NAT TURNER'S REBELLION.   Term Paper ID:26742 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines 1831 slave insurrection in Virginia. Background, issues, Turner's motivation & leadership, outcome, white & govt. response.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines 1831 slave insurrection in Virginia. Background, issues, Turner's motivation & leadership, outcome, white & govt. response. Paper Introduction: This research will construct a narrative of the slave revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831, with reference to documents produced at the time of the event. The research will set forth the context in which the Turner rebellion occurred and will discuss the motivation of Turner, the causes of the revolt, and the goals of the rebels. By the time Nat Turner and other slaves killed more than 50 white people in and around Southampton, Virginia, in August of 1831, the slaveholders of the South had little experience that might have prepared them for the realization that the institution of slavery could place their lives in jeopardy. A conspiracy led by Denmark Vesey, a free Negro living in Charleston, North Carolina, had emerged in 1822, partly out of public discourse over the Missouri Compromise (1821), which settled the geogr Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Whites had denied Turnerand other slaves the privilege of being baptized in a church, which pushedthem to construct a baptism ceremony at the river. When a "faithful retainer" revealed the plot, Vesey and 35others were hanged, and another 34 were exiled (Wiltse 71). The New Nation, 18 -1845. "Richmond Whig, September 26, 1831." Nat Turner. "The Insurrection, The Liberator, September 3, 1831." Nat Turner. As the rebelsmoved through the area over the course of a day and a half, accumulatingweapons and additional slaves in the mission, more white men, women, andchildren were killed indiscriminately. Ed. How the supposed benevolence of Turner's master and Turner's ownpreoccupation with Christianity could be reconciled with the murder spreeseems inexplicable, until the shape of Turner's religious experienceemerges. Educated blacks, he reasons, might bebetter prepared to accomplish their freedom, possibly by civil war.Another view of black education was articulated in the New York DailySentinel, that educated blacks--as opposed to the supposedly ignorantslaves who followed Turner (New York 77)--would not have even tried torevolt. Eric Foner. Eric Foner. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. . Gray cautions antislavery advocatesagainst "preaching up equality" and education, which can only inflame theimaginations of ignorant blacks. Eric Foner. Abolitionist reaction to the rebellion was that itwas the logical outcome of slavery. Ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1971. By Turner's ownaccount, Turner's master, Joseph Travis, was "to me a kind master andplaced the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complainof his treatment to me" (Turner 126). Grayis to be taken as the truth. Some Northern sources echoed the view that future revoltscould result in extermination of "the entire colored population"(Insurrectionary 78). Ed. 24-29."Insurrectionary Movements, Columbus Ohio State Journal, October 2 , 1831." Nat Turner. The action wasformulated as "the work of death," and it seems to have targeted all whitepeople. Willie Lee Rose. Within several days, all rebels were killed orcaptured, with 55 eventually being executed. While not endorsing the murders,Garrison (83) exhibits perfunctory sympathy for the whites: "Of all menliving, however, our slaves have the best reason to assert their rights byviolent measures, inasmuch as they are more oppressed than others."Elsewhere, Garrison (83) makes the point that Southern whites should feelinsecure about their safety and not delude themselves into thinking thatslaves are content. 17-22.Turner, Nat. Ed. Ed. His sense of greatness andpurpose, however, was lent resonance in February 1831 by a solar eclipseand by his interpretation of natural shapes as signs from heaven. Turner also reported avision of the Holy Spirit in which it was revealed that "the time was fastapproaching when the first should be last and the last should be first"(Turner 126). Challenged by Thomas R. 79.Garrison, William Lloyd. Ed. Eric Foner. This research will construct a narrative of the slave revolt led byNat Turner in 1831, with reference to documents produced at the time of theevent. 14-16.---. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Eric Foner. Some 2 blacks who hadnothing to do with the rebellion also fell to mob violence from the whitesof the area (Pleasants 19). . Whites were puzzled about the motives of Turner. Beyond this, the objectives of the rebellion do not appearto have been sharply formulated, if Turner's confession to Thomas R. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. In other words, after NatTurner, the South was retrenching and hardening its position rather thaninterrogating the institution, and was being helped in the enterprise bycertain quarters in the North. and seemed to be his ultimatum; for farther, he gave noclue to his design." Slave insurrections were also rumored to have broken out in NorthCarolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Delaware, and Maryland("Insurrectionary" 78; Garrison 83). 78."New York Daily Sentinel, September 17, 1831." Nat Turner. 4, 1831, Richmond Whig, September 8, 1831." Nat Turner. By the time Nat Turner and other slaves killed more than 5 whitepeople in and around Southampton, Virginia, in August of 1831, theslaveholders of the South had little experience that might have preparedthem for the realization that the institution of slavery could place theirlives in jeopardy. In response, private citizens aswell as army troops from Richmond, Norfolk, and other towns moved into thearea to pursue the rebels. "The Liberator, September 24, 1831." Nat Turner. Eric Foner. 1 , 1831, New York Morning Courier and Enquirer, September 17, 1831." Nat Turner. Ed. Emancipation, coupled with transport to a foreigncolony, was viewed as a sensible alternative. The fact thatthe rebellion came to nothing was by no means proof to Turner that hisspiritual mission had been misdirected. The fact that repercussions of Nat Turner's rebellion would bestrongly felt, notably in the form of greater restrictions on slavebehavior and an entrenchment of racism, can be discerned in newspaperaccounts of the event. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. 23-4."Extract of a Letter from Southampton, to a Gentleman in this City, Dated Cedardale, Sept. Ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Newspapers of the South appear to have been heartened by papers in theNorth that expressed "generous sympathy" to the whites victimized byTurner's revolt. Eric Foner. Spiritual experience and imagination appear to have fostered inTurner the comportment of a prophet and the conviction that he had been"ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty" (Turner124). "The Confession." A Documentary History of Slavery in North America. Athens, Ga.: U of Georgia P, 1999. In any case, his convictions had beenfrustrated by the social realities of slavery. By 1831,public discourse of slavery and antagonistic North-South debate hadheightened with the appearance of Garrison's abolitionist newspaper TheLiberator. 123-34.Wiltse, Charles M. Nevertheless, Nat Turner's slave rebellion was not anticipated,and this fact is supported by the commentary that contained a good dealof speculation about the revolt's causes and Turner's motives. 22."Fredericksburg Arena, Cited in Alexandria Phenix Gazette, September 9, 1831." Nat Turner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. Ed. 83.---. He and several fellow slaves hadoriginally intended to carry out the mission on July 4, 1831, a date loadedwith significance, but action was delayed until August 21. Whites believed that Turner's religious orientation was phony andthat Turner was simply "one of those fanatical scoundrels, that pretendedto be divinely inspired" (Extract 22). Eric Foner. Further, Turner had been reared inand had absorbed much biblical scripture. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. 76-7.Pleasants, John Hampden. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1971. Eric Foner. The implication is that Turner and the others had formed the ideathat the only way out of slavery, or as it were the only effective means ofself-assertion, was the extermination of the slaveholders. . Ed. The objectives of the rebelsremained mysterious beyond the view that they were "stimulated exclusivelyby fanatical revenge, and perhaps misled by some hallucination of[Turner's] imagined spirit of prophecy" (Pleasants 16). Ed. Ed. Turner hid himself in a warren dug near afarmhouse and surrendered weeks later. Hebelieved the eclipse was a sign that the day of judgment was imminent andthat it was time to "arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies withtheir own weapons" (Turner 126). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. "Richmond Whig, August 29, 1831." Nat Turner. Gray onwhether he had been divinely inspired, Turner answered: "Was not Christcrucified?" In the late night of August 21, 1831, the killing began when Turnerand six others axed and bludgeoned the entire Travis family. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. But the fact of slavery perforce stuntedany meaningful assertion on Turner's part. .studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery,devoting my time to fasting and prayer" (Turner 124). Richmond Whig, September 3, 1831, Southampton Affair." Nat Turner. The actionsand goals of the rebellion were tied to Turner's apocalyptic vision of theend of slavery. Over a period of several years there was an accretion ofsigns, symbols, and interpretations that, in Turner's mind, seemed to havebeen connected to the unbreakable condition of slavery. Works Cited"Extract of a Letter from a Friend, Dated Petersburg, Sept. As Gray(29) puts it: "His object was freedom and indiscriminate carnage hiswatchword . In fact, the "Southampton Tragedy," asnewspapers in both the North and South called the revolt, appears to havebeen highly localized in the rural plantation country of southeasternVirginia, near the North Carolina border. Pleasants (14)cites--and repudiates--rumors that the slaves involved in the revoltnumbered up to 1,2 and that Turner and his followers intended to seize aship at Norfolk and set sail for Africa and freedom (16). Pleasants's report of the mob killings ofinnocent blacks regrets the action in general, but offers an apology (19)for the mob and predicts that "another such insurrection will be the signalfor the extirpation of the whole black population in the quarter of theState where it occurs." Similarly, a white Petersburg resident writes that"another such an enterprise will end in total extermination of their racein the southern country" (Extract 24). Turner's confession cites hispreoccupation with the spiritual content of Christian narrative: "I . A letter fromPetersburg, Virginia, printed in the New York Morning Courier and Enquirerdeclared that plunder was the objective of the rebellion ("Extract" 23) andthat the conspiracy had been planned at a mass Negro baptism at the river.It turned out that plunder, pillage, and rape were specifically not part ofthe rebellion (Pleasants 15), and the number of conspirators was limited tosix; additional rebels were accumulated along the murder path. The absence of a well-organized strategy onthe part of Turner and his followers did not prevent speculation that theywere highly organized and had formulated a detailed plan. This period wascoincident with Turner's late twenties, a time in which assertions ofadulthood are likely to emerge. Reaction in the South demonstrates how much moral weight was attachedto the preservation of slavery. Eric Foner. "William Lloyd Garrison to Laroy Sutherland." Nat Turner. A conspiracy led by Denmark Vesey, a free Negro livingin Charleston, North Carolina, had emerged in 1822, partly out of publicdiscourse over the Missouri Compromise (1821), which settled thegeographical boundaries of slavery in the territory of the LouisianaPurchase. It does not appear to have occurred to any whites that Turner'sreligious sensibility was authentic. 83.Gray, Thomas R. Eric Foner. 8 -3.Garrison, William Lloyd. The research will set forth the context in which the Turnerrebellion occurred and will discuss the motivation of Turner, the causes ofthe revolt, and the goals of the rebels. It is clear that Turner's leadership role was central to therebellion, and there was a religious component to that role. He was hanged in November 1831(Rose 122-3). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.