“Wilmington, N. C., Sept. 28.—Three ringleaders of the late diabolical conspiracy were executed at Onslow Court House, on Friday evening last, 23d inst. by the people. There was a fourth, who escaped during the tumult.”[[136]] The editor of the Liberator adds: “‘Executed by the people’ doubtless means executed by a mob, on suspicion of guilt, without investigation or trial.”
A Mr. Robinson was lashed on the bare back at Petersburg, Virginia, for saying “that black men have, in the abstract, a right to their freedom.” After the scourging he was told to leave Petersburg and never return or he would be treated “worser.”[[137]]
In Georgia, a man, named John Lamb, was severely treated because he had subscribed to the Liberator. “A mob of unprincipled vagabonds assembled around his house and violently took him out and tarred and feathered him. They then poured oil on his head and set fire to it. They next carried him on a rail to the river and ducked him. And then they returned with him to a post near Darraugh and Simms’ Tavern, and whipped him.”[[138]]
The slave insurrection in Virginia under the leadership of Nat Turner took place in August of the year 1831. The nature and extent of this insurrection has been frequently misunderstood. On the one hand, it has been represented as having been confined to a magisterial district; on the other hand, its leader is said to have recruited his forces through all Eastern Virginia and through North Carolina. Both of these views are in a measure true.[[139]]
Nat was a negro endowed with a mind capable of high attainments. He was a careful student of the Bible and a Baptist preacher. He read the newspapers and every book within his reach, and he was an attentive listener at discussions of the political and social questions of the day. But his mind grappled with things beyond its reach. The example of Toussaint L’Ouverture in the island of Hayti, and that of Gabriel Prosser in Richmond in 1800, together with the speeches and writings of abolitionists, inspired him to make an attempt to “call the attention of the civilized world to the condition of his race.” He became a complete fanatic and believed that the Lord had destined him to free his race. The red tint of the autumn leaves was a sign of the blood which was to be shed. The eclipse of the sun in February and its peculiar appearance in August, 1831, were to him omens indicating that the time had come for him to put his plans into operation.
For several years plans for insurrection had been maturing in Nat’s mind, and by February, 1831, he had so far determined upon his scheme that he related it to four of the most influential negroes of his section. From that time every effort was made to enlist the co-operation of other slaves, but with the greatest patience and prudence. He deemed it possible to conquer the county of Southampton, march to the Dismal Swamp, collecting the slaves as he went, and so gradually overcome the State, as the Americans had the British in the Revolutionary War.
On the night of Sunday, August 21, Nat opened the insurrection. A misunderstanding in regard to the date deprived him of a few of his followers, but, at the head of a small party which increased in numbers as it proceeded, he went from house to house murdering every white person that could be found. It is characterized as a massacre “barbarous beyond degree.” Depredations, murders, and the most revolting crimes were committed in cold blood. Before the insurrection was put down about sixty whites,—men, women and children,—were slaughtered. The condition of affairs in Southampton for about ten days after the massacre is best described by a committee of citizens in a letter to President Jackson, on the 29th of August, of which the following is an extract: “Most of the havoc has been confined to a limited section of our county, but so inhuman has been the butchery, so indiscriminate the carnage, that the tomahawk and scalping knife have now no horrors. Along the road traveled by our rebellious blacks, comprising a distance of something like twenty-seven miles, no white soul now lives to tell how fiendlike was their purpose. In the bosom of almost every family this enemy still exists. Our homes, those near the scenes of havoc, as well as others more remote, have all been deserted and our families gathered together and guarded at public places in the county; and, still further, the excitement is so great that were the justices to pronounce a slave innocent, we fear a mob would be the consequence.”[[140]]
Many of the rebellious slaves were shot on sight and some innocent negroes suffered. Some prisoners taken near Cross Keys were shot by the Murfreesboro troops and their heads were left for weeks stuck up on poles as a warning to all who should undertake a similar plot. The captain of the marines, as they marched through Vicksville on their way home, bore upon his sword the head of a rebel. A negress who attempted to kill a Mrs. Francis was dragged out, after she had been taken prisoner, tied to an oak tree, and her body riddled with bullets. It is said that some of the slaves suffered fearful torture, being burnt with red-hot irons and their bodies being horribly mutilated, before death came to their relief. Nat was persecuted with pin-pricks and soundly whipped before he was put in jail to await his trial.
According to Drewry, however, although “much excitement and rashness had prevailed in the pursuit and capture of the rebels, the cases of mercy and humanity overshadow those of barbarity and leave the decision in favor of the former.” Fifty-three of the sixty or seventy negroes connected with the massacre were brought before the county court. Of these seventeen were executed and twelve transported. The rest were discharged, except the four free negroes who were sent on to the Superior Court, three of whom were executed. Nat and his three associate-leaders, Hark, Nelson, and Sam, were hung according to the sentence of the court. “The bodies of those executed, with one exception, were buried in a decent and becoming manner. That of Nat Turner was delivered to the doctors, who skinned it and made grease of the flesh.”
The execution of the plot was thus confined to a magisterial district of three thousand inhabitants. Yet every effort had been made to rouse the negroes of neighboring counties in Virginia and North Carolina. The influence of the insurrection was wide-spread, extending to the North as well as the South. The immediate result in many parts of the South was the greatest excitement, alarm, and confusion. “Men went about in groups, the militia drills were renewed, and the arms called in a few months before, reissued.” Thomas Gray, who lived in Southampton, said: “It is the first instance in our history of an open rebellion of the slaves, and attended with such atrocious circumstances of cruelty and destruction as could not fail to leave a deep impression, not only on the minds of the community where the fearful tragedy was wrought, but throughout every portion of our country in which this population is found.” In the North the immediate effect was a more pronounced conviction of the evils of slavery. In general, the effect of the Southampton insurrection was to center public consideration on the slave question.[[141]] Its influence was indirect, rather than direct, in stimulating recourse to lynch-law in the country.