Nat Turner's Rebellion
Encyclopedia
Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave rebellion
that took place in Southampton County
, Virginia during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner
, rebel slaves killed anywhere from 55–65 white people
, the highest number of fatalities caused by slave uprisings in the South
. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for over two months afterward.
In the aftermath, there was widespread fear, and white militias organized in retaliation against slaves. The state executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In the frenzy, many innocent enslaved people were punished. At least 100 blacks
, and possibly up to 200, were killed by militias and mobs. Across the South, state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.
, Virginia, an area with predominantly more blacks than whites. After the rebellion, a reward notice described Turner as:
Turner was highly intelligent, and learned how to read and write at a young age. He grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting, praying or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible. He frequently had visions
, which he interpreted as messages from God. These visions greatly influenced his life. For instance, when Turner was 21 years old he ran away from his owner, Samuel Turner, but returned a month later after becoming delirious from hunger and receiving a vision that told him to, "...return to the service of my earthly master." In 1824, while working in the fields under his new owner, Thomas Moore, Turner had his second vision, in which "the Saviour was about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and the great day of judgment was at hand." Turner often conducted Baptist
services, and preached the Bible to his fellow slaves, who dubbed him "The Prophet
."
Turner also had an influence over white people. In the case of Ethelred T. Brantley, Turner said that he was able to convince Brantley to "cease from his wickedness." By the spring of 1828, Turner was convinced that he "was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty." While working in his owner's fields on May 12, Turner "heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit
instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent
was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first."
In 1830, Joseph Travis purchased Turner and became his master. Turner later recalled that Travis was "a kind master" who had "placed the greatest confidence in me." Despite the decent treatment received from Travis, Turner eagerly anticipated God's signal to start his task of "slay[ing] my enemies with their own weapons." Turner witnessed a solar eclipse
on February 12, 1831 and was convinced that this was the sign from God. Following in the steps of the late Denmark Vesey
, he started preparations for a rebellion
against the white slaveholders of Southampton County by buying muskets. Turner "communicated the great work laid out [for me] to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence" – his fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson and Sam.
Turner started with a few trusted fellow slaves, but the insurgency ultimately numbered more than 70 enslaved and free
blacks, some of whom were mounted on horseback. On August 13, 1831, an atmospheric disturbance made the sun
appear bluish-green. Turner took this as the final signal, and began the rebellion a week later on August 21. The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing all the white people they encountered.
Because the rebels did not want to alert anyone, they got rid of their muskets and used knives, hatchets, axes, and blunt instruments instead of firearms. (The latter also would have been more difficult for them to collect.) Historian Stephen B. Oates
states that Turner called on his group to "kill all the white people." A contemporary newspaper noted, "Turner declared that 'indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they attained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm.'" The group spared a few homes "because Turner believed the poor white inhabitants 'thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes.'"
The rebels spared almost no one whom they encountered. A small child who hid in a fireplace was among the few survivors. The slaves killed approximately sixty white men, women and children before Turner and his brigade of insurgents were defeated. A white militia
with twice the manpower of the rebels and reinforced by three companies
of artillery
eventually defeated the insurrection.
and USS Warren
, which were anchored in Norfolk
, and militias from counties in Virginia and North Carolina
surrounding Southampton. The state executed 56 blacks. Militias killed at least 100 blacks
, and probably many more. Another estimate is that up to 200 blacks were killed. The number of black victims overall far exceeded the number of rebels or of white victims.
Rumors quickly spread that the slave revolt was not limited to Southhampton, and that it had expanded as far south as Alabama. Fears led to reports in North Carolina that "armies" of slaves were seen on highways, had burned and massacred the inhabitants of Wilmington
, and were marching on the state capital. Such fear and alarm led to whites' attacking blacks across the South with flimsy cause–the editor of the Richmond Whig, writing "with pain," described the scene as "the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity." Two weeks after the rebellion had been suppressed, the violence against the blacks continued. General Eppes ordered troops and white citizens to stop the killing:
In a letter to the New York Evening Post
, Reverend G. W. Powell wrote that "many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known."
A company of militia from Hertford County, North Carolina
reportedly killed 40 blacks in one day and took $23 and a gold watch from the dead. Captain Solon Borland, who led a contingent from Murfreesboro, North Carolina
, condemned the acts "because it was tantamount to theft from the white owners of the slaves." Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia. "Their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation."
Turner eluded capture for months. On October 30 a White farmer, Benjamin Phipps, discovered him in a hole covered with fence rails, and Turner was then arrested. A trial was quickly arranged. On November 5, 1831, Nat Turner was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia.
After Turner's capture, a local lawyer Thomas Ruffin Gray wrote and published The Confessions of Nat Turner. The book was the result both of Gray's research while Turner was in hiding and of his conversations with Turner before the trial. This document remains the primary window into Turner's mind. Because of the author's obvious conflict of interest, historians disagree on whether to assess it as insight into Gray rather than Turner.
passed new legislation making it unlawful to teach slaves, free blacks, or mulattoes to read or write. The General Assembly also passed a law restricting all blacks from holding religious meetings without the presence of a licensed white minister. Other slave-holding states across the South enacted similar laws restricting activities of slaves and free blacks.
Some free blacks chose to move their families north to obtain educations for their children. Some individual white people, such as a young teacher named Thomas J. Jackson (better known to history as "Stonewall Jackson
") and another named Mary Smith Peake, chose to violate the laws and teach slaves to read. Overall, the laws enacted in the aftermath of the Turner Rebellion enforced widespread illiteracy among slaves. It persisted; 35 years later, most newly freed slaves and many free blacks in the South were illiterate at the end of the American Civil War
.
officers and soldiers, and wealthy philanthropists were inspired to create and fund educational efforts specifically for the betterment of African Americans in the South. With the Freedmen's Bureau
, the American Missionary Association
(AMA) led the effort to establish basic schools for elementary learning, and created normal school
s to train teachers. Examples of such schools were those historically black colleges (HBCU) that grew to become Hampton University
and Tuskegee University
. The AMA founded a total of eleven colleges in Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Mississippi.
There were great gains in education, with the majority of southern blacks achieving literacy by 1900, and 30,000 teachers having been trained and put to work in the South. The needs continued to be great, and the black community continued to reach for education after the turn of the 20th century. Agricultural depression, crop failures and segregation meant there was little money for states to spend, and they consistently underfunded black education and services.
Concerned about consistent underfunding of rural black schools in the South, the entrepreneur and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald
partnered with Dr. Booker T. Washington
of Tuskegee University to develop a program of matching funds to stimulate community cooperation in building and maintaining new schools. In the 1920s and 1930s, more than 5,000 schools were built with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. Other wealthy philanthropists such as Henry H. Rogers
, Andrew Carnegie
, and George Eastman
also contributed to historically black colleges and other education initiatives in these decades. Each of the men had risen from modest roots to become wealthy businessmen.
notes that Nat Turner had ordered his followers to "kill all the white people," including women and children. The rebels killed approximately 60 white men, women, and children. Most were hacked to death with axes, stabbed, or bludgeoned. The most numerous casualties were children. In one instance, Turner and his insurgents stopped at the house of Levi Waller where they killed him, his wife, and children. Ten of the children were decapitated and their headless bodies piled in the front yard.
Nat Turner's Rebellion resulted in a fierce white response motivated by fear and desire for revenge. Planters and white militias throughout the South conducted vigilante justice, killing slaves and other persons of African descent, many of whom had no connection with the rebellion.
Slave rebellion
A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveholders...
that took place in Southampton County
Southampton County, Virginia
As of the census of 2010, there were 18,570 people, 6,279 households, and 4,502 families residing in the county. The population density was 29 people per square mile . There were 7,058 housing units at an average density of 12 per square mile...
, Virginia during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner
Nat Turner
Nathaniel "Nat" Turner was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831 that resulted in 60 white deaths and at least 100 black deaths, the largest number of fatalities to occur in one uprising prior to the American Civil War in the southern United States. He gathered...
, rebel slaves killed anywhere from 55–65 white people
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, the highest number of fatalities caused by slave uprisings in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for over two months afterward.
In the aftermath, there was widespread fear, and white militias organized in retaliation against slaves. The state executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In the frenzy, many innocent enslaved people were punished. At least 100 blacks
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, and possibly up to 200, were killed by militias and mobs. Across the South, state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.
Nat Turner's background
Turner was an enslaved American who had lived his entire life in Southampton CountySouthampton County, Virginia
As of the census of 2010, there were 18,570 people, 6,279 households, and 4,502 families residing in the county. The population density was 29 people per square mile . There were 7,058 housing units at an average density of 12 per square mile...
, Virginia, an area with predominantly more blacks than whites. After the rebellion, a reward notice described Turner as:
5 feet 6 or 8 inches high, weighs between 150 and 160 pounds, rather "bright" [light-colored] complexion, but not a mulattoMulattoMulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
, broad shoulders, larger flat nose, large eyes, broad flat feet, rather knockneed, walks brisk and active, hair on the top of the head very thin, no beard, except on the upper lip and the top of the chin, a scar on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, a large knot on one of the bones of his right arm, near the wrist, produced by a blow.
Turner was highly intelligent, and learned how to read and write at a young age. He grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting, praying or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible. He frequently had visions
Vision (religion)
In spirituality, a vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation.Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations...
, which he interpreted as messages from God. These visions greatly influenced his life. For instance, when Turner was 21 years old he ran away from his owner, Samuel Turner, but returned a month later after becoming delirious from hunger and receiving a vision that told him to, "...return to the service of my earthly master." In 1824, while working in the fields under his new owner, Thomas Moore, Turner had his second vision, in which "the Saviour was about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and the great day of judgment was at hand." Turner often conducted Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
services, and preached the Bible to his fellow slaves, who dubbed him "The Prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
."
Turner also had an influence over white people. In the case of Ethelred T. Brantley, Turner said that he was able to convince Brantley to "cease from his wickedness." By the spring of 1828, Turner was convinced that he "was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty." While working in his owner's fields on May 12, Turner "heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent
Serpent (Bible)
Serpent is the term used to translate a variety of words in the Hebrew bible, the most common being , , the generic word for "snake"....
was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first."
In 1830, Joseph Travis purchased Turner and became his master. Turner later recalled that Travis was "a kind master" who had "placed the greatest confidence in me." Despite the decent treatment received from Travis, Turner eagerly anticipated God's signal to start his task of "slay[ing] my enemies with their own weapons." Turner witnessed a solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...
on February 12, 1831 and was convinced that this was the sign from God. Following in the steps of the late Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States...
, he started preparations for a rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
against the white slaveholders of Southampton County by buying muskets. Turner "communicated the great work laid out [for me] to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence" – his fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson and Sam.
Rebellion
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
blacks, some of whom were mounted on horseback. On August 13, 1831, an atmospheric disturbance made the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
appear bluish-green. Turner took this as the final signal, and began the rebellion a week later on August 21. The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing all the white people they encountered.
Because the rebels did not want to alert anyone, they got rid of their muskets and used knives, hatchets, axes, and blunt instruments instead of firearms. (The latter also would have been more difficult for them to collect.) Historian Stephen B. Oates
Stephen B. Oates
Stephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
states that Turner called on his group to "kill all the white people." A contemporary newspaper noted, "Turner declared that 'indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they attained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm.'" The group spared a few homes "because Turner believed the poor white inhabitants 'thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes.'"
The rebels spared almost no one whom they encountered. A small child who hid in a fireplace was among the few survivors. The slaves killed approximately sixty white men, women and children before Turner and his brigade of insurgents were defeated. A white militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
with twice the manpower of the rebels and reinforced by three companies
Company (military unit)
A company is a military unit, typically consisting of 80–225 soldiers and usually commanded by a Captain, Major or Commandant. Most companies are formed of three to five platoons although the exact number may vary by country, unit type, and structure...
of artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
eventually defeated the insurrection.
Retaliation
Within a day of the suppression of the rebellion, the local militia and three companies of artillery were joined by detachments of men from the USS NatchezUSS Natchez (1827)
The first USS Natchez was a sloop-of-war in the United States Navy.Natchez was built by Norfolk Navy Yard in 1827, commanded by Commander George Budd, departed Hampton Roads on 26 July 1827 for the Caribbean...
and USS Warren
USS Warren (1827)
The fourth USS Warren was a second-class sloop-of-war in the United States Navy.Warren was built at the Boston Navy Yard between 1825 and 1827 and was commissioned at her builders on 14 January 1827, Master Commandant Lawrence Kearny in command....
, which were anchored in Norfolk
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, and militias from counties in Virginia and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
surrounding Southampton. The state executed 56 blacks. Militias killed at least 100 blacks
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, and probably many more. Another estimate is that up to 200 blacks were killed. The number of black victims overall far exceeded the number of rebels or of white victims.
Rumors quickly spread that the slave revolt was not limited to Southhampton, and that it had expanded as far south as Alabama. Fears led to reports in North Carolina that "armies" of slaves were seen on highways, had burned and massacred the inhabitants of Wilmington
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...
, and were marching on the state capital. Such fear and alarm led to whites' attacking blacks across the South with flimsy cause–the editor of the Richmond Whig, writing "with pain," described the scene as "the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity." Two weeks after the rebellion had been suppressed, the violence against the blacks continued. General Eppes ordered troops and white citizens to stop the killing:
He [the General] will not specify all the instances that he is bound to believe have occurred, but pass in silence what has happened, with the expression of his deepest sorrow, that any necessity should be supposed to have existed, to justify a single act of atrocity. But he feels himself bound to declare, and hereby announces to the troops and citizens, that no excuse will be allowed for any similar acts of violence, after the promulgation of this order.
In a letter to the New York Evening Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, Reverend G. W. Powell wrote that "many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known."
A company of militia from Hertford County, North Carolina
Hertford County, North Carolina
-Townships:The county is divided into six townships:Ahoskie, Como, Harrellsville, Murfreesboro, St. Johns and Winton.-Towns:*Ahoskie*Cofield*Como*Harrellsville*Murfreesboro*Winton-Demographics:...
reportedly killed 40 blacks in one day and took $23 and a gold watch from the dead. Captain Solon Borland, who led a contingent from Murfreesboro, North Carolina
Murfreesboro, North Carolina
Murfreesboro is a town in Hertford County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,045 at the 2000 census. Murfreesboro is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region.-Geography:Murfreesboro is located at ....
, condemned the acts "because it was tantamount to theft from the white owners of the slaves." Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia. "Their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation."
Aftermath
The rebellion was suppressed within 48 hours. In the aftermath of the revolt, 48 black men and women were tried on charges of conspiracy, insurrection, and treason. "In total, the state executed 55 people, banished many more, and acquitted a few. The state reimbursed the slaveholders for their slaves. But in the hysterical climate that followed the rebellion, close to 200 black people were killed by white militias and mobs.Turner eluded capture for months. On October 30 a White farmer, Benjamin Phipps, discovered him in a hole covered with fence rails, and Turner was then arrested. A trial was quickly arranged. On November 5, 1831, Nat Turner was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia.
After Turner's capture, a local lawyer Thomas Ruffin Gray wrote and published The Confessions of Nat Turner. The book was the result both of Gray's research while Turner was in hiding and of his conversations with Turner before the trial. This document remains the primary window into Turner's mind. Because of the author's obvious conflict of interest, historians disagree on whether to assess it as insight into Gray rather than Turner.
Legal response
In the aftermath of the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion, the Virginia General AssemblyVirginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members,...
passed new legislation making it unlawful to teach slaves, free blacks, or mulattoes to read or write. The General Assembly also passed a law restricting all blacks from holding religious meetings without the presence of a licensed white minister. Other slave-holding states across the South enacted similar laws restricting activities of slaves and free blacks.
Some free blacks chose to move their families north to obtain educations for their children. Some individual white people, such as a young teacher named Thomas J. Jackson (better known to history as "Stonewall Jackson
Stonewall Jackson
ຄຽשת״ׇׂׂׂׂ֣|birth_place= Clarksburg, Virginia |death_place=Guinea Station, Virginia|placeofburial=Stonewall Jackson Memorial CemeteryLexington, Virginia|placeofburial_label= Place of burial|image=...
") and another named Mary Smith Peake, chose to violate the laws and teach slaves to read. Overall, the laws enacted in the aftermath of the Turner Rebellion enforced widespread illiteracy among slaves. It persisted; 35 years later, most newly freed slaves and many free blacks in the South were illiterate at the end of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Post-Civil War
Freedmen and Northerners considered the issue of education and helping former slaves gain literacy as one of the most critical in the postwar South. Consequently, many northern religious organizations, former Union ArmyUnion Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
officers and soldiers, and wealthy philanthropists were inspired to create and fund educational efforts specifically for the betterment of African Americans in the South. With the Freedmen's Bureau
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands
The Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States....
, the American Missionary Association
American Missionary Association
The American Missionary Association was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on September 3, 1846 in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to abolish slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values...
(AMA) led the effort to establish basic schools for elementary learning, and created normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
s to train teachers. Examples of such schools were those historically black colleges (HBCU) that grew to become Hampton University
Hampton University
Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:...
and Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...
. The AMA founded a total of eleven colleges in Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Mississippi.
There were great gains in education, with the majority of southern blacks achieving literacy by 1900, and 30,000 teachers having been trained and put to work in the South. The needs continued to be great, and the black community continued to reach for education after the turn of the 20th century. Agricultural depression, crop failures and segregation meant there was little money for states to spend, and they consistently underfunded black education and services.
Concerned about consistent underfunding of rural black schools in the South, the entrepreneur and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...
partnered with Dr. Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
of Tuskegee University to develop a program of matching funds to stimulate community cooperation in building and maintaining new schools. In the 1920s and 1930s, more than 5,000 schools were built with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. Other wealthy philanthropists such as Henry H. Rogers
Henry H. Rogers
Henry Huttleston Rogers was a United States capitalist, businessman, industrialist, financier, and philanthropist. He made his fortune in the oil refinery business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil....
, Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
, and George Eastman
George Eastman
George Eastman was an American innovator and entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream...
also contributed to historically black colleges and other education initiatives in these decades. Each of the men had risen from modest roots to become wealthy businessmen.
Casualties
Historian Stephen B. OatesStephen B. Oates
Stephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
notes that Nat Turner had ordered his followers to "kill all the white people," including women and children. The rebels killed approximately 60 white men, women, and children. Most were hacked to death with axes, stabbed, or bludgeoned. The most numerous casualties were children. In one instance, Turner and his insurgents stopped at the house of Levi Waller where they killed him, his wife, and children. Ten of the children were decapitated and their headless bodies piled in the front yard.
Nat Turner's Rebellion resulted in a fierce white response motivated by fear and desire for revenge. Planters and white militias throughout the South conducted vigilante justice, killing slaves and other persons of African descent, many of whom had no connection with the rebellion.
See also
- 1811 German Coast Uprising1811 German Coast UprisingThe 1811 German Coast Uprising was a slave revolt that took place in parts of the Territory of Orleans on January 8–10, 1811. The revolt took place on the east coast of the Mississippi River in what are now St. John the Baptist and St. Charles Parishes, Louisiana. While the slave insurgency was...
- Gabriel ProsserGabriel ProsserGabriel , today commonly – if incorrectly – known as Gabriel Prosser, was a literate enslaved blacksmith who planned to lead a large slave rebellion in the Richmond area in the summer of 1800. However, information regarding the revolt was leaked prior to its execution, thus Gabriel's plans were...
- Denmark VeseyDenmark VeseyDenmark Vesey originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States...
- Slave rebellionSlave rebellionA slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveholders...
- History of slavery in the United StatesHistory of slavery in the United StatesSlavery in the United States was a form of slave labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in...
Sources
- Herbert ApthekerHerbert ApthekerHerbert Aptheker was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He authored over 50 volumes, mostly in the fields of African American history and general U.S. history, most notably, American Negro Slave Revolts , a classic in the field, and the 7-volume Documentary History of the Negro...
. American Negro Slave Revolts. 5th edition. New York, NY: International Publishers, 1983 (1943). - Stephen B. OatesStephen B. OatesStephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1990 (1975). ISBN 0-06-091670-2. - Kim Warren, "Literacy and Liberation," Reviews in American History Volume 33, Number 4, December 2005, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press
- Virginia Writers' ProgramFederal Writers' ProjectThe Federal Writers' Project was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program...
, Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion, Richmond, VA: Virginia State Library, reprint, 1992. ISBN 0-88490-173-4.
Further reading
- Digital Library on American Slavery
- Herbert ApthekerHerbert ApthekerHerbert Aptheker was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He authored over 50 volumes, mostly in the fields of African American history and general U.S. history, most notably, American Negro Slave Revolts , a classic in the field, and the 7-volume Documentary History of the Negro...
. American Negro Slave Revolts. 5th edition. New York, NY: International Publishers, 1983 (1943). - Herbert Aptheker. Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion. New York, NY: Humanities Press, 1966.
- Scot French. The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. 2004.
- William Lloyd GarrisonWilliam Lloyd GarrisonWilliam Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
, "The Insurrection," The Liberator, (September 3, 1831). A contemporary abolitionist's reaction to news of the rebellion. - Walter L. Gordon III. The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials: A Mystic Chord Resonates Today (2009). ISBN 978-1-4392-2983-5.
- Thomas R. Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. Baltimore, MD: Lucas & Deaver, 1831. Available online.
- Kenneth S. Greenberg, ed. Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Kinohi Nishikawa. "The Confessions of Nat Turner." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 497-98.
- Stephen B. OatesStephen B. OatesStephen B. Oates is a former professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an expert in 19th-century United States history....
, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1990 (1975). ISBN 0-06-091670-2. - Junius P. Rodriguez, ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
- William StyronWilliam StyronWilliam Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
. The Confessions of Nat TurnerThe Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by U.S. writer William Styron. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns the slave revolt in Virginia in 1831...
. New York, NY: The New American Library,Inc., 1966. - Sharon Ewell Foster. The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part One, The Witness, A Novel (2011). ISBN 978-1-4165-7803-1.