_Nat Turner.--His Associates.--Their Meetings.--Nat’s Religious
Enthusiasm.--Bloodshed.--Wide-spread Terror.--The Trials and
Executions._
The slave insurrection which occurred in Southampton County, Na., in
the year 1831, although not as well planned as the one portrayed in the
preceding chapter, was, nevertheless, more widely felt in the South. Its
leader was Nat Turner, a slave.
On one of the oldest and largest plantations in Southampton County,
Va., owned by Benjamin Turner, Esq., Nat was born a slave, on the 2d of
October, 1800. His parents were of unmixed African descent. Surrounded
as he was by the superstition of the slave-quarters, and being taught by
his mother that he was born for a prophet, a preacher, and a deliverer
of his race, it was not strange that the child should have imbibed
the principles which were afterwards developed in his career. Early
impressed with the belief that he had seen visions, and received
communications direct from God, he, like Napoleon, regarded himself as
a being of destiny. In his childhood, Nat was of an amiable disposition;
but circumstances in which he was placed as a slave brought out
incidents that created a change in his disposition, and turned his kind
and docile feeling into the most intense hatred to the white race.
The ill-treatment he experienced at the hands of the whites, and the
visions he claimed to have seen, caused Nat to avoid, as far as he
could, all intercourse with his fellow-slaves, and threw around him a
gloom and melancholy that disappeared only with his life.
Both the young slave and his friends averred that a full knowledge of
the alphabet came to him in a single night. Impressed with the belief
that his mission was a religious one, and this impression strengthened
by the advice of his grandmother, a pious but ignorant woman, Nat
commenced preaching when about twenty-five years of age, but never went
beyond his own master’s locality. In stature, he was under the middle
size, long-armed, round-shouldered, and strongly marked with the African
features. A gloomy fire burned in his looks, and he had a melancholy
expression of countenance. He never tasted a drop of ardent spirits in
his life, and was never known to smile. In the year 1828, new visions
appeared to Nat; and he claimed to have direct communication with God.
Unlike most of those born under the influence of slavery, he had no
faith in conjuring, fortunetelling, or dreams, and always spoke with
contempt of such things. Being hired out to a cruel master, he ran away,
and remained in the woods thirty days, and could have easily escaped to
the Free States, as did his father some years before; but he received,
as he says in his confession, a communication from the Spirit, which
said, “Return to your earthly master; for he who knoweth his Master’s
will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” It was not
the will of his earthly but his heavenly Master that he felt bound to
do; and therefore Nat returned. His fellow-slaves were greatly incensed
at him for coming back; for they knew well his ability to reach Canada,
or some other land of freedom, if he was so inclined. He says further,
“About this time I had a vision, and saw white spirits and black spirits
engaged in battle; and the sun was darkened, the thunder rolled in the
heavens, and blood flowed ‘in streams; and I heard a voice saying, ‘Such
is your luck, such are you called on to see; and let it come, rough or
smooth, you must surely bear it!’” Some time after this, Nat had, as
he says, another vision, in which the spirit appeared and said, “The
Serpent is loosened, and Christ has laid down the yoke he has borne for
the sins of men; and you must take it up, and fight against the Serpent,
for the time is fast approaching when the first shall be last, and the
last shall be first.” There is no doubt but that this last sentence
filled Nat with enthusiastic feeling in favor of the liberty of his
race, that he had so long dreamed of. “The last shall be first, and the
first shall be last,” seemed to him to mean something. He saw in it the
overthrow of the whites, and the establishing of the blacks in their
stead; and to this end he bent the energies of his mind. In February,
1881, Nat received his last communication, and beheld his last vision.
He said, “I was told I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my
enemies with their own weapons.” The plan of an insurrection was now
formed in his own mind, and the time had arrived for him to take others
into the secret; and he at once communicated his ideas to four of
his friends, in whom he had implicit confidence. Hark Travis, Nelson
Williams, Sam Edwards, and Henry Porter were slaves like himself, and,
like him, had taken their names from their masters. A meeting must be
held with these, and it must take place in some secluded place where
the whites would not disturb them; and a meeting was appointed. The spot
where they assembled was as wild and romantic as were the visions that
had been impressed upon the mind of their leader.
Three miles from where Nat lived was a dark swamp, filled with reptiles,
in the middle of which was a dry spot, reached by a narrow, winding
path, and upon which human feet seldom ever trod, on account of its
having been the place where a slave had been tortured to death by a slow
fire, for the crime of having flogged his cruel and inhuman master. The
night for the meeting arrived, and they came together. Hark brought
a pig, Sam bread, Nelson sweet potatoes, and Henry brandy; and the
gathering was turned into a feast. Others were taken in, and joined the
conspiracy. All partook heartily of the food, and drank freely, except
Nat. He fasted and prayed. It was agreed that the revolt should commence
that night, and in their own masters’ households, and that each slave
should give his oppressor the death-blow. Before they left the swamp,
Nat made a speech, in which he said, “Friends and brothers! We are
to commence a great work to-night. Our race is to be delivered from
slavery, and God has appointed us as the men to do his bidding; and
let us be worthy of our calling. I am told to slay all the whites we
encounter, without regard to age or sex. We have no arms or ammunition,
but we will find these in the houses of our oppressors; and, as we go
on, others can join us. Remember that we do not go forth for the sake
of blood and carnage; but it is necessary, that, in the commencement
of this revolution, all the whites we meet should die, until we have an
army strong enough to carry on the war upon a Christian basis. Remember
that ours is not a war for robbery, and to satisfy our passions: it is a
struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds, and not words. Then let’s away
to the scene of action.”
Among those who had joined the conspirators was Will, a slave, who
scorned the idea of taking his master’s name. Though his soul longed to
be free, he evidently became one of the party as much to satisfy revenge
as for the liberty that he saw in the dim distance. Will had seen a dear
and beloved wife sold to the negro-trader, and taken away, never to be
beheld by him again in this life. His own back was covered with scars,
from his shoulders to his feet. A large scar, running from his right eye
down to his chin, showed that he had lived with a cruel master. Nearly
six feet in height, and one of the strongest and most athletic of his
race, he proved to be the most unfeeling of all the insurrectionists.
His only weapon was a broad-axe, sharp and heavy.
Nat and his accomplices at once started for the plantation of Joseph
Travis, with whom the four lived; and there the first blow was struck.
In his confession, just before his execution, Nat said,--
“On returning to the house, Hark went to the door with an axe, for the
purpose of breaking it open,--as we knew we were strong enough to murder
the family should they be awakened by the noise; but, reflecting that
it might create an alarm in the neighborhood, we determined to enter the
house secretly, and murder them whilst sleeping. Hark got a ladder, and
set it against the chimney, on which I ascended, and, hoisting a window,
entered and came down stairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns
from their places. It was then observed that I must spill the first
blood. On which, armed with a hatchet, and accompanied by Will,
I entered my master’s chamber. It being dark, I could not give a
death-blow. The hatchet, glanced from his head: he sprang from the bed,
and called his wife. It was his last word. Will laid him dead with a
blow of his axe.”
They went from plantation to plantation, until the whole neighborhood
was aroused; and the whites turned out in large numbers to suppress the
rebellion. Nat and his accomplices fought bravely, but to no purpose.
Reinforcements came to the whites; and the blacks were overpowered and
defeated by the superior numbers of the enemy. In this battle, many were
slain on both sides. Will, the blood-thirsty and revengeful slave, fell
with his broad-axe uplifted, after having laid three of the whites dead
at his feet with his own strong arm and his terrible weapon. His last
words were, “Bury my axe with me.” For he religiously believed, that,
in the next world, the blacks would have a contest with the whites, and
that he would need his axe. Nat Turner, after fighting to the last with
his short sword, escaped with some others to the woods near by, and was
not captured for nearly two months. When brought to trial, he pleaded
“not guilty,” feeling, as he said, that it was always right for one to
strike for his own liberty. After going through a mere form of trial,
he was convicted and executed at Jerusalem, the county-seat for
Southhampton County, Ya. Not a limb trembled, or a muscle was observed
to move. Thus died Nat Turner, at the early age of thirty-one years, a
martyr to the freedom of his race, and a victim to his own fanaticism.
He meditated upon the wrongs of his oppressed and injured people till
the idea of their deliverance excluded all other ideas from his mind;
and he devoted his life to its realization. Every thing appeared to
him a vision, and all favorable omens were signs from God. He foretold,
that, at his death, the sun would refuse to shine, and that there would
be signs of disapprobation given from Heaven. And it is true that the
sun was darkened, a storm gathered, and more boisterous weather had
never appeared in Southampton County than on the day of Nat’s execution.
The sheriff, warned by the prisoner, refused to cut the cord that held
the trap. No black man would touch the rope. A poor old white man,
long-besotted by drink, was brought forty miles to be the executioner.
Fifty-five whites and seventy-three blacks lost their lives in the
Southampton Rebellion. On the fatal night, when Nat and his companions
were dealing death to all they found, Capt. Harris, a wealthy planter,
had his life saved by the devotion and timely warning of his slave Jim,
said to have been half-brother to his master. After the revolt had been
put down, and parties of whites were out hunting the suspected blacks,
Capt. Harris, with his faithful slave, went into the woods in search of
the negroes. In saving his master’s life, Jim felt that he had done his
duty, and could not consent to become a betrayer of his race; and, on
reaching the woods, he handed his pistol to his master, and said, “I
cannot help you hunt down these men: they, like myself, want to be free.
Sir, I am tired of the life of a slave: please give me my freedom, or
shoot me on tire spot.” Capt. Harris took the weapon, and pointed it at
the slave. Jim, putting his right hand, upon his heart, said, “This is
the spot; aim here.” The captain fired, and the slave fell dead at his
feet.