on Benjamin Turner’s plantation and in his
Southampton County neighbourhood, claiming that he was chosen by God to
lead them from bondage.
Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, Turner was convinced by
an eclipse of the Sun (1831) that the time to rise up had come, and he
enlisted the help of four other slaves in the area. An insurrection was
planned, aborted, and rescheduled for August 21,1831, when he and six
other slaves killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and
horses, and enlisted about 75 other slaves in a disorganized
insurrection that resulted in the murder of 51 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. The incident put fear in the heart of Southerners,
ended the organized emancipation movement in that region, resulted in
even harsher laws against slaves, and deepened the schism between
slave-holders and free-soilers (an anti-slavery political party whose
slogan was ‘free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men’) that
would culminate in the Civil War.
Biography courtesy of BIO.com
culled from http://www.history.com
VIDEO: A 3 MINUTE NAT TURNER DOCUMENTARY
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