Nat Turners
By: Luke Robison
Nat Turners beginning and what was his effect on slavery?
Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800. He was very religious and people who saw him often saw him fasting, praying, or reading stories from the bible. He was born into slavery and his original slave owner was named Benjamin Turner. Benjamin died in 1810 and Nat was sent to Benjamin's brother Samuel Turner (Samuel referred to him as Nathaniel). He was naturally intelligent and was able to learn how to read and write at a young age. When he was 22 years old he ran away form his plantation. He later returned a month later because he received a spiritual revelation. His fellow slaves called him "the Prophet". He started to get visions from "God" and interpreted them as he should rebel. Nat made it clear that he saw himself as participating in the confrontation of the Lords kingdom and the anti-kingdom. In the early the February 1836 the conditions made him decide to begin his preparations for his rebellion. He originally started planning on July 4 (I know very ironic). He delayed it because of illness and to get a little more planning in with the people who are working with him. On August 13 there was a solar eclipse and he interpreted it as the final signal and his rebellion began on August 21. His first recruits were some trusted slaves. All of his original recruits were from his neighbor hood. they had to find ways to communicate with out the whites finding out their plot.The way Nat got some of his fellow conspirators to come to the woods was by song. When they started Nat and slaves and free blacks went from house killing the white men, women, and children and freed slaves. They didn't want to alert the whites that they were coming so they only used blades and tomahawks and bows no firearms. The blacks also didn't discriminate between age and sex until they had achieved sufficient. Nat only confessed to only one murder and it was Margret Whitehead. Before the militia could interfere they had killed 60 white men, woman, children. They spared a few homes and white but it was only the poor who thought they were no better than the blacks. His rebellion was suppressed in two days but Nat Turner escaped, he was found though on October 30 by Benjamin Phillips, he was hiding in a hole covered with fence rails. On November 5, 1831 he was tried for conspiring with a rebellion and making insurrection and was convicted and sentenced to death. "I was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia ". Nat said breathlessly. In the aftermath of the rebellion there were 45 black (including Nat Turner) and 5 free blacks who were tried for the rebellion. 15 were acquitted, 18 were hanged, 12 were sold out of state, 1 free black was hanged the other four were acquitted. In total the state executed 56 and the militia and mobs over all killed 200 blacks. Overall the effect was bad because he scared the whites and they started thinking that, thats what a black would do with being smart also its just not right killing children who do not know what their talking about. I know that whites did that but he should have tried being better than them. I do think though his intentions were alright cause he just wanted to get people to see how bad slavery was.