. > "The Confessions of Nat Turner - Summary" Literary Essentials: Christian Fiction and Nonfiction 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Turner reportedly answered, "Was not Christ crucified? Styron shows that tenderness was possible between the races even under the regime of slaverya fact the historian Eugene Genovese has corroborated in his research. The Spirit that spoke to the prophets in former daysand I was greatly astonished, and for two years prayed continually, whenever my duty would permitand then again I had the same revelation, which fully confirmed me in the impression that I was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty. Nearly two centuries later, the legacy of that question is still evolving. 10-11). Often these churches black members met separately from its white members, but on communion day the entire church black and white came together to commemorate Jesuss last supper. Nat Turner Though their families worked the same Southampton County soil, their birthrights could not have been more different. Home | [11] One of the professionals Gray worked with was Theodore Trezevant, both of whom worked to compile a list of victims. The text of the confession also suggests that neither of these statements is actually accurate. Abraham may have been his father. Brendan Wolfe, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, accessed 30 Oct. 2010. This section records one of the most controversial scenes in the novel, as Styron creates a homosexual relationship between Turner and Willis, another young slave on Samuel Turners plantation. 13. How did Thomas R. Gray describe Nat Turner? Reluctance to probe Grays work, he wrote, may reflect the belief that criticism would necessarily call into question the veracity of the narrative he attributes to Nat, and the validity of much of what has come to be accepted as Nats life story and his legacy as one of the earliest and most important black-American revolutionary figures.. Dont waste Your Time Searching For a Sample, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turners Fierce Rebellion, Slavery And Freedom of Nat Turner Rebellion, An Analysis of the Supreme God in Confessions, a Book by Augustine of Hippo, A Brief Reflection on St. Augustines Confessions, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe and "Confessions found In a Prison" by Charles Dicken, Evaluation of St. Augustines Work, Confessions and City of God, The Internal Conflicts with Christianity in the Book, Augustine's Confessions by Augustine of Hippo, An Analysis of the Character Foil between Herald Loomis and Bynum Walker in August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Gray hoped to replace a thousand idle, exaggerated and mischievous reports with a single, authoritative account of the event. Oates is known as a reputable historian through his other works, and has strong credentials however, in the case of The Fires of Jubilee there are some limitations. Gray was born in 1800, the same year as Turner. The . Like many 19th-century American Protestants, Turner drew his inspiration and much of his vocabulary from the Bible. You have reached your limit of free articles. Born into a prosperous but unhappy home . Turner had many reasons for revolting, but his most important motive was his hatred of slavery and the suffering his people had to endure. He was familiar with the outlines of Nat Turners life and the plot, and he was aware of the intense interest and the commercial possibilities of its originators narrative. So the first question is, who was Gray and why was he doing this? It was intended by us to have begun the work of death on the 4th July last (Gray, 7). Despite this, Gray had had passing experiences with the law that may have included an apprenticeship alongside his cousin in the county clerk's office as well as a run in with the law due to a public fight with one of his brothers. Though their families worked the same Southampton County soil, their birthrights could not have been more different. Once granted an audience with Virginia governor James Monroe, however, Gabriel confessed little or nothing of value to his captors. Opines that the confessions of nat turner were exactly that. The long term impact in the south of Nat Turner's rebellion was adverse to Civil Rights before the Civil War. He argues that the revolt was an isolated event solely fueled by Turners religious extremism and not retaliation against the institution of slavery. These financial struggles forced Gray to leave life as a planter behind and pursue a career in law. He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably., Turners narrativepresented, Gray insisted, with little or no variation, from his own wordsgave an autobiographical history of the late insurrection and the motives behind it. 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. Any suggestion of a voluntary collaboration between Turner, a Black slave accused of insurrection, and Gray, a white lawyer with a keen interest in maintaining the Southern social order, struck Fabricanta practicing lawyeras naive and dangerously misleading. Another interesting thing about the confessions is the speaking style Gray claims Turners confessed the events of the insurgence in. Perhaps for similar reasons, when blacks referred Turner at the trials, they called him Captain Nat or General Nat, instead of alluding to his religious position as a preacher or a prophet. [7] However, neither assertion is correct: William C. Parker was assigned by the court to represent Turner. Most slaves could not read. Terms of Use Archived post. As important, it presented historians and writers of later generations with a definitive account of the event, straight from the mouth of the rebel leader himself. Certainly, Styrons Turner is cruel in his taking of close to sixty lives, but he is nevertheless the poet of the aspirations of a people. Browne points out that by assuring the reader of the texts veracity and by designating the monstrous motives that drove him to such deeds, Gray prefigures not only the narrative to follow but establishes the readers preferred stance toward it, which given the events is a negative one (Browne, 319). A planned slave revolt led by a blacksmith named Gabriel (owned by Thomas Prosser, of Henrico County) is thwarted when a huge storm delays the meeting of the conspirators and a few nervous slaves reveal the plot to their masters. 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). Taught to read and write at an early age, Turner devoted himself to prayer and study and, over time, separated himself from society with his fellow enslaved laborers. These confessions were intended to create a powerful, yet vicious, image of Turner and his reasons for initiating such a devastating. Ed. he knew that his interview would be used as evidence in court. A white southerner, steeped in the history of his region . It was later published. About | Over the next 36 hours, they were joined by as many as 60 other enslaved and free Negroes, and they killed at least 10 men, 14 women, and 31 infants and children. and our Styrons point is that Turner was, in many ways, ahead of his time: This self-taught slave probably had the mind of a genius, and it would be condescending to express his thoughts in language less sophisticated than the writers own. He was the only one of 12 children to survive infancy. Styron, who died in 2006, recognized the cottage industry he had spurred as an ironic consequence of his own meditation on history., Encyclopedia Virginia946 Grady Ave. Ste. Nathanial "Nat" Turner (1800-1831) was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. Then, in 1967, the novelist William Styrons The Confessions of Nat Turner turned Turners story into an award-winning bestseller, which he called a meditation on history rather than a historical novel. Less defensible, or at least problematic, was his decision to endow Turner with a contemporary imagination. This, along with his keen intelligence, and other signs marked him in the eyes of his people as a prophet "intended for some great purpose." His answer was, I do not. While he was in his 20s, Turner ran away from his owner. How did he conclude that that something had to do with slavery and rebellion? The novel both won immediate acclaim including a Pulitzer Prize and caused an uproar, as black scholars including John Henrik Clarke took issue with the way that Styron imagined that the rebel leader was inspired in part by his frustrated sexual longings for a white woman. By noon of Tuesday, August 23, the insurgents had been killed, captured, or dispersed by local militia. One day while praying at his plow, the same Spirit that spoke to the prophets in former days spoke directly to him: Seek ye the kingdom of Heaven and all things shall be added unto you. This he interpreted as a sign from God that his great purpose would soon be revealed. Perhaps Turners religious separation from the black community can help make sense of perhaps the most surprising thing about Turners religion: the only disciple that Turner named in his Confessions was Etheldred T. Brantley, a white man. Remaining consistent in the number of victims, Gray said there was 55 white people killed in each of the 4 revisions of the list. Thomas Gray, (born Dec. 26, 1716, Londondied July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng. In August, a sun with a greenish hue appeared across the eastern seaboard. To do so, he had to establish that the confession was voluntary, that the transcript was accurate, and that Turner was telling the truth. Thomas R. Gray was a lawyer in Southampton, Virginia, where he visited Nat Turner in jail. As a result, the document has become a springboard for artists who want to imagine the life of the most famous American to rebel against slavery. [4] Less than a year before Turners uprising, in September 1830, Gray finally received his license to practice law. Meanwhile, the book arguably is one of two American literary classics to come from the revolt, the other being The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Pulitzer Prizewinning novel by Virginia-native William Styron, published at the height of the Black Power movement in September 1967. 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). Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed. The Portal for Public History. Nat Turner (18001831) was known to his local fellow servants in Southampton County as The Prophet. On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1831, he met six associates in the woods at Cabin Pond, and about 2:00 a.m. they began to enter local houses and kill the white inhabitants. Quite aside from this controversy, The Confessions of Nat Turner can be read as a tragic love story, of a Nat Turner who learns much from white people even as they oppress him. Turner described himself as uncommonly intelligent for a child (Gray, 6). Log in here. 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. In the spring of 1831, when Turner and his co-conspirators were deciding the day for the revolt, the rebels selected Independence Day with its obvious political resonances. Even though the accounts in this confession may not be completely accurate, Grays transcriptions represent Turner as being firmly religious. 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 Turner was captured "by a single individual . Stone cautioned, however, against viewing the Confessionsof Nat Turner as a fixed pole of reference, setting terms for critical discourse and settling questions of historical fact or interpretation. Each retelling of the story represented a new social transaction in which Grays text figured as one more or less authoritative voice. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published within weeks of the Turner's execution on November 11, 1831, and remains an important source for historians. On August 27, 1831, the Richmond Compiler asked: Who is this Nat Turner? At the time, Turner was hiding in Southampton, Virginia, not far from the site where he launched the most important slave revolt in American history. The shortest and final chapter, It Is Done, echoes the words of Jesus on the cross when he utters, It is finished, shortly before his death. Several years rolled round, in which many events occurred to strengthen me in this my belief. Gray attached a sworn statement signed by six members of the county court, certifying that the confessions were read to Turner in their presence and that Turner acknowledged the same to be full, free, and voluntary. Gray verified that he recorded the confessions of Turner with little or no variation, from his own words. As for the sincerity and truthfulness of the prisoner, Gray said he cross-examined Turner and found his statement corroborated by the confessions of other prisoners and other circumstances. The obvious inconsistency between the voice supposedly speaking and the actual language used in this document lessens its authenticity. Gray depicted Turner as an exceptional figure, distinguished from his followers by his honesty, his commanding intelligence, and his firm belief in the righteousness of his cause. Type your requirements and Ill connect you to > Return to North American Slave Narratives Home Page, Return to The Church in the Southern Black Community Home Page, Return to The North Carolina Experience Home Page. Gray grew up in a wealthy family with deep roots in Southampton County and powerful connections in local, state, and federal politics. Turners views on private revelation were not unlike those of his contemporaries Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and William Miller, the father of the Adventist movement. What are some key points/theme of William Styrons novel The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and its impact on popular culture? As a lawyer working on Turners case and a supporter of slavery, Gray probably did not feel compelled to present Turners motives and description of the insurrection. During the observation, he found a survivor, a 12-year-old girl who gave him a recounting of her experiences of the events of the rebellion. Thomas Ruffin Gray, an enterprising white Southampton County lawyer, assumed the task of recording Turners confessions. The wording and overall structure used to describe the events may very well have been those of Gray, who held a law degree. His neighbors saw stars in the sky, not realizing that according to Turner, they were really the lights of the Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west. More often Turner looked at prodigiesor unusual natural phenomenaas indirect messages from God. In his Confessions, Turner quoted the Gospel of Luke twice, and scholars have found many other passages in which his language echoed the language of the Bible including passages from Ezekiel, Joshua, Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, and Revelation. Nat Turner's rebellion put an end to the white Southern myth that slaves were either contented with their lot or too servile to mount an armed revolt. FAQ | After their first encounter, Turner baptizes Willis. He recounts the "Confession" in the first person, hoping thereby to simulate Turner's voice (p. 7). What reasons does Gray give for publishing Nat Turner's confession? His "Confession," dictated to physician Thomas R. Gray, was taken while he was . The late insurrection in Southampton has greatly excited the public mind, and led to a thousand idle, exaggerated and mischievous reports. Additional materials, such as the best quotations, synonyms and word definitions to make your writing easier are also offered here. Nat Turner, 1800?-1831 He was influenced by those closest to him, including his father and mother strengthened him in the belief of his divine gift, along with his grandmother, who was very religious (Gray, 5). Although his output was small, he introduced new subject matter for poetry. To do so, he had to establish that the confession was voluntary, that the transcript was accurate, and that Turner was telling the truth. Nat Turner, by contrast, freely and voluntarily confessed his role as mastermind of the 1831 uprising and offered a detailed account of the conspiracy from the perspective of the rebel leader. Nat Turner was an enslaved person who became a preacher and made history as the leader of one of the bloodiest enslaved revolts in America on August 21, 1831.. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. With little explanation, he then sold his farmland and most of his enslaved laborers, moved to the county seat of Jerusalem, and embarked on a career in law. Has Nat Turner changed his mind about the rebellion? The exact number killed remains unsubstantiatedvarious sources claim anywhere from fifty to sixty-five. 12. The resulting extended essay, "The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, VA.," was used against Turner during his trial. When the time came for Gray to interview Turner, Gray recorded his recollections of his life leading up to the rebellion, specifically, Turners experiences with reading and writing, scientific experiments, prophecies and his spiritual influence on the neighborhood slaves. 2006 eNotes.com Rather than simply describing the events of the insurrection as they happened, the narrative delved deeper into Turners character. > Indeed, Sundquist wrote, given its formative role in the course of African American cultural history and both anti- and proslavery argument, it is hard to imagine why Turners Confessions should not be accorded the same attention granted, say, Emersons Self-Reliance or Thoreaus Civil Disobedience.'. Turner, who saw the revolt in Biblical terms, never reconciled himself to this date. Company. Gray met with Turner at the jail on November 1, introduced the Confessions as evidence at Turners trial on November 5, and secured a copyright for his pamphlet on November 10, the day before Turner was hanged. to endure. The next session of the Virginia Legislature was the scene of several speeches that used the rebellion as reason to call for abolitionincluding one by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the founding fathers grandson, and C.J. The story began, Turner said, in his childhood, when he . Document A: The Confessions of Nat Turner (Original) The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. As Fully and Voluntarily Made to Thomas R. Gray TO THE PUBLIC [Thomas R. Gray:) Public curiosity has been on the stretch to understand the origin and progress of this dreadful conspiracy, and the motives which influenced its diabolical actors. Even though Turners situation was a unique one, slave owners at the time had to recognize the potentiality for violence iven the peculiar mix of social, psychological, and racial tensions shaping life on the antebellum plantation thus required a certain logic with which threats to that way of life might be explained (Browne, 316). Likewise, it gave northern abolitionists a Black hero and a martyr for a burgeoning movement. Soon after, he married Mary A. In 1829, he bought his recently deceased brother's property as well as a house on the Main Street in town, which supplied him with 800 acres of real property. To install StudyMoose App tap Turners views were clearly unacceptable to the whites who controlled Southamptons interracial churches. Given the evidence, Grays representation of Turner is far from accurate. With the eclipse, the seal was removed from my lips, and I communicated the great work laid out for me to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence, the first conspirators to join his plot. Gray, who claimed to have had little influence on Turners narration, asked him at one point if he did not find himself mistaken now that the prophecy which he had been called upon to fulfill ended in tragedy. According to Gray, an eclipse of the sun in February inspired Turner to confide in four fellow slaves: Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. Why is Thomas Ruffin Gray's "Confessions Of Nat Turner" seen as controversial? Not long afterward, in 1825, Turner had a second vision: I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkenedthe thunder rolled, and the blood flowed in streamsand I heard a voice saying, Such is your luck, such you are called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bare it. This spirit confronted Turner again in May 1828: I heard a loud noise in the heavens and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first..