Читать книгу The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity - William Wells Brown - Страница 11

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Nat Turner.—His Associates.—Their Meetings.—Nat’s Religious Enthusiasm.—Bloodshed.—Wide-spread Terror.—The Trials and Executions.

The slave insurrection which occurred in Southampton County, Na., in the year 1831, although not as well planned as the one portrayed in the preceding chapter, was, nevertheless, more widely felt in the South. Its leader was Nat Turner, a slave.

On one of the oldest and largest plantations in Southampton County, Va., owned by Benjamin Turner, Esq., Nat was born a slave, on the 2d of October, 1800. His parents were of unmixed African descent. Surrounded as he was by the superstition of the slave-quarters, and being taught by his mother that he was born for a prophet, a preacher, and a deliverer of his race, it was not strange that the child should have imbibed the principles which were afterwards developed in his career. Early impressed with the belief that he had seen visions, and received communications direct from God, he, like Napoleon, regarded himself as a being of destiny. In his childhood, Nat was of an amiable disposition; but circumstances in which he was placed as a slave brought out incidents that created a change in his disposition, and turned his kind and docile feeling into the most intense hatred to the white race.

The ill-treatment he experienced at the hands of the whites, and the visions he claimed to have seen, caused Nat to avoid, as far as he could, all intercourse with his fellow-slaves, and threw around him a gloom and melancholy that disappeared only with his life.

Both the young slave and his friends averred that a full knowledge of the alphabet came to him in a single night. Impressed with the belief that his mission was a religious one, and this impression strengthened by the advice of his grandmother, a pious but ignorant woman, Nat commenced preaching when about twenty-five years of age, but never went beyond his own master’s locality. In stature, he was under the middle size, long-armed, round-shouldered, and strongly marked with the African features. A gloomy fire burned in his looks, and he had a melancholy expression of countenance. He never tasted a drop of ardent spirits in his life, and was never known to smile. In the year 1828, new visions appeared to Nat; and he claimed to have direct communication with God. Unlike most of those born under the influence of slavery, he had no faith in conjuring, fortunetelling, or dreams, and always spoke with contempt of such things. Being hired out to a cruel master, he ran away, and remained in the woods thirty days, and could have easily escaped to the Free States, as did his father some years before; but he received, as he says in his confession, a communication from the Spirit, which said, “Return to your earthly master; for he who knoweth his Master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” It was not the will of his earthly but his heavenly Master that he felt bound to do; and therefore Nat returned. His fellow-slaves were greatly incensed at him for coming back; for they knew well his ability to reach Canada, or some other land of freedom, if he was so inclined. He says further, “About this time I had a vision, and saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle; and the sun was darkened, the thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed ‘in streams; and I heard a voice saying, ‘Such is your luck, such are you called on to see; and let it come, rough or smooth, you must surely bear it!’ ” Some time after this, Nat had, as he says, another vision, in which the spirit appeared and said, “The Serpent is loosened, and Christ has laid down the yoke he has borne for the sins of men; and you must take it up, and fight against the Serpent, for the time is fast approaching when the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” There is no doubt but that this last sentence filled Nat with enthusiastic feeling in favor of the liberty of his race, that he had so long dreamed of. “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last,” seemed to him to mean something. He saw in it the overthrow of the whites, and the establishing of the blacks in their stead; and to this end he bent the energies of his mind. In February, 1881, Nat received his last communication, and beheld his last vision. He said, “I was told I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons.” The plan of an insurrection was now formed in his own mind, and the time had arrived for him to take others into the secret; and he at once communicated his ideas to four of his friends, in whom he had implicit confidence. Hark Travis, Nelson Williams, Sam Edwards, and Henry Porter were slaves like himself, and, like him, had taken their names from their masters. A meeting must be held with these, and it must take place in some secluded place where the whites would not disturb them; and a meeting was appointed. The spot where they assembled was as wild and romantic as were the visions that had been impressed upon the mind of their leader.

Three miles from where Nat lived was a dark swamp, filled with reptiles, in the middle of which was a dry spot, reached by a narrow, winding path, and upon which human feet seldom ever trod, on account of its having been the place where a slave had been tortured to death by a slow fire, for the crime of having flogged his cruel and inhuman master. The night for the meeting arrived, and they came together. Hark brought a pig, Sam bread, Nelson sweet potatoes, and Henry brandy; and the gathering was turned into a feast. Others were taken in, and joined the conspiracy. All partook heartily of the food, and drank freely, except Nat. He fasted and prayed. It was agreed that the revolt should commence that night, and in their own masters’ households, and that each slave should give his oppressor the death-blow. Before they left the swamp, Nat made a speech, in which he said, “Friends and brothers! We are to commence a great work to-night. Our race is to be delivered from slavery, and God has appointed us as the men to do his bidding; and let us be worthy of our calling. I am told to slay all the whites we encounter, without regard to age or sex. We have no arms or ammunition, but we will find these in the houses of our oppressors; and, as we go on, others can join us. Remember that we do not go forth for the sake of blood and carnage; but it is necessary, that, in the commencement of this revolution, all the whites we meet should die, until we have an army strong enough to carry on the war upon a Christian basis. Remember that ours is not a war for robbery, and to satisfy our passions: it is a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds, and not words. Then let’s away to the scene of action.”

Among those who had joined the conspirators was Will, a slave, who scorned the idea of taking his master’s name. Though his soul longed to be free, he evidently became one of the party as much to satisfy revenge as for the liberty that he saw in the dim distance. Will had seen a dear and beloved wife sold to the negro-trader, and taken away, never to be beheld by him again in this life. His own back was covered with scars, from his shoulders to his feet. A large scar, running from his right eye down to his chin, showed that he had lived with a cruel master. Nearly six feet in height, and one of the strongest and most athletic of his race, he proved to be the most unfeeling of all the insurrectionists. His only weapon was a broad-axe, sharp and heavy.

Nat and his accomplices at once started for the plantation of Joseph Travis, with whom the four lived; and there the first blow was struck. In his confession, just before his execution, Nat said—

“On returning to the house, Hark went to the door with an axe, for the purpose of breaking it open—as we knew we were strong enough to murder the family should they be awakened by the noise; but, reflecting that it might create an alarm in the neighborhood, we determined to enter the house secretly, and murder them whilst sleeping. Hark got a ladder, and set it against the chimney, on which I ascended, and, hoisting a window, entered and came down stairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns from their places. It was then observed that I must spill the first blood. On which, armed with a hatchet, and accompanied by Will, I entered my master’s chamber. It being dark, I could not give a death-blow. The hatchet, glanced from his head: he sprang from the bed, and called his wife. It was his last word. Will laid him dead with a blow of his axe.”

They went from plantation to plantation, until the whole neighborhood was aroused; and the whites turned out in large numbers to suppress the rebellion. Nat and his accomplices fought bravely, but to no purpose.

Reinforcements came to the whites; and the blacks were overpowered and defeated by the superior numbers of the enemy. In this battle, many were slain on both sides. Will, the blood-thirsty and revengeful slave, fell with his broad-axe uplifted, after having laid three of the whites dead at his feet with his own strong arm and his terrible weapon. His last words were, “Bury my axe with me.” For he religiously believed, that, in the next world, the blacks would have a contest with the whites, and that he would need his axe. Nat Turner, after fighting to the last with his short sword, escaped with some others to the woods near by, and was not captured for nearly two months. When brought to trial, he pleaded “not guilty,” feeling, as he said, that it was always right for one to strike for his own liberty. After going through a mere form of trial, he was convicted and executed at Jerusalem, the county-seat for Southhampton County, Ya. Not a limb trembled, or a muscle was observed to move. Thus died Nat Turner, at the early age of thirty-one years, a martyr to the freedom of his race, and a victim to his own fanaticism. He meditated upon the wrongs of his oppressed and injured people till the idea of their deliverance excluded all other ideas from his mind; and he devoted his life to its realization. Every thing appeared to him a vision, and all favorable omens were signs from God. He foretold, that, at his death, the sun would refuse to shine, and that there would be signs of disapprobation given from Heaven. And it is true that the sun was darkened, a storm gathered, and more boisterous weather had never appeared in Southampton County than on the day of Nat’s execution. The sheriff, warned by the prisoner, refused to cut the cord that held the trap. No black man would touch the rope. A poor old white man, long-besotted by drink, was brought forty miles to be the executioner.

Fifty-five whites and seventy-three blacks lost their lives in the Southampton Rebellion. On the fatal night, when Nat and his companions were dealing death to all they found, Capt. Harris, a wealthy planter, had his life saved by the devotion and timely warning of his slave Jim, said to have been half-brother to his master. After the revolt had been put down, and parties of whites were out hunting the suspected blacks, Capt. Harris, with his faithful slave, went into the woods in search of the negroes. In saving his master’s life, Jim felt that he had done his duty, and could not consent to become a betrayer of his race; and, on reaching the woods, he handed his pistol to his master, and said, “I cannot help you hunt down these men: they, like myself, want to be free. Sir, I am tired of the life of a slave: please give me my freedom, or shoot me on tire spot.” Capt. Harris took the weapon, and pointed it at the slave. Jim, putting his right hand, upon his heart, said, “This is the spot; aim here.” The captain fired, and the slave fell dead at his feet.