Who was Nat Turner?
(2) What were his thoughts and motives? (3) Was he part of the African-American tradition of slave resistance or was he unique? (4) What led to the insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia? (5) How did masters and political leaders react to the rebellion? (6) What do these reactions reveal about the ruling group’s attitudes toward slavery and slaves? (7) How did African-Americans react to the rebellion? (8) What were the ultimate results of the revolt? These are excellent focus questions for students, for working through primary sources is never an easy task for undergraduates. A teacher adopting this documentary reader could serve students well by creating a pre-assignment handout for students that contains Greenberg’s eight focus questions. Students seldom, if ever, read an author’s prefatory remarks and these focus questions would help students or other readers in understanding the historical significance of the Nat Turner Rebellion. Greenberg’s introduction (The Confessions of
Nat Turner was a slave born in Southampton, Virginia in 1800, the same year that Thomas Jefferson was elected President, Gabriel was hung for insurrection in Richmond, and John Brown was born. He was raised in the countryside outside the small town of Jerusalem which was the county seat. Turner’s mother was an African, rare in the Virginia slave population at the time and his father escaped North while he was young. He was precocious, learning to read and write at an early age. He was always extremely religious and in his early 20’s while plowing in the fields began to have visions that proclaimed to him that he had some great work to do. As the years passed the visions increased in power and impressed upon him that he was the second coming of Christ and was ordained to lead slaves to freedom through a violent insurrection. In 1831 there was an eclipse of the sun on the east coast of the United States which he took as an omen the Spirit had sent for the insurrection to begin. In August
