African American Slave Revolts

Nat Turner's Rebellion is known as one of most effective and bloodiest rebellions in American history. In two days there were approximately 55-65 people who were killed by the uprising of slaves. Turner hid out in a swamp area for about two months. He was found by a hunter and surrendered peacefully. This raised tensions because a slave lashing out at his owner showed that salvery needed to come to an end, or there would be more.

The slaves used rebellions or anti-slavery movements as a form of resistance against slavery. However, the result of slave insurrections was mass executions, and many of them avoided these rebellions for the fear of being executed. The famous insurrections in the American history were the Gabriel Prossey's conspiracy in 1800, Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, and the Stono Rebellion of 1739. Among these rebellions, only the Nat

In August 21 of 1831, a solar eclipse convinced him to begin with a first movement where they killed white people around such as men, women, children using axes and tools. At the time, they were moving from farm to farm, picking up more volunteers from among slaves to give their services in favor to the revolution, making the force grow in numbers, but some of the black slaves were terrified by how they were killing the white population. That provoked to some slaves run away from the battle to warn the other whites about the movement of Turner. Because of that situation, the white people made a decision of evacuated after the Turner’s rebellion had attacked a half dozen of farms. When Turner realized that the White population was gone, he made the decision to divide his forces to improve

Slave resistance began for many enslaved Africans before they reach the Americas. Karenga explained the many arrangements in which Africans resisted to enslavement, while in Africa, during the middle passage, and in the Americas. Employing the Karenga text one can evaluate the different resistances that transpired in Antigua as Cultural, Resistance, Day-to-Day Resistance, Abolitionism, Armed Resistance, Revolts, Ship Mutinies, and Afro-Native Alliance. One can conclude that enslaved Africans had an unrelenting resistance to enslavement (Karenga).

The story of Nat Turner’s rebellion, that took place in Southampton, Virginia, on August 22, 1831, is somewhat of a lost event. This is because this particular stand was not the most successful at first, but it resulted in the later years as an rewarding rebellion. Nat Turner’s rebellion affected racism and slavery, by being a leader, by being influential, and by showing bravery. All three of these things must be used in order to have a successful rebellion in this situation especially.

Nat Turner rebellion took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. Turner’s intention was to move through the countryside, household to household, killing as many whites as possible. He did not care whether they were a man or women, child or adult. Turner was quoted as saying that “indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they obtained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm. Women and children would afterwards have been spared, and men too who ceased to resist.”

In this assignment I will be taking a further look into the history of slavery. When thinking of slavery the immediate thought that comes to mind is all the negative aspects of the system. Prior to this research, I was unaware of slave systems that were not based on the long labor hours and the torture of slaves. Granted, there were still forms of slavery that practiced these brutal rituals, where slaves were treated as animals and were malnourished. One prime example of this, is the book titled “Am I Not A Woman And A Sister”, looks at the history of a Bermudan slave named Mary Prince. Another example of slavery that will be incorporated in this paper will come from a source about a woman slave named Semsigul, born in Caucasus an area that

Nat Turner was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia in 1831. In this narrative Nate Turner recounts his version of events and later recorded during his revolt in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831. The revolt lasted two days but Nate was not captured until six weeks after. He was then tried for insurrection. Thomas Ruffin Gray was said to be the lawyer who questioned Nate as his trial. Gray questions his state of mind, why he led the revolt and whether he felt mistaken in doing so. Gray also documents Nate’s confession as he explains in detail his personal struggles and the visions he encountered prior going through with the revolt. He also describes the people, places and the slaves that assisted him. No one was spared men, women and children were murdered with hand tools.

In the process they killed fifty-five people and inspired close to sixty enslaved men on the journey to follow them. They continued to the town of Jerusalem with the purpose of destroying the town and killing all of the white people. During this time the governor called a few thousand of armed militiamen to end the rebellion. Slave masters at this time was terrified and didn’t know if they were next for this slaying or if their slaves were plotting the same rebellion. The militiamen gave the white people a slight relief of security. As the rebellion approached the town of Jerusalem the militia stopped them and many fled into the woods because they knew they were outnumbered. The militia searched and captured or killed the men who participating in the rebellion, except for Nat Turner, Nat hid for two months in Southampton County. Once he was captured, he was tried in court and then hanged and skinned his body. The other men were executed by the state or decapitated and heads posted on stakes to terrorize the black community. The fear in whites spread and they went out to kill blacks that had nothing to do with the Nat turner’s rebellion. These white mobs killed up to three hundred blacks. The governor of Virginia attempted to put a stop to these white mobs. The state legislature of Virginia considered ending slavery but ended up voting to restrict blacks freedom, hoping to prevent any future rebellions. In North Carolina, slaves were

Despite North America’s large slave population, there were few powerful slave revolts before 1831. Slaves were complacent and passive so most southern slave owners probably felt like they had enough control over their slaves. This way of thinking was completely changed by Nat Turner’s rebellion. This violent slave revolt showed people what slaves were really capable of. White southerners saw how slaves were smart enough to organize and plan a resistance and because they were getting tired of being oppressed. Even though Nat Turner’s rebellion was considered unsuccessful being that it was shut down in a matter of days, it was successful in that it had a long lasting effect on slavery. This level of success can be attributed to the fact that

During their 'March of Destruction,'; things began to get out of hand. Though he was willing to go to extreme measures to gain his freedom, the events that ended up taking place ended up becoming a massacre. Due to Nat's rebellion, 60 whites and 200 blacks died. Though Nat did in fact partake in the killings, the author makes it out to seem as if in the end, Nat did not really want this to become a bloodbath. Although he thought that it was getting out of hand, he stood idly by, watching the massacre take place. In the end, a total of 50 stood trial, and 21, including Nat Turner were hung for the rebellion.

From the 1830s to the 1860s, the “Abolitionist Movement” began with calls to eradicate slavery. Jackson, one of the largest slavery owners in Tennessee, was against this movement, but that did not stop articles from being published, and protests from being started. William Lloyd Garrison published a anti-slavery newspaper called “The Liberator” that received mixed reviews because some people in Boston, where he was from, still approved of slavery. Nat Turner was a slave who believed he was responsible for ending slavery. He created an uprising that killed 60 white men, women, and children. Some of the white slave owners were scared that this uprising

mother now became property of Samuel Turner. Master Samuel was a cruel slave owner compared

The message about a rebellion spread to the slaves in Southampton and small revolts followed. On August 1831 Nat led a group of armed slaves in the middle of the night and went round the homes of the whites killing them and living the bodies behind. They did this for two days but Nat killed nobody because of his Christian belief, but he thought that he was sent by God to free the slaves from bondage (Oates, 2009). The slaves had been mistreated for many years so they killed even women and children.

Slave revolts normally happened outside of the plantation system and in large cities were the slaves were able to act more freely. It’s estimated there were at least 250 slave rebellions in America before slavery was abolished in 1865.Most tales of what happened during those rebellions could be bias seen as they were written by whites rather than by the slaves that started the revolt. Since African American slaves accounted for more than one-third of the population in the 18th century, slave rebellions were a large source of fear for white Americans in the south.