What Was The Nat Turner Slave Rebellion?

         In the early-morning hours of August 22, 1831, a group of seven black slaves armed with axes, hatchets, and knives began attacking white farm families in Virginia. Their leader was Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher.


        Turner's plan was to kill the area's main slaveholders their families, picked up recruits and armed along the way, then eventually seized guns and powder at the county armory.


        By dawn, Turner's band numbered about 40. Five members of  a farm family were initially hacked to death, including an infant. The carnage continued until 60 whites lay dead, including 10 beheaded schoolchildren.
        White reresidents had begun to spread the alarm and arming themselves and their loyal slaves. On August 23, Turner's band had dwindled to about 20, as whites killed some slaves and others ran away, including Turner.
       In the following frenzy, more than 100 blacks were slaughtered, many of whom were innocent. Forty-eight were eventually convicted in court of rebellion, and 18 hanged. Tuner was apprehended after two months and executed, after a confession and testament on the gallows.


        The rebellion spurred Virginia to consider abolish slavery, not so much for its inhumanity as for its danger.  But the result was beefed-up slave patrols and harsher restrictions on the movements of slaves and freed men alike.

   
        There were no more slaves rebellion on the scale of Turner's, but it made the peaceful end of slavery virtually impossible -- ending in the carnage of the Civil War of the 1860s.