Services (formerly the Minority Scholars Program)
for its youngest graduate ever. It remains one of
the oldest ethnic scholarship programs in America
and has graduated hundreds of students.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
McPherson, James M., and Laurence B. Holland, et
al., eds. Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.
Turner, Darwin T. “Afro American Literary Critics:
An Introduction.” In The Black Aesthetics, edited
by Addison Gayle, 59–81. Garden City, N.Y.: Dou-
bleday, 1971.
———. In a Minor Chord: Three Afro-American
Writers and Their Search for Identity. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1971.
Wilfred D. Samuels
Turner, Nat (1800–1831)
Nat Turner, prophet and revolutionary, was single-
handedly responsible for the bloodiest slave revolt
in American history, which he led in Southamp-
ton County, Virginia, in 1831. Setting out to strike
a fatal blow against America’s inhumane chattel
slavery, Turner and his insurgent army of fellow
slaves—between 60 and 80 in number—succeeded
in killing between 55 and 65 whites within 48
hours, beginning with his own master, Joseph
Travis, and his family. Lerone Bennett describes
Turner as “A mystic with blood on his mind, a
preacher with vengeance on his lips, a dreamer, a
fanatic, a terrorist... a fantastic mixture of gentle-
ness, ruthlessness and piety” (88).
Born the slave of Southampton County’s Benja-
min Turner, Nat, a precocious child whose intelli-
gence was identified early in his youth, was taught
to read and write, probably by his parents. His
strong religious convictions and Christian faith
led him to believe, from early youth, that God had
called him, in the way he had called Moses of the
Old Testament, to accomplish a special mission,
which he came to identify with the deliverance of
blacks from bondage. Blacks and whites alike, he
claims in The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831),
knew God had ordained him for “some great pur-
pose” (166). So convinced was Turner of this mis-
sion that he, who escaped as fugitive to freedom,
returned himself to bondage and his former slave
master, who sold him to Joseph Travis. In prepara-
tion for what he saw as his destiny, Turner prac-
ticed a life of asceticism, often isolating himself
from others.
Turner details his sense of mission and gives
an account of the revolt in The Confessions of Nat
Turner. While providing an account of his birth,
education, and religious upbringing, Turner em-
phasizes his conviction that, from age four or
five, the spirit of God had appeared to him and,
in several visions, instructed him to prepare him-
self for his mission. In perhaps what is the most
important vision of them all, Turner explains that
one day while he was in the woods, he discovered
blood on the corn and hieroglyphic characters
and numbers on the leaves. Experiencing what he
took to be yet another vision and revelation from
God, Turner concluded, “it was plain to me that
the Savior was about to lay down the yoke he had
borne for the sins of men, and the great day of
judgment was at hand” (167). He knew, “the time
was fast approaching when the first should be last
and the last should be first” (167). The symbols
in his visions meant he “should arise and prepare
[himself], and slay [his] enemies with their own
weapon” (167). With his trusted warriors, Turner
originally decided to initiate the revolt on July 4,
1831, but his illness from the stress of his monu-
mental task caused them to postpone their plans
until August 20. As William Andrews points out,
“Nat Turner evidently wanted his confession to be
read as a spiritual testament of his faithfulness to
his mission in life” (72).
Despite his literacy, Turner did not write The
Confessions of Nat Turner but instead dictated it
to Thomas R. Gray, the court-appointed white at-
torney who also served as his amanuensis while
Turner was in prison waiting to be hanged for
his crime. In his preface to The Confessions, Gray
wrote that Turner “frankly acknowledges his full
participation in all the guilt of transaction. He was
not only the contriver of the conspiracy, but gave512 Turner, Nat