How Did Nat Turner Contribute To The Slave Rebellion

Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800 into slavery in Southampton, Virginia, about twenty miles from the North Carolina border. His mother name was Nancy, but nothing is known about his father. “It is noted that no one really knew Nat Turner's real name, what he really looked like or what happened to his body (he was apparently decapitated and his body skinned). One rumor was that he was a mulatto fathered by his master.”(Lee, F. (2004, February 6). Nat Turner experienced separation from his father at a young age, and was therefore raised by his mother and paternal grandmother and took the last name of his owner, which was common during those times when owners had slaves as property. Nat Turner learned to read and incorporated both his African

He was a unique slave because his masters educated him in the early 1800’s. He mostly read the Bible and due to his knowledge, became a Baptist preacher. (Aptheker, H. (n.d). As a slave, he was devoted to his work, and was sometimes given the responsibility to resolve disputes among slaves. He had a good relationship with whites and Joseph Travis, Nat Turners master, would frequently come to a small congregation where Nat Turner preached to slaves. However, this was all interrupted when he was 28 years old and envisioned "white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and blood flowing in streams ("The Good the Bad and the Mad 153). This vision symbolized a spiritual revelation for Turner, as he believed God selected him to take charge of a holy war to end racial inequality along with the white power structure. Other symbolic signs that Nat Turner believed were related to his calling were peculiar lights gleaming late at night in the woods, and voices in his head. After he envisioned the solar eclipse in 1831, he began to assembly other slaves late at night for his divine cause. Calling himself a prophet, Turner began arranging the compilation of killers who were obligated to "rise up and strike down the hated white serpent (The Good the Bad and the Mad). Clearly, Nat Turner gained significant influence over other slaves due to his education, mysticism, and his role as a minister.

Rumors spread that slaves in North Carolina were plotting their own uprising, and white mobs murdered a number of enslaved men, while other slaves were arrested, tried, and a few executed. North Carolina, like Virginia, passed new legislation further restricting the rights of both enslaved people and free blacks. The legislature made it illegal for slaves to preach, to be “insolent” to white people, to carry a gun, to hunt in the woods, to cohabitate with a free black or white person, to own any type of livestock. These new codes also forbade white people from teaching an enslaved person to read. (9.1 Nat Turner's Rebellion.