African American History
In August 1831, Nat Turner struck fear into the hearts of
white Southerners by leading the only effective slave rebellion in the U.S.
history. Born on a small plantation in Southampton County, Virginia, Turner
inherited a passionate hatred of slavery from his African–born mother and came
to see himself as anointed by God to lead his people out of bondage.
In early 1831, Turner took a solar eclipse as a sign that
the time for revolution was near, and on the night of August 21, he and a small
band of followers murdered his owners, the Travis family, and set off toward
the town of Jerusalem, where they planned to capture an armory and gather more
recruits.
The group, which eventually numbered around 75 blacks,
murdered some 60 whites in two days before armed resistance from local whites
and the arrival of state militia forces overwhelmed them just outside
Jerusalem.
Some 100 slaves, including innocent bystanders, lost their
lives in the struggle. Turner escaped and spent six weeks on the run before he
was captured, tried, and hanged.
Oft–exaggerated reports of the insurrection—some said that
hundreds of whites had been killed—sparked a wave of anxiety across the South.
Several states called special emergency sessions of the legislature and most strengthened their slave codes in order to limit the
education, movement, and assembly of slaves.
While supporters of slavery pointed to the Turner rebellion
as evidence that blacks were inherently inferior barbarians requiring an
institution such as slavery to discipline them, the increased repression of
southern blacks would strengthen anti-slavery feeling in the North through the
1860s and intensify the regional tensions building toward civil war.