Nat Tuner
Nat Turner was born in
Southampton County, Virginia, on October 2, 1800.
He was born into slavery on the plantation of
Benjamin Turner. He gained immortality by leading
a slave revolt in Southampton County in August of
1831. He was five and a half feet tall and
weighed about 150 pounds. He was of a lighter
complexion and wore a trim beard. He was a very
run of the mill slave as far as appearance went.
Turner was far from
ordinary in the other aspects of his person. The
most remarkable of his traits was his passionate
religious conviction. He believed the Holy Spirit
had entered into his body and freed him from all
sin. He felt a direct leading of the Spirit which
determined his actions. He was a religious leader
of the slaves in the Southampton region and was
recognized as a leader of the blacks because of
his charisma and intelligence. Feeling led by the
Spirit to lead an attack on the whites of the
region, Turner and his accomplices set out on
their bloody mission on August 21, 1831. After
three days, he was captured, tried, and hanged.
The debates of 1831-32
were brought about because of Nat Turner's
rebellion, a slave insurrection in Southampton
County, in southeast Virginia. Nat Turner was the
organizer of the rebellion and was raised up by
his fellow slaves as a prophet because of his
extreme religiosity and his intelligence. He
claimed that he had received revelation from the
Holy Spirit since his childhood and the revolt
was a product of one such command. He received a
visit from the Holy Spirit on May 12, 1828 and
was told that the time was coming when the last
would be first and the first would be last (cf.
Matthew 19.30). He was told to keep this
revelation to himself until a further sign had
been given him. That sign came with a solar
eclipse in February of 1831 and plans were made
for an attack on July 4 of the same year. Illness
kept that plan from carrying itself out but
another eclipse on August 13 signaled that the
time had come. Turner and four friends agreed to
meet at the home of Joseph Travis on August 21 to
prepare for their mission and move on the white
families. They attacked the sleeping Travis
family on the night of the August 21, axing all
five members to death before gathering guns,
supplies, and horses. They then rode on the next
residence and continued their campaign until
fifty-five whites, almost all women and children,
were killed in a twenty mile radius of carnage by
rebellious slaves.
The few whites that
were able to escape fled to spread news about the
uprising throughout the district and to Norfolk
and Richmond during the morning of August 22. The
slaves, at the time numbering about 50,
encountered their first resistance on the
afternoon of August 22 in a cornfield outside of
Jerusalem, the county seat of Southampton. A few
blacks were killed during this conflict, but most
retreated or scattered. On the morning of August
23, the slaves were met at Dr. Simon Blunt's
house by armed whites and slaves who brought with
them a barrage of gunfire. This scattered the
troop of blacks in all directions and effectively
put an end to the revolt. All of the blacks
involved were eventually killed or captured, but
the event shook The Virginians that remained in
slave regions experienced a terrible fear of the
presence of blacks among them. Many whites in the
Tidewater fled to Norfolk and other towns
protected by troops and there was a loud outcry
heard for the removal of slavery from the
Commonwealth. The ensuing legislative session
would hear much about the issue.
He General Assembly
convened in 1831 to hear Governor John Floyd's
annual message, which urged the Assembly to
address the current crisis so as to quell the
fears of the citizens and to restore order and
safety to the Commonwealth. His address called
for funds for the removal of free blacks from
Virginia and for the houses to discuss what
further action should be taken. As a result of
Governor Floyd's address, a special committee was
formed by the speaker of the House of Delegates
to discuss the revolt of the past summer and
present the house with possible solutions to the
problem.
The first week of the
assembly saw numerous proposals for the
colonization of free blacks and on December 14,
William Henry Roane of Hanover presented a
petition from the Society of Friends which
proposed the abolition of slavery through the
gradual colonization of slave in Africa. This
proposal sparked intense debate between the
members of the house and divided Tidewater
delegates and those from the heavily agricultural
"south-side" of the James River. By a
vote of 93 to 27, the House of Delegates voted to
refer the petition to the special committee for
further review. This vote was a very encouraging
one to Virginians who hoped and prayed for the
abolition of slavery because the house was
finally opening itself up for debate of the
issue.
On January 2, 1832, a
proposal was sent to the special committee by
Charles J. Faulkner, a Valley representative,
suggesting the gradual emancipation of slaves,
which guaranteed slave holders rights to the
slaves they owned at the time. The committee,
weighted with slave holding easterners, struck
down the proposal. This was the beginning of a
gradual ascent towards debate of gradual
emancipation. On January 11, 1832, Piedmont
Delegate William O. Goode argued that debate on
emancipation placed all of Virginia in grave
danger because of the threat posed by blacks
watching the actions of the Assembly. He proposed
a resolution to table discussion for the safety
of the Commonwealth.
A counter-resolution
was proposed by western Piedmont delegate Thomas
Jefferson Randolph proposing a statewide
referendum on gradual emancipation so that the
people of Virginia could decide the issue rather
than the members of the Assembly, who held a
disproportionate stake in the institution of
slavery. If the majority of the citizens were for
abolition, the process would begin with all
slaves born on or after July 4, 1840, becoming
the property of the Commonwealth. They would be
hired out by the state until enough money had
been raised to provide for their removal from the
country. The debate sparked by these two
proposals was lauded by both newspapers and
citizens that both longed to see their state rid
of slavery and blacks alike. It was the first
time that the abolition of slavery had been
openly and publicly debated in Virginia and the
newspapers overflowed with editorials concerning
the debate.
Factions in the House
of Delegates emerged quickly, with conservatives
who wished to slow any process of emancipation
representing mainly the Piedmont and Tidewater
and abolitionists pushing for complete and
gradual removal of slaves coming from
Trans-Allegheny and the Valley. A group of
moderates stood in the middle and held the
deciding votes necessary for either of the two
sides to prevail. James H. Gholson, a south-side
Piedmont delegate presented the conservative
arguments to the house, contending that slavery
was an eastern interest that should not be
trampled on by westerners. He stated that the
conditions under which slaves lived were
adequate, healthy, and conducive to good
relations between the slave and his community. He
claimed that the Southampton rebellion was an
isolated and solitary incident, which did not
require the radical overhaul of Virginia's
economy and society. Valley delegate James
McDowell and others attacked this conservative
position by pointing out every man's desire for
liberty and freedom. In addition, they depicted
the inconsistency of the conservative stance,
which wanted to cease debate on the issue because
of the possible insurrection, which might occur
among the very slaves about whom they claimed the
most ideal living conditions.
These arguments were
volleyed back and forth between the conservatives
and the abolitionists. The abolitionists were
eventually able to convince enough fence sitters
of the practicality of the plan, and the session
closed with the passage of a statement supporting
the exploration of possible colonizing of slaves.
The mood in the Commonwealth was one of the
anticipation of abolition. That mood would change
by the next fall, a result in large part of the
essay on slavery published by William and Mary
professor Thomas R. Dew at the close of the
1831-32 session.