The uprising of enslaved people resonated deeply for decades

On August 21, 1831, former slave Nat Turner led a slave rebellion. An excerpt from the article:

"The Rebellion In Virginia
On a Sunday afternoon, August 21, 1831, a group of four enslaved people gathered in the woods for a barbecue. As they cooked a pig, Turner joined them, and the group apparently formulated the final plan to attack nearby white landowners that night.

In the early morning hours of August 22, 1831, the group attacked the family of the man who enslaved Turner. By stealthily entering the house, Turner and his men surprised the family in their beds, killing them by slashing them to death with knives and axes.

After leaving the family's house, Turner's accomplices realized they had left a baby sleeping in a crib. They returned to the house and killed the infant.

The brutality and efficiency of the killings would be repeated throughout the day. And as more enslaved workers joined Turner and the original band, the violence quickly escalated. In various small groups, they would arm themselves with knives and axes and ride up to a house, surprising the residents, and quickly murder them. Within about 48 hours, more than 50 white residents of Southampton County were murdered.

Word of the outrages spread quickly. At least one local farmer armed his enslaved workers, and they helped fight off a band of Turner's disciples. And at least one poor white family, who were not enslavers, were spared by Turner, who told his men to ride past their house and leave them alone.

As the groups of rebels struck farmsteads they tended to collect more weapons. Within a day the improvised army had obtained firearms and gunpowder.

It has been assumed that Turner and his followers may have intended to march on the county seat of Jerusalem, Virginia, and seize weapons stored there. But a group of armed white citizens managed to find and attack a group of Turner's followers before that could happen. A number of rebellious enslaved people were killed and wounded in that attack, and the rest scattered into the countryside.

Nat Turner managed to escape and evade detection for a month. But he was eventually chased down and surrendered. He was imprisoned, put on trial, and hanged.

Impact of Nat Turner's Rebellion
The insurrection in Virginia was reported in a Virginia newspaper, the Richmond Enquirer, on August 26, 1831. The initial reports said local families had been killed, and "considerable military force might be required to subdue the disturbers."

The article in the Richmond Enquirer mentioned that militia companies were riding to Southampton County, delivering supplies of arms and ammunition. The newspaper, in the same week as the rebellion had occurred, was calling out for vengeance:

"But that these wretches will rue the day on which they broke loose upon the neighboring population is most certain. A terrible retribution will fall upon their heads. Dearly will they pay for their madness and misdeeds."
In the following weeks, newspapers along the East Coast carried news of what was generally termed an "insurrection." Even in an era before the penny press and the telegraph, when news still traveled by letter on ship or horseback, accounts from Virginia were published widely.

After Turner was captured and jailed, he provided a confession in a series of interviews. A book of his confession was published, and it remains the primary account of his life and deeds during the uprising.

As fascinating as Nat Turner's confession is, it should probably be considered with some skepticism. It was published, of course, by a white man who was not sympathetic to Turner or to the cause of the enslaved. So its presentation of Turner as perhaps delusional may have been an effort to portray his cause as utterly misguided.

Legacy of Nat Turner
The abolitionist movement often invoked Nat Turner as a heroic figure who rose up to fight against oppression. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, included a portion of Turner's confession in the appendix of one of her novels.

In 1861, the abolitionist author Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote an account of Nat Turner's Rebellion for the Atlantic Monthly. His account placed the story in historical context just as the Civil War was beginning. Higginson was not merely an author, but had been an associate of John Brown, to the extent that he was identified as one of the Secret Six who helped finance Brown's 1859 raid on a federal armory.

John Brown's ultimate goal when he launched his raid on Harpers Ferry was to inspire a rebellion of enslaved workers and succeed where Nat Turner's Rebellion, and an earlier rebellion planned by Denmark Vesey, had failed."