Nat Turner led the largest slave uprising in American history, murdering 60 white men, women and children with a mob of slaves in Virginia. When Turner was finally caught, he was transported to the county sheriff and held in the county jail in Virginia. Thomas Ruffin Gray, a white Southampton County lawyer, accepted the task of recording Turner's confessions. Turner begins his story by describing his childhood where he explains how the adults around him held him up as a "prophet.” This later led him to feel that he was being called to "slay my enemies with their own weapons." Most of Turner's confession is a step-by-step description of the revolt itself. Nat Turner comes off as intelligent, articulate, charismatic, and a bit spiritual. He is also unusually calm about his rebellion and even his imminent execution. …show more content…
The confession was used against Turner during his trial and the effects of the rebellion in the South were severe for many who didn’t deserve it. Many slaves who had no involvement in the rebellion were murdered out of suspicion or for revenge. Gray’s pamphlet was then used for the purposes of viewers with vastly different agendas. It gave slaveholders and their sympathizers a probable explanation for the revolt and was used as a valuable weapon against northern abolitionists. The confession helped place the blame on a single leader who was acting under unusual conditions. However, it also gave northern abolitionists a champion and a martyr for a growing movement. It gave historians and students of later generations a definitive narrative of the event directly from the mouth of the “Rebel Hero”