By Sebastian E.
Description: Nat Turner
Image copyright: http://www.denacwilliams.com/nat-turner.jpg
(1800 – 1831)
Southampton County, Virginia
Turner, Nathaniel a former slave led a rebellion against slave owners killing 56 women, men, and children. 1. Nathaniel Turner was a slave born in October 2, 1800 in Southampton County, Virginia. Samuel Turner owned him. 2. During his early years his parents and grandmother encouraged him to be well educated and fight against slavery, so his master’s son taught him how to read and write. He was also very religious and was very interested in reading the Bible. 3. When Turner got older he started preaching to his fellow slaves. Due to this the slaves dubbed him as the “prophet”. Then he started having visions, which he said that they were messages from God. On May 12, 1828 he had a vision that God had laid down the yoke and it was his turn to fight. Tuner interpreted the message as a signal to start a rebellion. 4. Turner had planned the rebellion for July 4, 1831 because in February he had seen an eclipse and took that as a black man’s hand reaching over the moon giving him the signal to attack. Unfortunately they couldn’t start because his followers were sick, so they rescheduled it to August 13th because there was another eclipse, so he took it as the last signal. 5. Finally on August 21, 8 slaves (including Nat) killed 56 women and children recruiting slaves along the way. Nat even killed his owner. This was the most famous slave revolt in American history. After hours of killing, the Virginia Militia captured and hung about 20 slaves including Turner on November 11, 1831. As a result of the rebellion angry whites killed about 100 innocent slaves.