Nat Turner - The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia

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The Confessions
of Nat Turner, the
Leader of the Late
Insurrection in
Southampton, Va.

By Nat Turner

Edited by Thomas R. Gray

A DocSouth Books Edition
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library
Chapel Hill

A DocSouth Books Edition, 2011
ISBN 978-0-8078-6945-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Published by
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library
CB #3900 Davis Library
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
http://library.unc.edu
Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu
docsouth@unc.edu
Distributed by
The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
1-800-848-6224
http://www.uncpress.org
This book was digitally printed.

About This Edition

This edition is made available under the imprint of DocSouth Books, a collaborative endeavor between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library and the University of North Carolina Press. Titles in DocSouth Books are drawn from the Librarys "Documenting the American South" (DocSouth) digital publishing program, online at docsouth.unc.edu. These print and downloadable e-book editions have been prepared from the DocSouth electronic editions.

Both DocSouth and DocSouth Books present the transcribed content of historic books as they were originally published. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and typographical errors are therefore preserved from the original editions. DocSouth Books are not intended to be facsimile editions, however. Details of typography and page layout in the original works have not been preserved in the transcription.

DocSouth Books editions incorporate two pagination schemas. First, standard page numbers reflecting the pagination of this edition appear at the top of each page for easy reference. Second, page numbers in brackets within the text (e.g., "[Page 9]") refer to the pagination of the original publication; online versions of the DocSouth works use this same original pagination. Page numbers shown in tables of contents and book indexes, when present, refer to the original works printed page numbers and therefore correspond to the page numbers in brackets.

Summary

During a span of approximately thirty-six hours, on August 21-22, a band enslaved people murdered over fifty unsuspecting white people in Southampton, Virginia. The exact number killed remains unsubstantiatedvarious sources claim anywhere from fifty to sixty-five. Almost all of those involved (or suspected of involvement) in the insurrection were put to death, including Nat Turner, who was the last known conspirator to be captured. Following his discovery, capture, and arrest over two months after the revolt, Turner was interviewed in his jail cell by Thomas Ruffin Gray, a wealthy Southampton lawyer and slave owner (French). The resulting extended essay (summarized below), "The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, VA.," was used against Turner during his trial. The repercussions of the rebellion in the South were severe: many slaves who had no involvement in the rebellion were murdered out of suspicion or revenge.

Gray attempts "to commit his [Turner's] statements to writing, and publish them, with little or no variation, from his own words" (p. 3-4). It should be noted, however, that Gray maintained all control over the text. While Turner acknowledged Gray's rendering of his confession as "full, free, and voluntary" during his trial, there can be no doubt that Turner's execution was inevitable, regardless of his confession, given the climate in the state following the insurrection (p. 5). Gray's own editorial comments are clear at the beginning of the text when, before beginning his "record" of Turner's words, he recounts how this "great Bandit" was captured "by a single individual... without attempting to make this slightest resistance" (p. 3). Gray seems to want to emphasize the power of whites following the insurrection, making a point of including the fact that "Nat's only weapon was a small light sword which he immediately surrendered, and begged that his life might be spared" (p. 3).

Gray recounts the "Confession" in the first person, hoping thereby to simulate Turner's voice (p. 7). Turner begins his story by describing his childhood. Alleging to have told a story "when three or four years old" about an event that occurred before his birth in such detail that those around him were "greatly astonished," Turner states that the adults around him proclaimed he would be a "prophet, as the Lord had shewn me things that had happened before my birth" (p. 7).

Turner claims that the Spirit revealed to him "the knowledge of the elements," with the promise of much more (p. 10). He is "made perfect, and the Holy Ghost was with me" because of his true faith (p. 10). Soon after, he finds "drops of blood on the corn as though it were dew from heaven" and "hieroglyphic characters" on the "leaves in the woods" (p. 10). Turner believes that the signs indicate Christ "was now returning to earth again in the form of dew" and "the great day of judgment" had arrived (pp. 10-11). He feels he has been called to "slay my enemies with their own weapons" (p. 11). He shares his mission with four fellow slaves and begins planning.

The narrative includes details from the trial, in which Turner was charged with "making insurrection, and plotting to take away the lives of divers free white persons" (p. 20). Turner pleads "Not guilty; saying to his counsel, that he did not feel so" (p. 20). As Turner "introduced no evidence, and the case was submitted without argument to the court," he is quickly found guilty and sentenced to death via hanging (p. 20). The final pages of the narrative include a list of the murdered men, women and children, followed by a "list of Negroes brought before the Court of Southampton, with their owners' names, and sentence" (p. 22).

Works Consulted

Goldman, Steve, "The Southhampton Slave Revolt," HistoryBuff.comA Nonprofit Organization, accessed 23 Oct. 2010; French, Scot, "The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)," Encyclopedia Virginia, Ed. Brendan Wolfe, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, accessed 30 Oct. 2010.

Meredith Malburne-Wade

[Title Page Image]

THE CONFESSIONS
OF NAT TURNER,
THE LEADER
OF THE LATE
INSURRECTION IN
SOUTHAMPTON,
VA.

As fully and voluntarily made to THOMAS R. GRAY
In the prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when read
before the Court of Southampton; with the certificate, under seal of the Court convened at
Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1831, for his trial.
ALSO, AN AUTHENTIC
ACCOUNT OF THE WHOLE INSURRECTION,
WITH LISTS OF THE WHITES WHO WERE MURDERED,
AND OF THE NEGROES BROUGHT BEFORE THE COURT OF SOUTHAMPTON,
AND THERE SENTENCED, &c.

Baltimore:
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS R. GRAY.
Lucas & Deaver, print.
1831.

[Page verso]DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, TO WIT:

Be it remembered, That on this tenth day of November, Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and thirty-one, Thomas R. Gray of the said District, deposited in this office the title of a book, which is in the words as following:

"The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection, in Southampton, Virginia, as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, in the prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when read before the Court of Southampton; with the certificate, under seal, of the Court convened at Jerusalem, November 5, 1831, for his trial. Also, an authentic account of the whole insurrection, with lists of the whites who were murdered, and of the negroes brought before the Court of Southampton, and there sentenced, &c. the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in conformity with an Act of Congress, entitled "An act to amend the several acts respecting Copy Rights."

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