Nat Turner once talked about his mother’s mother: “She was a girl of the Coromantee tribe from the Gold Coast of Africa, just thirteen years old when she was brought in chains to Yorktown, Virginia, aboard a schooner out of Newport, Rhode Island.
“She was sold in the harborside of Hampton, to Alpheus Turner, who was the father to Samuel Turner.”
Nat Turner, himself, was born in 1800. At first Samuel Turner’s brother, Benjamin, was his master, but when Benjamin died, he was given to Samuel. His next master was Thomas Moore, and then he went to Joseph Travis.
Nat Turner could not account for his ability to read and write. He was not only extremely intelligent but mechanically able and very influenced by religion in his life, a trait he attributed to his grandmother.
By the time he was twenty, Nat Turner considered himself a minister, though he was never officially ordained by anybody.
He described his “ordination” this way: “As I was praying one day at my plough, the spirit spoke to me. Which fully confirmed for me the impression that I was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty.”
There is no doubt that Turner considered himself a preacher. He spoke about “hearing a loud voice in the heavens and the Spirit instantly spoke to me.”
All during his time of slavery, from birth in 1800 to his revolt in 1831, Nat Turner never gave any trouble to any of his masters or any of the people he was hired out to, like the Whiteheads. Even when he preached behind the vegetable stands in town or did baptisms in the nearby ponds, he did not agitate the crowds or cause a breaking of the peace.
So nobody, not even scholars in this day, can explain Turner’s motives. Was it for liberty? For justice? For personal gain? How could any black man of Turner’s obvious intelligence think he might organize an army (some say he had sixty men with him), destroy plantations, kill the people on them (white and black), capture a town (Jerusalem), and set up shop as an entity of his own without being captured?
All Turner knew was that this was his moment. That “the Spirit” told him to do it. Was he mad? One would think so. But then, how could he appear so polite and talented and agreeable to everyone in the months and years before?
It is worth pondering. At any rate, he was caught, he came to trial, and he was hanged on November 11, 1831. In today’s world he is still not understood. The best historians cannot figure him out. Was he a criminal or a misunderstood holy man? Like others of his type, whose lives splash across the tabloids, perhaps we shall never know.