![]() Unfortunately, Turner was caught after being in hiding and he was hanged for his crimes. In 1831, Turner planned and executed a rebellion and killed the plantation owner and his wife. His decision was finalized when, in 1828, he was convinced that he was divinely ordained to bring justice to the plantation owner, Samuel Turner, and to free his followers. In 1824, he had another vision of a future judgment day and he decided to put this into action himself. Turner worked on several plantations throughout his life and he ran away from the one he was born on in 1921, but he later returned after having a vision from God. He would also claim to see visions from God and interpret them for his fellow plantation workers. He was regarded as a prophet and preacher to other enslaved people working on the plantation and Turner would often host religious services for them. He was simply known as Nat on the plantation. ![]() This allowed him to become educated and he was also a devout Christian who later became a prophet to the slaves on the plantation where he worked. His mother’s name was Nancy and he learned how to read from an early age. He didn’t know his father because he was born into slavery on a rural plantation in Southampton County. He was a preacher and Black American slave who led a four-day rebellion of enslaved and free Black people in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1981. This resulted in fifty to sixty Blacks being executed for the accusation of participating in the insurrection, and over 200 more were brutally beaten by angry white mobs.Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, in the U.S. In the aftermath of the insurrection, legislation prohibited the education, movement, and assembly of slaves, and the rise of state sanctioned violence against the Black body facilitated by white terrorism increased. Gray conducted and recorded long interviews with him that eventually informed the many distorted “historical” accounts of Nat Turner’s legacy. Turner escaped and eluded the white captors for six weeks before eventually being caught.īefore his brutal execution, Nat Turner was beaten and tortured while Thomas R. ![]() By that time, fifty to sixty whites had been killed. Eventually, the white local militia organized and suppressed the revolt by killing and capturing the slave rebels. ![]() On August 22, 1831, starting with the Turner enslavers, Turner and his organization of slaves went from plantation to plantation killing white enslavers while freeing Blacks as they moved. From this position, Turner was able to connect and mass organize the slaves on the Turner plantation. “Discovery of Nat Turner.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections.Īs a result of his religious convictions and visions (which he described as divine messages from God), Turner became the plantation preacher. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. ![]() Like in the case of Denmark Vesey, whites in Virginia identified a correlation between literacy and Black free citizenry, so after Nat Turner’s mass organized insurrection, many laws were passed in Virginia that “legally mandated illiteracy” for Blacks. Whites also speculated that Turner read other works by African American figures such as, David Walker’s The Appeal that inspired his rebellion. Turner learned how to read and write at a young age and spent much of his time studying the Bible. Nat Turner was described as intelligent and cunning with quick apprehension skills. Nat Turner was born into slavery to the Turner family, Benjamin Turner and eventually Samuel Turner, in Southhampton County, Virginia, on October 2, 1800. Nat Turner’s legacy and history has been fragmented through unreliable sources and an undeniably white supremacist history, but in the eyes of Henry Highland Garnet and many of the Buffalo National Colored Convention delegates, Nat Turner’s legacy was burned into the mind and imagination as a hero, prophet, and legendary trickster. “Nat Turner & his confederates in conference.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. ![]()
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