directions, visiting plantations. "It was with the greatest difficulty,"
said Gen. Brodnax before the House of Delegates, "and at the hazard of
personal popularity and esteem, that the coolest and most judicious among
us could exert an influence sufficient to restrain an indiscriminate
slaughter of the blacks who were suspected." A letter from the Rev. G. W.
Powell declares, "There are thousands of troops searching in every
direction, and many negroes are killed every day: the exact number will
never be ascertained." Petition after petition was subsequently presented
to the Legislature, asking compensation for slaves thus assassinated
without trial.
Men were tortured to death, burned, maimed, and subjected to nameless
atrocities. The overseers were called on to point out any slaves whom
they distrusted, and if any tried to escape they were shot down. Nay,
worse than this. "A party of horsemen started from Richmond with the
intention of killing every colored person they saw in Southampton County.
They stopped opposite the cabin of a free colored man, who was hoeing in
his little field. They called out, 'Is this Southampton County?' He
replied, 'Yes, sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree.' They
shot him dead, and rode on." This is from the narrative of the editor of
the Richmond _Whig_, who was then on duty in the militia, and protested
manfully against these outrages. "Some of these scenes," he adds, "are
hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents."
These were the masters' stories. If even these conceded so much, it would
be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report. I am indebted to my
honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this
terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman,
once well known in New York, Charity Bowery. "At the time of the old
Prophet Nat," she said, "the colored folks was afraid to pray loud; for
the whites threatened to punish 'em dreadfully, if the least noise was
heard. The patrols was low drunken whites; and in Nat's time, if they
heard any of the colored folks praying, or singing a hymn, they would
fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em, afore master or
missis could get to 'em. The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time.
The whites always suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place
called Duplon. They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they
shot; then they pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about
the insurrection. He told 'em he didn't know any thing about any
insurrection. They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put
his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court." (This
is no exaggeration, if the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.)
"It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat's
time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try
to make 'em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody
could interfere. Mr. James Cole, high sheriff, said, if any of the
patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his
people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had
killed. Mr. Cole said, 'If you don't pack up, as quick as God Almighty
will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again,
I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you.' He went off, and wasn't seen
in them parts again."
These outrages were not limited to the colored population; but other
instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times. An
Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg.
An alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching
towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge. After the
panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that "the blacks, as
men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated." This
led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town. He took passage
in the stage, but the stage was intercepted. He then fled to a friend's
house; the house was broken open, and he was dragged forth. The civil
authorities, being applied to, refused to interfere. The mob stripped
him, gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked,
under a hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage
to New York.
Of the capture or escape of most of that small band who met with Nat
Turner in the woods upon the Travis plantation, little can now be known.
All appear among the list of convicted, except Henry and Will. Gen.
Moore, who occasionally figures as second in command, in the newspaper
narratives of that day, was probably the Hark or Hercules before
mentioned; as no other of the confederates had belonged to Mrs. Travis,
or would have been likely to bear her previous name of Moore. As usual,
the newspapers state that most, if not all the slaves, were "the property
of kind and indulgent masters."
The subordinate insurgents sought safety as they could. A free colored
man, named Will Artist, shot himself in the woods, where his hat was
found on a stake and his pistol lying by him; another was found drowned;
others were traced to the Dismal Swamp; others returned to their homes,
and tried to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their
masters that they had been forced, against their will, to join,--the
usual defence in such cases. The number shot down at random must, by all
accounts, have amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human
registration now. The number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is
officially stated at fifty-five; of these, seventeen were convicted and
hanged, twelve convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free
colored men sent on for further trial and finally acquitted. "Not one of
those known to be concerned escaped." Of those executed, one only was a
woman, "Lucy, slave of John T. Barrow."
There is one touching story, in connection with these terrible
retaliations, which rests on good authority, that of the Rev. M. B. Cox,
a Liberian missionary, then in Virginia. In the hunt which followed the
massacre, a slaveholder went into the woods, accompanied by a faithful
slave, who had been the means of saving his life during the insurrection.
When they had reached a retired place in the forest, the man handed his
gun to his master, informing him that he could not live a slave any
longer, and requesting him either to free him or shoot him on the spot.
The master took the gun, in some trepidation, levelled it at the faithful
negro, and shot him through the heart. It is probable that this
slaveholder was a Dr. Blunt,--his being the only plantation where the
slaves were reported as thus defending their masters. "If this be true,"
said the Richmond _Enquirer_, when it first narrated this instance of
loyalty, "great will be the desert of these noble-minded Africans."
Meanwhile the panic of the whites continued; for, though all others might
be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence
of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made
to represent it as a trifling affair. A distinguished citizen of Virginia
wrote, three months later, to the Hon. W. B. Seabrook of South Carolina,
"From all that has come to my knowledge during and since that affair, I
am convinced most fully that every black preacher in the country east of
the Blue Ridge was in the secret." "There is much reason to believe,"
says the Governor's Message on Dec. 6, "that the spirit of insurrection
was not confined to Southampton. Many convictions have taken place
elsewhere, and some few in distant counties." The withdrawal of the
United States troops, after some ten days' service, was a signal for
fresh excitement; and an address, numerously signed, was presented to the
United States Government, imploring their continued stay. More than three
weeks after the first alarm, the governor sent a supply of arms into
Prince William, Fauquier, and Orange Counties. "From examinations which
have taken place in other counties," says one of the best newspaper
historians of the affair (in the Richmond _Enquirer_ of Sept. 6), "I fear
that the scheme embraced a wider sphere than I at first supposed." Nat
Turner himself, intentionally or otherwise, increased the confusion by
denying all knowledge of the North Carolina outbreak, and declaring that
he had communicated his plans to his four confederates within six months;
while, on the other hand, a slave-girl, sixteen or seventeen years old,
belonging to Solomon Parker, testified that she had heard the subject
discussed for eighteen months, and that at a meeting held during the
previous May some eight or ten had joined the plot.
It is astonishing to discover, by laborious comparison of newspaper
files, how vast was the immediate range of these insurrectionary alarms.
Every Southern State seems to have borne its harvest of terror. On the
eastern shore of Maryland, great alarm was at once manifested, especially
in the neighborhood of Easton and Snowhill; and the houses of colored men
were searched for arms even in Baltimore. In Delaware, there were similar
rumors through Sussex and Dover Counties; there were arrests and
executions; and in Somerset County great public meetings were held, to
demand additional safeguards. On election-day in Seaford, Del., some
young men, going out to hunt rabbits, discharged their guns in sport; the
men being absent, all the women in the vicinity took to flight; the alarm
spread like the "Ipswich Fright"; soon Seaford was thronged with armed
men; and when the boys returned from hunting, they found cannon drawn out
to receive them.
In North Carolina, Raleigh and Fayetteville were put under military
defence, and women and children concealed themselves in the swamps for
many days. The rebel organization was supposed to include two thousand.
Forty-six slaves were imprisoned in Union County, twenty-five in Sampson
County, and twenty-three at least in Duplin County, some of whom were
executed. The panic also extended into Wayne, New Hanover, and Lenoir
Counties. Four men were shot without trial in Wilmington,--Nimrod,
Abraham, Prince, and "Dan the Drayman," the latter a man of seventy,--and
their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. Nearly two
months afterwards the trials were still continuing; and at a still later
day, the governor in his proclamation recommended the formation of
companies of volunteers in every county.
In South Carolina, Gen. Hayne issued a proclamation "to prove the
groundlessness of the existing alarms,"--thus implying that serious
alarms existed. In Macon, Ga., the whole population were roused from
their beds at midnight by a report of a large force of armed negroes five
miles off. In an hour, every woman and child was deposited in the largest
building of the town, and a military force hastily collected in front.
The editor of the Macon _Messenger_ excused the poor condition of his
paper, a few days afterwards, by the absorption of his workmen in patrol
duties and describes "dismay and terror" as the condition of the people
of "all ages and sexes." In Jones, Twiggs, and Monroe Counties, the same
alarms were reported; and in one place "several slaves were tied to a
tree, while a militia captain hacked at them with his sword."
In Alabama, at Columbus and Fort Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint
conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still
greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that
part of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being
apparently founded on one stray copy of the Boston _Liberator_.
In Tennessee, the Shelbyville _Freeman_ announced that an insurrectionary
plot had just been discovered, barely in time for its defeat, through the
treachery of a female slave. In Louisville, Ky., a similar organization
was discovered or imagined, and arrests were made in consequence. "The
papers, from motives of policy, do not notice the disturbance," wrote one
correspondent to the Portland _Courier_. "Pity us!" he added.
But the greatest bubble burst in Louisiana. Capt. Alexander, an English
tourist, arriving in New Orleans at the beginning of September, found the
whole city in tumult. Handbills had been issued, appealing to the slaves
to rise against their masters, saying that all men were born equal,
declaring that Hannibal was a black man, and that they also might have
great leaders among them. Twelve hundred stand of weapons were said to
have been found in a black man's house; five hundred citizens were under
arms, and four companies of regulars were ordered to the city, whose
barracks Alexander himself visited.
If such was the alarm in New Orleans, the story, of course, lost nothing
by transmission to other slave States. A rumor reached Frankfort, Ky.,
that the slaves already had possession of the coast, both above and below
New Orleans. But the most remarkable circumstance is, that all this seems
to have been a mere revival of an old terror once before excited and
exploded. The following paragraph had appeared in the Jacksonville, Ga.,
_Observer_, during the spring previous:--
"FEARFUL DISCOVERY.--We were favored, by yesterday's mail, with a
letter from New Orleans, of May 1, in which we find that an
important discovery had been made a few days previous in that
city. The following is an extract: 'Four days ago, as some
planters were digging under ground, they found a square room
containing eleven thousand stand of arms and fifteen thousand
cartridges, each of the cartridges containing a bullet.' It is
said the negroes intended to rise as soon as the sickly season
began, and obtain possession of the city by massacring the white
population. The same letter states that the mayor had prohibited
the opening of Sunday schools for the instruction of blacks,
under a penalty of five hundred dollars for the first offence,
and, for the second, death."
Such were the terrors that came back from nine other slave States, as the
echo of the voice of Nat Turner. And when it is also known that the
subject was at once taken up by the legislatures of other States, where
there was no public panic, as in Missouri and Tennessee; and when,
finally, it is added that reports of insurrection had been arriving all
that year from Rio Janeiro, Martinique, St. Jago, Antigua, Caraccas, and
Tortola,--it is easy to see with what prolonged distress the accumulated
terror must have weighed down upon Virginia during the two months that
Nat Turner lay hid.
True, there were a thousand men in arms in Southampton County, to inspire
security. But the blow had been struck by only seven men before; and
unless there were an armed guard in every house, who could tell but any
house might at any moment be the scene of new horrors? They might kill or
imprison negroes by day, but could they resist their avengers by night?
"The half cannot be told," wrote a lady from another part of Virginia, at
this time, "of the distresses of the people. In Southampton County, the
scene of the insurrection, the distress beggars description. A gentleman
who has been there says that even here, where there has been great alarm,
we have no idea of the situation of those in that county.... I do not
hesitate to believe that many negroes around us would join in a massacre
as horrible as that which has taken place, if an opportunity should
offer."
Meanwhile the cause of all this terror was made the object of desperate
search. On Sept. 17 the governor offered a reward of five hundred dollars
for his capture; and there were other rewards, swelling the amount to
eleven hundred dollars,--but in vain. No one could track or trap him. On
Sept. 30 a minute account of his capture appeared in the newspapers, but
it was wholly false. On Oct. 7 there was another, and on Oct. 18 another;
yet all without foundation. Worn out by confinement in his little cave,
Nat Turner grew more adventurous, and began to move about stealthily by
night, afraid to speak to any human being, but hoping to obtain some
information that might aid his escape. Returning regularly to his retreat
before daybreak, he might possibly have continued this mode of life until
pursuit had ceased, had not a dog succeeded where men had failed. The
creature accidentally smelt out the provisions hid in the cave, and
finally led thither his masters, two negroes, one of whom was named
Nelson. On discovering the formidable fugitive, they fled precipitately,
when he hastened to retreat in an opposite direction. This was on Oct.
15; and from this moment the neighborhood was all alive with excitement,
and five or six hundred men undertook the pursuit.
It shows a more than Indian adroitness in Nat Turner to have escaped
capture any longer. The cave, the arms, the provisions, were found; and,
lying among them, the notched stick of this miserable Robinson Crusoe,
marked with five weary weeks and six days. But the man was gone. For ten
days more he concealed himself among the wheat-stacks on Mr. Francis's
plantation, and during this time was reduced almost to despair. Once he
decided to surrender himself, and walked by night within two miles of
Jerusalem before his purpose failed him. Three times he tried to get out
of that neighborhood, but in vain: travelling by day was of course out of
the question, and by night he found it impossible to elude the patrol.
Again and again, therefore, he returned to his hiding-place; and, during
his whole two months' liberty, never went five miles from the Cross Keys.
On the 25th of October, he was at last discovered by Mr. Francis as he
was emerging from a stack. A load of buckshot was instantly discharged at
him, twelve of which passed through his hat as he fell to the ground. He
escaped even then; but his pursuers were rapidly concentrating upon him,
and it is perfectly astonishing that he could have eluded them for five
days more.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, a man named Benjamin Phipps, going out for the first
time on patrol duty, was passing at noon a clearing in the woods where a
number of pine-trees had long since been felled. There was a motion among
their boughs; he stopped to watch it; and through a gap in the branches
he saw, emerging from a hole in the earth beneath, the face of Nat
Turner. Aiming his gun instantly, Phipps called on him to surrender. The
fugitive, exhausted with watching and privation, entangled in the
branches, armed only with a sword, had nothing to do but to
yield,--sagaciously reflecting, also, as he afterwards explained, that
the woods were full of armed men, and that he had better trust fortune
for some later chance of escape, instead of desperately attempting it
then. He was correct in the first impression, since there were fifty
armed scouts within a circuit of two miles. His insurrection ended where
it began; for this spot was only a mile and a half from the house of
Joseph Travis.
Tom, emaciated, ragged, "a mere scarecrow," still wearing the hat
perforated with buckshot, with his arms bound to his sides, he was driven
before the levelled gun to the nearest house, that of a Mr. Edwards. He
was confined there that night; but the news had spread so rapidly that
within an hour after his arrival a hundred persons had collected, and the
excitement became so intense "that it was with difficulty he could be
conveyed alive to Jerusalem." The enthusiasm spread instantly through
Virginia; M. Trezvant, the Jerusalem postmaster, sent notices of it far
and near; and Gov. Floyd himself wrote a letter to the Richmond
_Enquirer_ to give official announcement of the momentous capture.
When Nat Turner was asked by Mr. T. R. Gray, the counsel assigned him,
whether, although defeated, he still believed in his own Providential
mission, he answered, as simply as one who came thirty years after him,
"Was not Christ crucified?" In the same spirit, when arraigned before the
court, "he answered, 'Not guilty,' saying to his counsel that he did not
feel so." But apparently no argument was made in his favor by his
counsel, nor were any witnesses called,--he being convicted on the
testimony of Levi Waller, and upon his own confession, which was put in
by Mr. Gray, and acknowledged by the prisoner before the six justices
composing the court, as being "full, free, and voluntary." He was
therefore placed in the paradoxical position of conviction by his own
confession, under a plea of "Not guilty." The arrest took place on the
30th of October, 1831, the confession on the 1st of November, the trial
and conviction on the 5th, and the execution on the following Friday, the
11th of November, precisely at noon. He met his death with perfect
composure, declined addressing the multitude assembled, and told the
sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Another account says that he
"betrayed no emotion, and even hurried the executioner in the performance
of his duty." "Not a limb nor a muscle was observed to move. His body,
after his death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection."
The confession of the captive was published under authority of Mr. Gray,
in a pamphlet, at Baltimore. Fifty thousand copies of it are said to have
been printed; and it was "embellished with an accurate likeness of the
brigand, taken by Mr. John Crawley, portrait-painter, and lithographed by
Endicott & Swett, at Baltimore." The newly established _Liberator_ said
of it, at the time, that it would "only serve to rouse up other leaders,
and hasten other insurrections," and advised grand juries to indict Mr.
Gray. I have never seen a copy of the original pamphlet; it is not easily
to be found in any of our public libraries; and I have heard of but one
as still existing, although the Confession itself has been repeatedly
reprinted. Another small pamphlet, containing the main features of the
outbreak, was published at New York during the same year, and this is in
my possession. But the greater part of the facts which I have given were
gleaned from the contemporary newspapers.
Who now shall go back thirty years, and read the heart of this
extraordinary man, who, by the admission of his captors, "never was known
to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits"; who, on the same
authority, "for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension was
surpassed by few men," "with a mind capable of attaining any thing"; who
knew no book but his Bible, and that by heart; who devoted himself soul
and body to the cause of his race, without a trace of personal hope or
fear; who laid his plans so shrewdly that they came at last with less
warning than any earthquake on the doomed community around; and who, when
that time arrived, took the life of man, woman, and child, without a
throb of compunction, a word of exultation, or an act of superfluous
outrage? Mrs. Stowe's "Dred" seems dim and melodramatic beside the actual
Nat Turner, and De Quincey's "Avenger" is his only parallel in
imaginative literature. Mr. Gray, his counsel, rises into a sort of
bewildered enthusiasm with the prisoner before him. "I shall not attempt
to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by
himself, in the condemned-hole of the prison. The calm, deliberate
composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the
expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm, still
bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him, clothed
with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise his manacled hands
to heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man,--I looked
on him, and the blood curdled in my veins."