Nat Turner's Response To American Slavery By Kyle Baker

Nat Turner Response Paper
While I was reading Kyle Baker’s, Nat Turner I had a unique experience in which I was introduced to American Slavery. I was simultaneously very amazed and very surprised by the rebellion that was led by Nat Turner. Nat Turner an enslaved --African American-- who was also a Baptist minister and a religious leader who led a slave rebellion with a group of followers, however; he and a group of other African slaves killed about sixty people who consisted of white men, women, and children. The readers come to grasp the fact that Africans were hunted, shackled, branded, and transported in rat-infested ships; it also depicts the humiliation that they faced and how they were inspected but they were also sold. I will be putting …show more content…
Kyle Baker does an amazing job of keeping a quick pace throughout the course of the novel. This book does an unbelievable job of illustrating how African slaves lived or existed; and the hopelessness and cruelty they experienced. Nat Turner was told he was different, bright and inquisitive, Baker writes, “My father and mother strengthened me in this, my first impression, saying in my presence I was intended for some great purpose” (70). He heard others saying he would not make a good slave and was destined for greatness. We learn the circumstances of his life, ending with his execution for leading a bloody slave revolt. While some felt Turner was a hero, others felt he was a monster. Kyle Baker leaves it for the readers to decide. The conspirators were then executed for their actions. Throughout the book, Baker depicts the life and what it was like for many African Americans. He also introduced what it was like for many slaves and the many different aspects of the slave trade. Baker’s Nat Turner is captivating and horrid at the same time. The stories that were told within every page and the images that were portrayed, from the start when you see people ripped from their homes and families and they are forced to go through things that no one should ever go through. The pain and the suffering do not come to an end, …show more content…
So, I will only be choosing the images that stood out the most. In chapter one, Home As you see in the previous pages you get to witness the Africans being brought to America, one thing I didn’t know before was that “Packs of hungry sharks routinely followed slave ships, to feast on the hundreds of dead bodies that went overboard.” (39-41). I didn’t know that before and it was a shock to me, that that's what they did to the bodies of the deceased. It’s such a powerful image that really tugs at the heart of the readers I believe. In chapter 2 Education, Baker writes, “It was illegal to teach slaves how to read and write.” (71). Why I believe that image is such a powerful image is because, being uneducated then, you were at such a disadvantage compared to the ones who were educated. Turner believed he was intelligent as a child and stated that “I would never be of any service to anyone as a slave…” (70). An image in chapter 3, Freedom that stood out would be, the start of the massacre. As you can imagine the image depicts the people getting killed, one after the other. An image that is very disturbing as Baker formulates, “There was a little infant sleeping in a cradle, That was forgotten. Until we had left the house and gone some distance when Henry and Will returned and killed it.” (121). In the fourth, and last chapter Triumph Turner is then beheaded, and his body is skinned. The rebellion then caused a profound uproar of the