Despite its horrors, slavery is an unavoidable part of American history, as its practice shaped the economy, politics, and societal norms in ways that, sadly, still resonate today. This brutal institution (which officially lasted some 250 years until it was abolished in 1865) didn’t go unchallenged. Enslaved people resisted in countless ways against their masters, and these moments of rebellion were often very subtle acts of defiance. However, the pages of history have recorded instances of full-scale uprisings, which were usually rare due to the overwhelming force that was used to suppress them.
But they did happen. From the Stono Rebellion of 1739 to Gabriel Prosser’s failed plot in 1800, slaves fought for their freedom against their merciless oppressors and against insurmountable odds. Yet, no rebellion captured the nation’s attention as Nat Turner’s uprising in 1831. Admittedly, no rebellion in U.S. history was as fiercely mythologized as Nat Turner’s rebellion, and its legacy has been shaped by fear, propaganda, and historical facts, often in disproportionate measures at the expense of facts themselves.
To be entirely honest, the pages of history recorded little of Nat Turner himself, and very little is known about the man beyond what Thomas R. Gray wrote in The Confessions of Nat Turner. According to his work, Nat was born into slavery on a Southampton plantation on October 2, 1800. Unlike the vast majority of the enslaved population, Nat could read and write, but it’s never mentioned whether he taught himself or was taught by someone else. He’s described as a religious man who owned a Bible.
He also had a family, a wife, and son, who lived on a neighboring farm. As a deeply religious person, much of his time was devoted to fasting and prayer, during which he, as described by Gray, experienced revelations, because of which he began believing that he was divinely chosen to lead his people out of slavery. After visions convinced him that it was time to act, Turner and four more conspirators and two new recruits began a predawn attack against the farm where Nat Turner lived. This happened on August 21, 1831.
Turner himself struck the first blow. The rebels killed Turner’s enslaver, his family, and every white person they encountered while gathering arms and fresh recruits at plantations whose owners they killed. In total, around 55 white men, women, and children were killed by rebels as the latter made their way towards Jerusalem (today’s Courtland). Unfortunately for Nat Turner and his rebels, the rebellion was completely squashed by organized resistance, which caused Turner and other rebels to retreat and regroup.
However, on August 22, 1831, the series of defeats completely extinguished the remaining cinders of rebellion that blazed too briefly. Nat Turner successfully eluded various search parties for two months before he was ultimately captured. The rebellion had a horrific aftermath for both the enslaved and free Blacks, as the panic caused by the rebellion fueled violent retribution against innocent Black people across the South. Despite the orders of both civil and military authorities, white vigilantes tortured, maimed, and killed dozens of enslaved and free persons of color suspected of complicity.
Historians believe that as many as 120 Black men, women, and children were murdered, most of which actually had nothing to do with Nat Turner’s rebellion, as a result. The editor of Richmond Whig described the retribution as “the slaughter of many Blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity.” In the weeks and months following Nat Turner’s rebellion and his eventual capture, dozens of suspected rebels and their conspirators were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
While some were found innocent or were simply sold out of state, 18 of them were hanged. Nat Turner himself was also hanged, and some sources say that he was beheaded to deter further rebellion. According to John W. Cromwell and Christine Gibson, Nat’s body was dissected and flayed, and his skin was used to make souvenir purses, while his skeleton was later used as a medical specimen.
It’s important to note that The Confessions of Nat Turner by Thomas R. Gray offers historical insight but also contains some facts that are significantly distorted. Gray claimed to have transcribed Turner’s words while he awaited execution and that the text provides crucial details about Turner’s motivations and religious fervor. However, Gray was a slavery apologist and a white man with his own agenda. He shaped Turner’s narrative for white audiences, portraying him as both a religious fanatic and a bloodthirsty killer, which only reinforced certain myths over time.
This also obscured the complexities of Nat Turner’s character and cause. Historian David F. Allmendinger Jr. noted that while Nat lived on the farm of his enslaver, his son Joseph Travis lived on Piety Reese’s nearby farm. Days before Nat even approached his conspirators, Turner learned that Reese’s son, John W., put Nat’s son up as collateral for a debt that Reese struggled to pay off. This meant that he could very likely be separated from his son and that he wanted to put a stop to the practice that destroyed human lives.
In the end, it’s entirely possible that Nat Turner was inspired by a combination of familiar, religious, and other unrecorded motives; his rebellion remains among the most consequential in U.S. history. It terrified slaveholders and further intensified debates over slavery, contributing to the growing tensions that would eventually culminate in a Civil War. And while it’s often filtered through fear, propaganda, and even artistic interpretation — like in The Birth of a Nation — Nat Turner’s rebellion was a desperate fight for liberation. And that’s a fact.