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Nat Turner (October 2, 1800 – November 11, 1831) was an African-American slave who led a slave rebellion of slaves and free blacks in Southampton County, Virginia on August 21, 1831 that resulted in 60 white deaths. He led a group of other slave followers carrying farm implements on a killing spree. As they went from plantation to plantation they gathered horses, guns, freed other slaves along the way, and recruited other blacks that wanted to join their revolt. At the end of their rebellion they were accused of the deaths of fifty white people. Virginia legislators also targeted free blacks with a colonization bill, which allocated new funding to remove them, and a police bill that denied free blacks trials by jury and made any free blacks convicted of a crime subject to sale and relocation.〔Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 225〕 Whites organized militias and called out regular troops to suppress the rising. In addition, mobs attacked blacks in the area killing an estimated total of 100-200, many not involved at all with the revolt.〔''American History: A Survey'' — Brinkley〕 In the aftermath, the state quickly arrested and executed 57 blacks accused of being part of Turner's slave rebellion. An estimated 200 blacks were killed by white militias and mobs, often after having been beaten. Turner hid successfully for two months. When found, he was quickly tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged. Across Virginia and other southern states, state legislators passed new laws to control slaves and free blacks. They prohibited education of slaves and free blacks, restricted rights of assembly for free blacks, withdrew their right to bear arms (in some states), voting, and required white ministers to be present at all black worship services. ==Early years== Born into slavery on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, his name was recorded as "Nat" by his master Benjamin Turner, and when Benjamin Turner died in 1810 Nat became the property of Benjamin’s brother Samuel Turner. By the Civil War era, sources referred to him as Nathaniel, and gave him the surname of his master in the white slaveholder custom of the time. Historians also adopted that convention. Turner knew little about the background of his father who was believed to have escaped from slavery when Turner was a young boy. Novelist William Styron suggests that Turner remained close to his paternal grandmother, Old Bridget, who was also owned by Benjamin Turner. Further, in his ''Confessions of Nat Turner'', Styron wrote that Old Bridget, captured at 13 and shipped to America, was of the Coromantee, also known as the Akan people from the area of present-day Ghana. The Coromantee were known to resist slavery. Robert Hanserd〔Hanserd (2011), abstract, The Gold Coast, Jamaica and New York: Akan Ideas of Freedom in the Afro-Atlantic during the Eighteenth Century. ProQuest, 346 pgs.〕 related that through its holy men, the Coromantee participated in or even led slave revolts in the Caribbean and in New York. As Styron did not reference sources and made clear his book was a work of fiction, this depiction of Old Bridget is of unclear provenance.〔William Styron (1993), pp. 128-9〕 Turner spent his entire life in Southampton County, Virginia, a plantation area where slaves were the majority of the population. He was identified as having "natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, surpassed by few."〔Bisson, ''Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader'' (2005), p. 76.〕 He learned to read and write at a young age. Deeply religious, Nat was often seen fasting, praying, or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible.〔Aptheker (1993), p. 296.〕 Turner's religious convictions manifested as frequent visions which he interpreted as messages from God. Turner's belief in the visions was such that when Turner was 22 years old he ran away from his owner but returned a month later after receiving a spiritual revelation. Turner often conducted Baptist services, preaching the Bible to his fellow slaves who dubbed him "The Prophet". Turner garnered white followers such as Ethelred T. Brantley, who Turner was credited with having convinced to "cease from his wickedness". After the rebellion, a reward notice described Turner as: 5 feet 6 or 8 inches high, weighs between 150 and 160 pounds, rather bright complexion, but not a mulatto, broad shoulders, larger flat nose, large eyes, broad flat feet, rather knockkneed, walks brisk and active, hair on the top of the head very thin, no beard, except on the upper lip and the top of the chin, a scar on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, a large knot on one of the bones of his right arm, near the wrist, produced by a blow.〔Description of Turner included in $500 reward notice in the ''National Intelligencer'' (Washington, DC) on September 24, 1831, quoted in Aptheker, ''American Negro Slave Revolts'', p. 294.〕 Turner was proclaimed as a prophet by his fellow black slaves on the plantation. In early 1828, Turner was convinced that he "was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty."〔Gray (1831), p. 9.〕〔Rothman, Adam. (Slavery ). (Teachinghistory.org ). Accessed 2 June 2011.〕 While working in his owner's fields on May 12, Turner "heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first."〔Gray (1831), p. 11.〕“In connecting this vision to the motivation for his rebellion, Turner makes it clear that he sees himself as participating in the confrontation between God’s Kingdom and the anti-Kingdom that characterized his social-historical context." He was convinced that God had given him the task of "slay() my enemies with their own weapons."〔 Turner said, "I communicated the great work laid out for me to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence" – his fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam.〔 Beginning in February 1831, Turner interpreted certain atmospheric conditions as a sign to begin preparations for a rebellion against the slave owners. On February 11, 1831, an annular solar eclipse was seen in Virginia and Turner envisioned this as a black man's hand reaching over the sun. He initially planned the rebellion to begin on July 4, Independence Day. Turner postponed it because of illness and to use the delay for additional planning and deliberation with his co-conspirators. On August 13 there was another solar eclipse in which the sun appeared bluish-green, possibly the result of lingering atmospheric debris from an eruption of Mount St. Helens. Turner interpreted this as the final signal, and about a week later, on August 21, he began the uprising. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nat Turner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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