1800

Nat Turner

Nat was born in October in 1800 in South Hampton County Virginia. He learned to read and write at a young age, grew up reading the Bible.  Later he began to preach to African Americans, with some of the Anglos also following him. He had the trust of many and was given permission to travel the area and preach to the enslaved around the county.

In August 1831 Nat led enslaved Virginians in rebellion in in South Hampton County Virginia where they killed around 65 people, mostly Caucasian. It lasted four days before it fell apart. A militia was sent to stop it. They killed more than 120 African Americans, some who had nothing to do with the rebellion.

Nat escaped for about 9 weeks until he was caught, tried and convicted. His story was written by the person who was supposed to defend him.  The author had little understanding of Nat’s situation as an enslaved person. He made Nat seem like a fanatic instead of a man held captive all of his life asked to preach the gospel of a soul freeing God.

American Civil War

Triggered by the election of Abraham Lincoln on his party’s platform of anti-slavery expansion, seven slave states succeeded from the union. The slave states did not want the free states to end slavery which was the main portion of their economy. The free labor made them some of the richest people in the world and it was threated.  Fighting started in April of 1861 when the southern slave states started at Fort Sumpter in South Carolina.  Most of the battles were fought in the south, which was the largest part of the territory at that time. The southern slave states surrendered 1865.