Turner, Nat

Turner, Nat

(1800–31) leader of slave insurrection; born in Southampton County, Va. He was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and hired out to John Travis (in the 1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader of African-American slaves on Benjamin Turner's plantation and in his Southampton County, Va., neighborhood, claiming that he was chosen by God to lead them from bondage. Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, he was convinced by an eclipse of the sun (1831) that the time to rise up had come and he enlisted the help of four other slaves in the area. An insurrection was planned, aborted, and rescheduled; then, on August 21–22, he and six other slaves killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other slaves in a disorganized insurrection that resulted in only the murder of 51 white people. Afterwards, he hid nearby successfully for six weeks until his discovery, conviction, and hanging at Jerusalem, Va., along with 16 of his followers. The incident put fear in the heart of Southerners, ended the organized emancipation movement in that region, resulted in even harsher laws against slaves, and deepened the schism between slaveholders and free-soilers that would culminate in the Civil War.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Turner, Nat

 

Born Oct. 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Va.; died Nov. 11, 1831, in Jerusalem (present-day Courtland), Va. Leader of a Negro slave rebellion in the USA.

Turner, a slave all his life, learned to read and write and later became a preacher. A deeply religious man, he believed he was responsible for carrying out the will of god. In 1831 he organized and led a slave revolt (seeNAT TURNER REBELLION OF 1831). The rebellion was defeated, and Turner went into hiding; however, he was arrested on October 30 and later hanged. While in prison, Turner dictated the story of his life to a journalist.

REFERENCE

Aptheker, H. Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion. New York, 1966.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.