Nat Turner

Nathaniel "Nat" Turner (* 2.10.1800 in Southampton, Va.; † 11. November 1831 hingerichtet) wurde durch den von ihm angeführten Sklavenaufstand bekannt.

Der einer Sklavin wurde vom Sohn des Plantagenbesitzers Benjamin Turner im christlichen Glauben unterrichtet und gelangte zu der Überzeugung, Gott habe ihn auserwählt, seine Leute aus der Sklaverei zu führen (1825).

Er wirkte als Prediger unter den Sklaven der Plantage und wurde „der Prophet“ genannt. 1831 wurde Nat Turner nach dem Tod Benjamin Turners an Joseph Travis (Travers?) verkauft.

Im Februar 1831 glaubte er in einer Sonnenfinsternis ein Zeichen Gottes zu sehen, die Befreiung zu beginnen.

Am 21. August töteten Nat und sieben andere Sklaven ihre Besitzer. Der Gruppe schlossen sich daraufhin weitere Sklaven und freie Schwarze an, die mit Messern, Äxten und Hacken von Siedlung zu Siedlung zogen und dort Weiße umbrachten. Dem Aufstand fielen 55 weiße Menschen zum Opfer, bis eine Miliz den Aufstand niederschlug. Als Vergeltung wurden mehr als hundert unschuldige Sklaven getötet.

Turner wurde sechs Wochen später (30.10.1831) gefangengenommen. Während seiner Gefangenschaft schrieb Thomas R. Gray das Leben Turners nieder. Es wurde als The Confessions of Nat Turner in Zeitungen veröffentlicht.

Turners fehlgeschlagener Aufstand führte zu weiteren Morden an Sklaven und noch schärferen Sanktionen bei Ungehorsam. Nat Turner wurde am 11. November 1831 in Jerusalem im Southampton County, Virginia, gehenkt, sein Körper wurde Ärzten überlassen, die ihn köpften, häuteten und vierteilten.

Das Leben Nathaniel Turners kam 1967 durch die Veröffentlichung des Romans The Confessions of Nat Turner von William Styron wieder ins Gespräch. Obwohl das Buch in den USA der 1960er Jahre starker Kritik ausgesetzt war, entwickelte es sich zum Verkaufsschlager. Der amerikanische Historiker und Sozialkritiker Styron warf durch die Veröffentlichung Fragen zu Turner, schwarzer Geschichte und „die Worte des Propheten“ (des „Sambo“) auf.

Die öffentliche Diskussion, der sich auch weiße Autoren anschlossen, führte zu einem Aufschrei der weißen Bevölkerung. Durch die Veränderungen Ende der 1960er-Jahre galt Turner als Symbol der Black-Power-Bewegung und der Befreiung. Reef The Lost Cauze, ein Underground-Rapper aus Philadelphia, schrieb ein Lied über Nat Turner, es ist auf dem Album A Vicious Cycle zu hören. Außerdem veröffentlichte Kyle Baker 2008 seine Graphic Novel Nat Turner, die 2006 zahlreiche Preise gewonnen hatte, so z.B. Story of the Year und Best Artist der Glyph Awards oder Best Reality-Based Work des Eisner Awards. Außerdem wird der Sklavenaufstand unter Turner auch im 9. Teil der TV Serie „Roots“ aus dem Jahr 1977 behandelt.

Weblinks und Literatur

• Encycl. Brit. Nat Turner
• Aptheker, Herbert (1966) Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion. Including the full text of Nat Turner's 1831 "Confession". New York: Grove Press.
• Stephen B. Oates: The Fires of Jubilee. Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. Harper & Row, New York 1975, ISBN 0-06-091670-2.
• William Sidney Dewry, The Southhampton Insurrection, 1870
• Baker, Kyle (2008) Nat Turner. New York: Harry N. Abrams
• Nat Turner bio.

Darin: As a small child, Turner was thought to have some special talent because he could describe things that happened before he was even born. Some even remarked that he "surely would be a prophet," according to his later confession. His mother and grandmother told Turner that he "was intended for some great purpose." Turner was deeply religious and spent much of his time reading the Bible, praying and fasting. - Over the years, Turner worked on a number of different plantations. He ran away from Samuel Turner, his former owner's brother, in 1821. After thirty days hiding in the woods, Turner came back to Turner's plantation after he received what he believed to be a sign from God. After Samuel Turner's death, Nat Turner became the slave of Thomas Moore and then the property of his widow. When she married John Travis, Nat Turner went to work on Travis's lands. Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, Turner had a vision in 1825 of a bloody conflict between black and white spirits. Three years later, he had what he believed to be another message from God. In his later confession, Turner explained "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. " Turner would receive another sign to tell him when to fight, but this latest message meant "I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons." Turner took a solar eclipse that occurred in February 1831 as a signal that the time to rise up had come. He recruited several other slaves to join him in his cause. On August 21, 1831, Turner and his supporters began their revolt against white slave owners with the killing the Travis family. Turner gathered more supporters—growing to a group of up to 40 or 50 slaves—as he and his men continued their murder spree through the county. They were able to secure arms and horses from those they killed. Most sources say that about 55 white men, women and children died during Turner's rebellion. Initially Turner had planned to reach the county seat of Jerusalem and take over the armory there, but he and his men were foiled in this plan. They faced off against a group of armed white men at a plantation near Jerusalem, and the conflict soon dissolved into chaos. Turner himself fled into the woods.While Turner hid away, white mobs took their revenge on the blacks of Southampton County. Estimates range from approximately 100 to 200 African Americans were killed after the rebellion. Turner was eventually captured on October 30, 1831. He was represented by lawyer Thomas R. Gray, who wrote down Turner's confession. Turner pled not guilty during his trail, believing that his rebellion was the work of God. He was sentenced to death by hanging, and this sentence was carried out on November 11, 1831. Many of his co-conspirators met the same fate as Turner. The incident put fear in the heart of southerners, ending the organized emancipation movement in that region. Southern states enacted even harsher laws against slaves instead. Turner's actions also added fuel to the abolitionist movement in the north. Noted abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison even published an editorial in his newspaper The Liberator in support of Turner to some degree. Turner's image has changed and evolved over the years. He has emerged as a hero, a religious fanatic and a villain. Turner became an important icon to the 1960s black power movement as an example of an African American standing up against white oppression. He was also the subject of William Styron's 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Confessions of Nat Turner. But others have objected to Turner's indiscriminate slaughtering of men, women and children to try to achieve this end. As historian Scot French told The New York Times, "To accept Nat Turner and place him within the pantheon of American revolutionary heroes is to sanction violence as a means of social change. He has a kind of radical consciousness that to this day troubles advocates of a racially reconciled society. The story lives because it's relevant today to questions of how to organize for change."

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