Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Monday, August 21, 2006

175 years ago: Nat Turner puts the South on notice

“Nothing struck deeper fear into the hearts of southerners, whether they held slaves or not, than the idea of a slave revolt.”
—Historian Kenneth C. Davis

By the time Nat Turner was finally caught on October 30, 1831, 55 whites had been stabbed, shot, and clubbed to death. Turner’s actions, while doomed to end with his death at the hands of the state, had impacted the South and its “peculiar institution” in a permanent manner.

Turner and 54 others were executed but the violent rebellion brought Virginia to the verge of abolishing slavery. Predictably, the state chose instead to clamp down harder on slaves but this served only to heighten awareness of how untenable the situation had become. In the immediate future lurked John Brown, the Underground Railroad, Frederick Douglass, The Liberator, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and, of course, the Emancipation Proclamation.

Read the whole thing here.