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Most whites scoffed, but at least one man, Etheldred T. Certain that he was ordained to bring about Judgment Day, Turner began to conduct religious services at Barnes ’s Church near the North Carolina border. “I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, ” he later recalled, “and the sun was darkened -the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams ” (Greenberg 1996, p. Sometime in 1825, while working in the fields, Turner had his first vision.

He avoided large spiritual gatherings on Sundays, but at night in the quarters he willingly described what he had discovered during his solitary readings of the Bible. Despite being short of stature and a little knock-kneed, Turner ’s shoulders were broad and well muscled from more than a decade of hard labor.Įmbittered by the forced separation from his wife, Turner turned to fasting and prayer. Turner was sold to Thomas Moore for $400, an indication he was regarded as a prime field hand. Although the evidence for a spouse is circumstantial, the Richmond Constitutional Whig later reported that Turner married a young slave woman this may have been Cherry, who in 1822 was sold to Giles Reese when Samuel died and his estate was liquidated. It may have been at this point that Nat adopted the surname of Turner as a way of linking himself to his ancestral homeplace rather than as an act of homage to the deceased Benjamin Turner. Nancy, Nat, Old Bridget, and five other slaves were loaned to Samuel to help him establish his cotton plantation, a move that became permanent the following year when Benjamin died during a typhoid epidemic. In 1809, Benjamin Turner ’s oldest son Samuel purchased 360 acres two miles away. As was later said of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, whites spoke of Nat as being too clever to be raised in bondage, and Benjamin Turner once remarked that the boy “would never be of service to anyone as a slave ” (Greenberg 1996, p. Told by both his mother and grandmother that he was “intended for some great purpose, ” the unusually serious child devoted his limited leisure moments to “fasting and prayer ” (Greenberg 1996, pp. Unlike other enslaved boys, he neither played practical pranks on others nor touched liquor. When not doing light work in the fields, Nat kept to himself and “studiously avoided mixing in society ” (Greenberg 1996, pp. 45) or in reading books purchased for white children on nearby Southampton County farms and estates.Īware of his unique abilities, young Nat “wrapped in mystery ” (Greenberg 1996, p.

Gray was exaggerated bravado -or that the white lawyer ’s editorial hand helped shape the pamphlet published as The Confessions of Nat Turner ( Baltimore, 1831) -there is little reason to doubt Nat ’s assertion that he spent every possible childhood moment “either in prayer ” (p. Even assuming that some of what Nat later told to attorney Thomas R. As a devout Methodist, Benjamin Turner was not only aware of Nat ’s literacy, he even encouraged him to read the Bible, as did his paternal grandmother, Old Bridget, who Nat later said was “very religious, and to whom I was much attached ” (p.

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Upon being given a book, the boy quickly learned how to read, “a source of wonder to all in the neighborhood ” (Greenberg 1996, p. Later in life, Nat Turner insisted that his father ran away when he was still a boy.Įarly on, blacks and whites alike came to regard Nat as unusually gifted. Evidence indicates that after being purchased by Turner, Nancy was used as a domestic servant. Family tradition holds that Nancy landed in Norfolk five years before in 1795, the slave of a refugee fleeing the revolt in Saint Domingue. Abolitionist and rebel Nat Turner was born circa October 2, 1800, on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, the child of an enslaved woman named Nancy (the name of Nat ’s father is unknown).