Nat Turner Research Paper

Nat Turner was born a slave in a Virginia plantation owned by Benjamin Turner. He was very religious and believed that when he was little, he talked about events that had occurred before his birth. He claimed that he received divine visions and that god had spoken to him. According to Turner, the insurrection was god’s will that he was prophesized to carry out. These murders were carried out to terrorize whites, yet abolitionists still supported their actions, little did they know that the men had been drinking during the insurrection.
First, in his confessions Nat Turner says “I took my station in the rear, and, as it was my object to carry terror and devastation wherever we went, I placed fifteen or twenty of the best armed and most to be relied on in front, who generally approached the houses as fast as their horses could run.” (Nat turner, p. 4) This tactic was …show more content…
In this quote he describes a very strange and unbelievable event, “About this time I told these things to a white man (Etheldred T. Brantley), on whom it had a wonderful effect; and he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a cutaneous eruption, and blood oozed from the pores of his skin, and after praying and fasting nine days he was healed.” (Nat Turner, P.3) Most sane people would say that Mr. Brantley probably never had blood coming out of his pores at simply hearing something that Turner had said. To make matters worse, the Richmond Enquirer states, “But as they went from house to house, they drank ardent spirits--and it is supposed, that in consequence of their being intoxicated, or from mere fatigue, they paused in their murderous career about 12 o 'clock on Monday.” (Richmond Enquirer, P.1) If Nat Turner did have a mental illness, alcohol could have made his actions even more unpredictable and violent. Turner and his group thought they were doing god’s work, but in reality they were just on a crazy, drunken