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 Beginning in the early hours of Sunday, 21 August 1831, a
slave named Nat Turner led about sixty followers in a series of attacks on
white families in Southampton County, Virginia. By the time local militia
had suppressed the insurrection some 48 hours later more than fifty people
had been killed. The shock waves from Turner's attack were felt all over
the South. Counties in North Carolina were just over the state line from
Southampton, and word of the assault spread rapidly along the border. Rumors
grew by leaps and bounds as they travelled. As refugees from Virginia poured
into Murfreesboro, North Carolina, a band of rebellious slaves was reported
to be within six miles of the town. The militia was called out in Hertford,
Halifax, and Northampton Counties. North Carolina's Governor Montford Stokes
was bombarded by reports of violence and requests for weapons. In Edgecombe,
Gates, and Chowan Counties white people armed themselves and closely monitored
the behavior of their slaves. As news of Turner's insurrection spread, reaction
began to crop up in areas relatively far removed from the North Carolina-Virginia
line. In Duplin, Sampson, and New Hanover Counties, more than a hundred miles
from the scene of Turner's attack, a situation near panic ensued. Frightened
by rumors, most of the citizens of the area convinced themselves that there
was a general plot among their slaves to rise up and massacre the white population.
Confessions extorted from slaves under torture became the basis for arresting
even more slaves who were similarly tortured until they confessed. Wild stories
were everywhere. At one point, the town of Clinton in Sampson County was
reported burned to the ground and dozens of white families killed. Kenansville
in Duplin County braced for an attack by an army of more than 1500 slave
insurrectionists. Wilmington in New Hanover County was thrown into a panic
by the discharge of a cannon north of the city, and citizens passed a night
of near hysterical fear. Investigation the next day revealed that the gun
had been fired by a carousing group of white men. Eventually news of the
events in Virginia reached even the far western counties of North Carolina.
In Rutherford County, slaves who worked local gold mines were feared to be
plotting an uprising.
None of the many rumors of murderous slave insurrections
which circulated in North Carolina in August and September of 1831 proved
to be true. Terror and death were very real, however, for the state's
African American population. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of slaves or free
blacks were arrested, and many were tortured and killed in areas where white
peoples' fear turned into panic and then into violence. Black North Carolinians
paid a heavy price for the revolt of Nat Turner.
Harry McKown
August 2009
Sources:
Charles Edward Morris, "Panic and Reprisal: Reaction in North
Carolina to the Nat Turner Insurrection, 1831," The North Carolina Historical
Review, January 1985 (Volume 62, no. 1).
Robert N. Elliott, "The Nat Turner Insurrection as reported in
the North Carolina Press," The North Carolina Historical Review, January
1961 (Volume 38, no. 1).
Image Source:
Nat Turner. The confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection in Southampton, Va. : as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, in the prison where he was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such, when read before the court of Southampton : with the certificate, under seal of the court convened at Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1831, for his trial : also an authentic account of the whole insurrection, with lists of the whites who were murdered, and of the negroes brought before the court of Southampton, and there sentenced, &c.. Baltimore : T.R Gray, 1831 ([Baltimore] : Lucas & Deaver).
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