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In August of 1831, Nathaniel Turner who was born the slave of a farmer named Benjamin Turner in Southampton County, Virginia on October 2, 1800, believing that he had been ordained by God to free Afrikan Americans from bondage, led the most bloodiest slave rebellion in U.S History before militiamen stopped him and his followers. Although his rebellion ultimately failed, it forever affected slavery and race relations throughout the country and helped lead to the Civil War.
In the years that followed, Nat Turner was remembered by whites as one of the most hated figures in Southern history, becoming a boogeyman whose name was used to scare small children. Many whites continued to believe that he was mentally unbalanced fanatic, influenced by abolitionists and free Afrikans, who had used false religion to take advantage of allegedly simple-minded and superstitious enslaved Afrikans. It was unthinkable that his actions might have been a calculated, understandable response to oppression.
Afrikan Americans in Virginia and elsewhere took a different view, however calling him ” General Nat” and referring to the rebellion as ” Nat’s Fray” or ” Old Nat’s War.” Through folk stories, he was transformed into a fierce general and a trickster hero who had defeated white men both in battle and with his mind. Despised by the dominant culture, Turner was lionised by Southern Afrikans as one of the few Afrikans who successfully waged open war against slavery.
