Nat Turner'S Rebellion was the most significant slave revolt in United States history. Under the leadership of Nat Turner, a thirty-one-year-old religious mystic, a group of enslaved people in Southampton County, Virginia, conspired to strike a blow to the system. On 21 August 1831 Turner and six followers attacked and killed Turner's owner and the owner's family, gathered arms and ammunition, and set out to gain support from other slaves. Turner's force grew to about seventy-five, and they killed approximately sixty whites. On 23 August, while en route to the county seat at Jerusalem, the rebels encountered a large force of white volunteers and trained militia and were defeated. Turner escaped and attempted unsuccessfully to gather other supporters. He was captured on 30 October, sentenced to death by hanging on 5 November after a brief trial, and executed on 11 November. Several of his followers had been hanged earlier.
The incident sparked a reign of terror resulting in the murder of a number of innocent blacks, the passage of more stringent slave laws, and the more vigorous enforcement of existing statutes. The immediate effect of the rebellion on the attitudes of blacks toward slavery and toward themselves is difficult to document, but there is evidence that Turner's example of resistance lived on in the collective memory of the black community.
Bibliography
Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion. Prometheus Books: New York, 1966.
Foner, Eric. Nat Turner. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Oates, Stephen B. The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
Tragle, Henry Irving. The Southampton Slave Revolt of1831: A Compilation of Source Material. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1971.
