15. Less an attempt at freedom than one of vengeance against their masters, Nat Turner’s Rebellion was a slave insurrection in Virginia which cost the lives of hundreds
Organized by Nat Turner, the eponymous rebellion, also known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a revolt by enslaved African-Americans in Virginia during August 1831. An intelligent slave, taught to read and write, Turner reputedly experienced delirious visions throughout his life which he interpreted to be divine in nature. Convinced God had chosen him for a great purpose, after a solar eclipse on February 12, 1831, Turner became convinced he had received a sign. Gathering more than seventy enslaved and free blacks, Turner’s group rode from house to house murdering any white people they encountered with the exception of the impoverished.
Killing approximately sixty white inhabitants of Southampton County, on August 23 the state militia, reinforced by three companies of artillery, defeated Turner’s brigade. Killing at least one hundred blacks, dozens were arrested and Virginia ordered the executions of a further fifty-six. Turner, eluding capture for six weeks, was eventually caught, being hung, drawn, and quartered on November 11. Inciting widespread hysteria throughout the South, unfounded rumors of black uprisings and violence prompted a frenzied massacring of slaves by white owners. One militia company in North Carolina, for example, murdered forty innocent blacks in a single day to combat the imagined threat.