Saturday, November 5th, 1831. Nat Turner repeated the date to himself. Saturday, November 5th, 1831. As the armed guard marched him into the courtroom, he looked at the faces—lies and anger in their eyes, countenances full of poison.
They were all slavery men and women, but maybe a tiny bit of mercy would still save them—a pig’s foot, a shriveled potato, or an old, torn blanket.
The people screamed and cursed at him, and they cried. They would take him away and hang him themselves. There was no need for a trial; they already knew the truth. Claws grabbed at him. The judges ordered twenty-five more armed guards so the people wouldn’t carry him away.
Nat, alias Nat Turner, v. the Commonwealth of Virginia. The courtroom was crowded, packed even with people from out of town. They had set extra chairs in place for the visiting judges. Ten judges.
And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
There were no black faces in the room—at least none that were not passing as white—no Negro guards, no one. The armed guards around him were three men deep on all sides, except his front, which faced the judges.
Benjamin Phipps, invisible in the throng, was pressed against the back wall. Nat Turner saw his brother John Clarke Turner pointing at him, sitting near Nathaniel Francis.
It was difficult to see the crowd once he sat down, but Nat Turner felt them and heard them. He felt the anger, the hot bloodlust in the air around him. Nothing would satisfy them but death.
“You had us fooled before, nigger, with your reading and your bowing, but we got you now!”
“You gonna dangle from that tree, boy!”
When William Parker entered Nat Turner’s “not guilty” plea, the crowd erupted with outrage. He was a murderer, they said, and they demanded his head.
There was not to be much to the trial. Nat Turner did not expect more. He was not allowed to speak in his defense. There was no one to speak in his defense.
There was only one witness against him: an eyewitness, Levi Waller.
Levi Waller spoke lies, drunken lies. He drank even as he gave his testimony. Then Levi Waller said one true thing.
A slip of the tongue, or the hand of God?
William Parker seemed startled, then quickly regained his composure. He paused momentarily. He sighed and then began to press Levi Waller. “My question is this: Where were you, Mr. Waller?” Parker sighed again. “You testified you were in your home, and then you testified you were hidden in the weeds. Now, today, you tell us you were hidden in the plum grove and then in the swamp. Is there a swamp close to your house?”
Levi Waller was silent.
Parker cleared his throat. “Where were you? Where were you, Mr. Waller?”
Levi looked at the judges but did not answer.
“You mentioned some other place I’ve never heard you mention before, Mr. Waller. You said the teacher came to meet you there. Where was it you said you were?”
Waller looked at Nathaniel Francis. He nodded at Levi to reassure him, but Levi’s mouth began to tremble. He hung his head. “My still.”
Waller did not see anything. He frowned as though the words hurt, as though they were being pulled from inside him. Waller did not see anything. He was at his still.
Nat Turner looked away then. He imagined those who had died because of Waller’s perjury. Families left fatherless. Children without a mother. So many broken hearts. He thought he saw them among the martyrs, among the witnesses. Though the courtroom was silent, as before a tornado, he thought he heard their voices among those of the witnesses.
Who would pay for their murders? No one moved to charge Levi Waller.
Then, in the courtroom, the screaming and shouting began again. The crowd demanded Nat Turner’s blood. Waller’s lies, his failure, only intensified their need.
Nat Turner looked at the two judges, Trezvant and James Parker. Would they speak? Would they warn the people and encourage them to repent?
Then Congressman Trezvant smiled at the people in the courtroom, as though to reassure them. Then his face was solemn, sitting as a judge, now testifying as a witness, Trezvant began to speak. “Nat Turner is a religious zealot, a fanatic, carried away by the lust for power and money. He has confessed his guilt to me. Persuaded by zealotry, Nat Turner and his band were motivated by ignorance and greed—by the love of money,” Trezvant said.
But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
“Nothing I have done has ever been for money!” Nat Turner shouted the words in the midst of Congressman Trezvant’s impromptu testimony. Nat Turner had not intended to speak.
The words had gushed from him, pushed up from his belly. But the people and the judges did not want to hear him. Nat Turner was warned to be quiet.
He sat mute in front of the drunken, screaming mob. There was no deliberation.
Trezvant smiled as he delivered the verdict. “The Court after hearing the testimony and from all the circumstances of the case is unanimously of the opinion that the prisoner is guilty. It is considered by the Court that you be taken hence to the jail from whence you were taken therein to remain until Friday the 11th day of November, on which day between the hours of ten o’clock in the forenoon and four o’clock in the afternoon you are to be taken by the sheriff to the usual place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead.” Trezvant struck the gavel thrice for show.
The congressman looked at the clerk and then at Nathaniel Francis. “The Court values the said slave to the sum of three hundred and fifty”—Nathaniel Francis objected and Trezvant changed the amount—“three hundred and seventy-five dollars.” William Parker, relative to young Acting Judge James Parker, was allowed the sum of ten dollars for defending Nat Turner.