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TURNER, NAT (1800-1831)

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 479 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TURNER, NAT (1800-1831) , the See also:negro See also:leader of a slave insurrection in See also:Virginia, known as the " See also:Southampton Insurrection," was See also:born in Southampton See also:county, Virginia, in 'Soo. From his childhood he claimed to see visions and hear voices, and he became a Baptist preacher of See also:great See also:influence among the negroes. In 1828 he confided to a few companions that a See also:voice from See also:heaven had announced that " the last shall be first," which was interpreted to mean that the slaves should See also:control. An insurrection was planned, and a See also:solar See also:eclipse in See also:February 1831 and See also:peculiar atmospheric conditions on the 13th of See also:August were accepted as the See also:signal for beginning the See also:work. On the See also:night of the 21st of August 1831, with seven companions, he entered the See also:home of his See also:master, See also:Joseph Travis, and murdered the inmates. After securing guns, horses and liquor they visited other houses, sparing no one. Recruits were added, in some cases by compulsion, until the See also:band numbered about sixty. About See also:noon on the 22nd they were scattered by a small force of whites, hastily gathered. Troops, See also:marines and See also:militia were hurried to the See also:scene, and the negroes were hunted down. In all thirteen men, eighteen See also:women, and twenty-four See also:children had been butchered. After hiding for several See also:weeks Nat was captured on the 3oth of See also:October and was tried and hanged, having made,. meanwhile, a full See also:confession. Nineteen of his associates were hanged and twelve were sent out of the See also:state.

The insurrection, which was attributed to the teachings of the abolitionists, led to the enactment of stricter slave codes. See S. B. Weeks, " Slave Insurrections in Virginia," in See also:

Magazine of See also:American See also:History, vol. xxxi. (New See also:York, 1891), and W. S. Drewry, The Southampton Insurrection (See also:Washington, 1900).

End of Article: TURNER, NAT (1800-1831)

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