Suppose Nat Turner succeeded … Then what? (op-ed)

Actor Nate Parker made his directorial debut with a biopic about Nat Turner, the slave turned preacher who led the 1831 slave revolt in which his band of “freedom fighters” murdered over fifty whites on neighboring plantations in Virginia.

That’s all I’m going to say about the movie.

Most know this story from Black History Month or William Styron’s novel: The Confessions of Nat Turner. But I remember when it was mentioned by a high school substitute teacher, a black woman that incorporated tales like Nat Turner’s into every subject because she felt the public school system didn’t give black students a sense of dignity, and she called the event the most successful slave revolt in the United States.

But I knew Nat Turner got hung. Her notion of success confused me.

Success is defined as the accomplishment of a goal, and when you hear “slave revolt,” you assume the goal is freedom not a body count of dead whites. The historical record details Nat Turner’s actions, but killing slaveholders doesn’t grant freedom in a slave state. Now suppose Nat Turner’s revolt lasted more than two days and he killed as many whites as possible until the rest fled the state. (For help, of course)

Then what?

How were they going to obtain freedom?

That detail is missing from the historical record, but it’s not missing from the record of previous slave rebellion plots that were foiled before they begun.

In 1800, in the same state of Virginia, Gabriel Prosser, a hired-out, well-traveled, blacksmith, planned a slave rebellion. During his travels Prosser heard of the slave uprising in Saint-Domingue (The Haitian Revolution). Prosser was political. He ordered his men to kill all whites except Methodist and Quaker missionaries active in manumission (The act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves). Prosser’s plan was to invade the capital city of Richmond, take the governor hostage, and negotiate an end of slavery.

In 1822 Denmark Vesey planned a slave revolt in South Carolina. Vesey was born into slavery in the Caribbean, brought to Charleston, and eventually purchased his freedom. He was a carpenter and a preacher. Vesey organized a network of over 1,000 slaves and free blacks. They had a battle plan and an exit strategy. One unit would storm the Charleston Meeting Street Arsenal and secure weapons, another group was going to kill white slaveholders throughout the city liberating the slaves, and then they were going to converge on the harbor, commandeer ships, and sail to Haiti.

But if Nat Turner succeeded his followers would have been in the same position as the Israelites at the Red Sea. And when the Israelites saw Pharaoh’s army approaching, they asked Moses, “Why did you bring us out here? What have you done to us? It would have been better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness.”

So was Nat Turner going to part the Atlantic Ocean and lead the people back to Africa? If not, then what was his goal?

One account suggested Turner said he wanted to spread “terror and alarm” among whites. If that’s true, then my substitute teacher attributed success in the execution of the plan.

But what does “terror and alarm” have to do with freedom?

Some scholars said Turner wanted to awaken the consciousness and change the attitudes of the architects of slavery by proving violence begets violence.

Maybe.

 

But that sounds like a romanticized theory rooted in hero-worship and hero-worshippers always manipulate the motives of their heroes to justify their admiration.

Since Nat Turner was known as a prophet with a special mission from God revealed to him through visions. It’s possible Nat Turner interpreted these visions as apocalyptic revelations and he secretly believed his divine purpose was to purge evil in preparation for the second coming.

And if that’s the case, what on earth does that have to do with freedom?

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 10/26/16