The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920

This was ten weeks after that Sunday in August when they had feasted in the woods and arranged their plan of attack. At the time of the capture there were at least fifty men out in search of him, none of whom could have been two miles from the hiding place. The Richmond Enquirer in giving the first public announcement, said: "Nat displayed no sort of enterprise in his attempt to escape nor any degree of courage in resisting his captor;" but this journal does not give him credit for having eluded his pursuers for more than two months or for knowing that discretion is the better part of valor. Several companies of the State militia and a battalion of United States marines had joined in the search and failed, yet Nat displayed no enterprise.319

His arrest caused much relief. He was taken the next day to Jerusalem, the county seat, and tried on the fifth of November before a board of magistrates. The indictment against him was for making insurrection and plotting to take away the lives of divers free white persons on the twenty-second of August, 1831. On his arraignment Turner pleaded "Not Guilty." The Commonwealth submitted its case, not on the testimony of any eye witnesses but on the depositions of one Levi Waller who read Turner's Confession320 and Colonel Trezevant the committing magistrate corroborated it by referring to the same confession. Turner introduced no testimony in defense and his counsel made no argument in his behalf. He was promptly found guilty and sentenced to be hanged Friday, November 11, 1831, twelve days after his capture. During the examination Nat evinced great intelligence and much shrewdness of intellect, answering every question clearly and distinctly and without confusion or prevarication.

An immense throng gathered on the day of execution though few were permitted to see the ceremony. He exhibited the utmost composure and calm resignation. Although assured if he felt it proper he might address the immense crowd, he declined to avail himself of the privilege, but told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Not a limb nor a muscle was observed to move. His body was given over to the surgeons for dissection. He was skinned to supply such souvenirs as purses, his flesh made into grease, and his bones divided as trophies to be handed down as heirlooms. It is said that there still lives a Virginian who has a piece of his skin which was tanned, that another Virginian possesses one of his ears and that the skull graces the collection of a physician in the city of Norfolk.

Considering the situation unusually serious, Governor John Floyd made this the dominant thought of his message to the legislature that year. More space was devoted to a discussion of this uprising than to any other single fact mentioned in the message. He was of the opinion that the spirit of insurrection was not confined to Southampton. The Governor believed that there were well-drawn plans of treason, insurrection and murder, "designed and matured by unrestrained fanatics in some of the neighboring States, who found facilities in distributing their views and plans amongst our population either through the post office or by agents sent for that purpose throughout our territory." He, therefore, corresponded with the governors of commonwealths to preserve as far as possible "the good understanding which existed and which ought to be cherished between the different members of this Union."

The Governor believed that the persons most active in stirring up the revolt were Negro preachers. "They had acquired," said he, "great ascendency over the minds of their fellows, and infused all their opinions which had prepared them for the development of the final design. There was also some reason to believe," thought he, "those preachers have a perfect understanding in relation to these plans throughout the eastern counties; and have been the channels through which the inflammatory papers and pamphlets, brought here by the agents and emissaries from other States, have been circulated amongst our slaves." He considered it a weakness in the laws of the State that facilities for assembly, to plot, treason, and conspiracy, to revolt and make insurrection, had been afforded by the lack of legislation to the contrary to prevent such freedom of movement among the Negroes. He believed, therefore, the public good required that the Negro preachers be silenced, "because, full of ignorance, they were incapable of inculcating anything but notions of the wildest superstition, thus preparing fit instruments in the hands of crafty agitators, to destroy the public tranquility."321

He, therefore, recommended as a means against the possible repetition of such sanguinary scenes the revision of the laws to preserve in due subordination the Negroes of the State. He believed, moreover, that although this insurrection had been due to the work of slaves, that the free people of color furnished a much more promising field for the operations of the abolition element of the North, inasmuch as they had opened to them more enlarged views and urged the achievement of a higher destiny by means, "for the present less violent, but not differing in the end from those presented to the slaves." He referred to the free Negroes as "that class of the community, which our laws have hitherto treated with indulgent kindness," and for whom many instances of solicitude for their welfare have marked the progress of legislation. If, however, thought he, the slave who is confined by law to the estate of his master can work such destruction, how much more easy it would be for the free Negro to afflict the community with a still greater calamity. The Governor, moreover, referred to the fact that the free people of color had placed themselves in hostile array against every measure designed to remove them from the State and raised the question as to whether the last benefit which the State might confer upon them might not be to appropriate annually a sum of money to aid their removal to other soil.322

To show how general the excitement was throughout the State one needs but read in the journal of the legislature the number of petitions praying that some action be taken to provide for the safety of the people in the commonwealth.323 In the Valley and in the extreme western portion of the State where few slaves were found and where there were still persons who did not welcome the institution, there were held a number of meetings in which the abolition of slavery was openly discussed and urged. Such memorials, however, did not constitute the majority of the petitions requiring action with reference to slavery. More meetings were held in the eastern counties but opinion there differed so widely that they availed little in working out a constructive plan. The larger number of these took the form of such an improvement and change in the black code as to preserve the institution and at the same time secure the safety of the citizens.324

Believing that the free people of color had been or would be the most effective means in the attack on the institution of slavery, there were more memorials for the removal of this class of the population than any other petitions bearing on slavery. Among the counties praying for the removal of the free Negroes, were Amelia, Isle of Wight, York, Nansemond, Frederick, Powhatan, Fairfax, and Northumberland. Others asked for the removal of the free Negroes325 and furthermore the purchase of slaves to be deported. Among the counties praying for such a measure were Fauquier, Hanover, Washington, Nelson, Loudoun, Prince William, and King William. From Charles City, Rockbridge, and Caroline Counties came the additional request for a legislation providing for gradual emancipation. Page, Augusta, Fauquier, and Botetourt, sent memorials praying that steps be taken to procure an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, investing Congress with the power to appropriate money for sending beyond the limits of the United States the free people of color and such of the slaves as might be purchased for the same purpose. This was almost in keeping with the request from the Henrico and Frederick Colonization Societies asking the Government to deport the Negroes to Africa. Buckingham County requested that the colored population be removed from the county and colonized according to the plans set forth by Thomas Jefferson. The request of the Society of Friends in the county of Charles City for gradual emancipation, however, caused resentment.326

Thinking that it might not be possible to transport all the Negroes of the country very easily, requests for dealing with the situation as it was, were also in order. As a number of the farmers had suffered from a loss of sheep by the numerous dogs maintained by slaves and free persons of color, there came requests praying that the keeping of dogs and hogs by Negroes be made illegal. Some of these petitions, too, had an economic phase. There came from Culpepper a petition praying for a passage of the law for the encouragement of white mechanics by prohibiting any slave, free Negro or mulatto from being bound as an apprentice to learn any trade or art. Charles City and New Kent complained against the practice of employing slaves and Negroes as millers and asked that a law penalizing such action be enacted.327

The question as to what should be done with the blacks turned out to be the most important matter brought before the legislature. Three-fourths of the session was devoted to the discussion of such questions as the removal of the free Negroes and the colonization of such slaves as masters could be induced to give up. The legislature met on the 5th of December and after going through the preliminaries of organization listened to the message of the Governor which had the insurrection as its most prominent feature. When the petitions from the various counties began to come in, there soon prevailed a motion that so much of the Governor's message as related to the insurrection of slaves and the removal of the free Negroes be referred to a select committee, which after prolonged deliberation found it difficult to agree upon a report.

Desiring to protect the interests of slavery, William O. Goode, of Mecklenburg County, moved on the eleventh of January that the select committee appointed to consider the memorials bearing on slaves free Negroes and the Southampton massacre be discharged from the consideration of all petitions, memorials and resolutions, which had for their object the manumission of slaves. The resolution further declared that it was not expedient to legislate on slavery.328 Whereupon Thomas Jefferson Randolph, of Albemarle County, moved to amend this resolution so as to instruct the committee to inquire into the expediency and to report a bill to submit to the voters of the State the propriety of providing by law that the children of all female slaves who might be born in that State on or after the fourth day of July, 1840, should become the property of the commonwealth, the males at the age of twenty-one years and females at the age of eighteen, if detained by their owners within the limits of the commonwealth, until they should respectively arrive at the ages aforesaid. They would then be hired out until the net sum arising therefrom should be sufficient to defray the expenses of their removal beyond the limits of the United States.329

After several days of heated but fruitless discussion marked by adjournment to calm the troubled waters, the question assumed a new phase when William H. Brodnax, the chairman of the select committee, reported the resolution: That it is inexpedient for the present to make any legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. Whereupon Mr. William A. Patterson of Chesterfield County moved to amend this resolution so as to read: That it was expedient to adopt some legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery.330 Around Goode's motion, Randolph's substitute and Preston's amendments centered an exciting debate showing such a wide difference of opinion that the publicity caused about as much excitement as Nat Turner's insurrection itself. Many citizens protested against such an open discussion, knowing that slaves able to read might thereby be induced to rise again.331 This fear, however, did not serve very well as a restraining factor.

The warning sounded by some of these people is significant. The Richmond Enquirer the chief organ of thought in the State expressed in a strong editorial that the evils of slavery were alarming and urged that some definite action be taken immediately since the policy of deferring the solution of the problem for future generations had brought the commonwealth to grief.332 Certain ladies from Fluvanna County said in their memorial: "We cannot conceal from ourselves that an evil is among us, which threatens to outgrow the growth and eclipse the brightness of our national blessings."333 Brodnax deplored the fact that the time had come in Virginia "When men were found to lock their doors and open them in the morning to receive their servants to light their fires, with pistols in their hands."334

A summary of this debate shows that a few members of the legislature desired instant abolition, a much larger number, probably a majority of the body, wanted to work out some scheme for gradual emancipation, and others feeling that the slaves could be controlled by severe laws, endeavored to restrict the effort to the removal of the free people of color. Certain citizens of Hanover desired to lay a tax on slaves and free Negroes to raise funds to deport them all.335 The unfortunate development, however, was that no one knew exactly what he wanted, no one came to the legislature with a well-matured plan to remedy the evils, and every man seemed to be governed in his action by his local interests rather than those of the commonwealth.

The Preston amendment was, after an exciting discussion, finally defeated on the 25th of January by a vote of 58 to 73. Thereupon on motion of Mr. Archibald Bryce, of Goochland County, the legislature amended the report of the select committee by inserting the following: "Profoundly sensible of the great evils arising from the condition of the colored population of this commonwealth induced by humanity, as well as by policy to an immediate effort for the removal in the first place, as well of those who are now free, as of such as may hereafter become free: believing that this effort, while it is in just accordance with the sentiment of the community on the subject, will absorb all our present means, and that a further action for the removal of the slaves should await a more definite development of public opinion.336

This resolution aptly describes the situation resulting after the prolonged discussion. A majority of the members believed that slavery was an evil, but no one was willing to pay the cost of exterminating it. It was easily shown that because of unprofitable slave labor the commonwealth was lagging behind the free States and that the free labor essential to the rebuilding of the waste places in the State would never come to the commonwealth as long as there would be competition with slave labor. It was soon apparent, however, that a State with such a diversity of interests, one-half slave and one-half free could not legislate on slavery. This compromising resolution of procrastination, therefore, was adopted as the best Virginia could under the circumstances be induced to do for the extermination337 of its worst evil.

The debate proved to be valuable to the abolitionists. In the course of his remarks Mr. Brodnax declared that the confidence of the people seemed to be gone. "Under such circumstances life becomes a burthen and it is better to seek a home in some distant realm and leave the graves of our fathers than endure so precarious a condition." It was evident, he thought, that something must be done; and although measures for the removal of this evil might not, perhaps be arrived at immediately yet some plan for its gradual eradication would probably be hit upon. A system might be concocted by degrees to embrace the whole subject and it was therefore necessary to consider it in all its bearings.338

Mr. Chandler said that he in common with his constituents looked forward to the passage of a law for the removal of the free blacks. He was also in favor of the consideration of any plan which might remove entirely at some future time, the greatest curse that had ever been inflicted upon this State. He would look upon the day on which the deliverance of the commonwealth from the burden of slavery should be accomplished as the most glorious in the annals of Virginia since the fourth of July, 1776.339 Mr. Moore did not wish to entangle the committee on the subject of getting rid of the free black population of this State. That population, he knew, was a nuisance which the interests of the people required to remove, but there was another and a greater nuisance, slavery itself. He wished that it should be considered and if it were possible to devise any plan for the ultimate extinction of slavery, he would rejoice.340

Mr. Bolling rose in his remarks to a height of moral sublimity. "We talk of freedom," said he, "while slavery exists in this land; and speak with horror of the tyranny of the Turk. We foster an evil which the highest interests of the community require should be removed, which was denounced as the bans of our happiness by the Father of the Commonwealth and to which we trace the cause of the lamentable depression of Eastern Virginia. Every intelligent individual admits that slavery is the most pernicious evil with which a body politic can be afflicted."341

Mr. Randolph, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson, said that it was the dark, the appalling, the despairing future that had awakened the public mind rather than the Southampton Insurrection. He asked whether silence would restore the death-like apathy of the Negro's mind. It might be wise to let it sleep in its torpor; "but has not," he asked, "its dark chaos been illumined? Does it not move, and feel and think? The hour of the eradication of the evil is advancing, it must come. Whether it is affected by the energy of our minds or by the bloody scenes of Southampton and San Domingo is a tale for future history."342 Mr. Faulkner addressed the House in favor of the gradual extinction of slavery, concluding with these words: "Tax our lands, vilify our country, carry the sword of extermination through our defenceless villages but spare us the curse of slavery, that bitterest drop from the chalice of the destroying angel."343

Mr. MacDowell, referring to the insurrection, thus described its terror and its awful lesson: "It drove families from their homes, assembled women and children in crowds in every condition of weakness and infirmity, and every suffering that want and terror could inflict, to escape the terrible dread of domestic assassination. It erected a peaceful and confiding State into a military camp which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers had offended; which barred every door, penetrated every bosom with fear or suspicion, which so banished every sense of security from every man's dwelling; that, let but a hoof or horn break upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be driven to the heart. The husband would look to his weapon and the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle. Was it the fear of Nat Turner and his deluded drunken handful of followers, which produced such effects? Was it this that induced distant counties where the very name of Southampton was strange to arm and equip for a struggle? No sir, it was the suspicion eternally attached to the slave himself, a suspicion that a Nat Turner might be in every family, that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time and in any place, that the materials for it were spread through the land and were always ready for a like explosion."344

Although no agreement on the extinction of slavery could be reached, the question of removing the free people of color was decidedly another matter. Many who were unwilling to legislate with reference to slavery did not object to the proposal to remove the free Negroes from the State. Yet there were others who looked upon this as a political by-play. The Southampton Insurrection was not the work of free Negroes but that of slaves. Only two of the many free Negroes in Southampton county took a part in the insurrection and these two had slave wives. The North Carolina plot, moreover, was revealed by a free Negro. Many citizens agreed too with a Richmond Enquirer correspondent of Hanover, who in speaking for the free people of color pointed out the good they had been to the community,345 and the Governor who in his annual message raised the question as to propriety of removing them, said that the laws of the State had theretofore treated the free people of color with "indulgent kindness" and that "many instances of solicitude for their welfare" had "marked the progress of legislation."346

A bill for removal, however, was promptly offered on the twenty-seventh of January.347 On the first of February there was presented an additional report deeming it expedient to set apart for the removal of the free colored population so much of the claims of Virginia on the General Government as may come into and belong to the treasury of the State.348 A few days later Mr. Moore submitted a resolution covering the same ground and calling upon the Senators and Representatives of Virginia in Congress to use their best efforts to promote this project.349 The Matter was tabled but on the 6th of February the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole to take this bill into consideration. After prolonged discussion the matter was again tabled with a view to future consideration. The feeling of the majority seemed to be that, if the Negroes were removed, no coercion should be employed except in the case of those who remained in the State contrary to the law of 1806.350 $35,000 for 1832 and $90,000 for 1833 was to be appropriated for transportation. A central board consisting of the governor, treasurer, and members of the Council of State was to decide the place to which these Negroes were to be expatriated and the agents to carry out the law would also be named by the same board.351 The bill for the removal of free Negroes was indefinitely postponed in the Senate by a vote of 18 to 14 and therefore was never taken up.

The next effort of the legislature in dealing with the Negroes was to strengthen the black code as it then existed so as to provide for a more adequate supervision and rigid control of the slaves and free people of color. There was offered thereafter a bill to amend an act entitled "an act to revise under one the several acts concerning slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes." The important provisions of the bill were that slaves and free Negroes should not conduct religious exercises nor attend meetings held at night by white preachers unless granted written permission by their masters or overseers. Thereafter no free Negro should be capable of purchase or otherwise acquiring permanent ownership, except by descent, of any slave, other than his or her husband, wife or children. Further penalties, moreover, were provided for persons writing or printing anything intended to incite the Negroes to insurrection. The State had already enacted a law prohibiting the teaching of slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes.352 The other petitions requiring that Negroes be restricted in the higher pursuits of labor and in the ownership of hogs and dogs were, because of the spirit which existed after the excitement had subsided, rejected as unnecessary. The law providing for burning in the hand was repealed. The immigration of free Negroes into the State, however, was prohibited in 1834.353

The effect of this insurrection and this debate extended far beyond the borders of Virginia and the South. Governor McArthur of Ohio in a message to his legislature called special attention to the outbreak and the necessity for prohibitive legislation against the influx within that commonwealth of the free people of color who naturally sought an asylum in the free States. The effect in Southern States was far more significant. Many of them already had sufficient regulations to meet such emergencies as that of an insurrection but others found it necessary to revise their black codes.

Maryland passed, at the session of its legislature in 1831-1832, a law providing a board of managers to use a fund appropriated for the purpose of removing the free people of color to Liberia in connection with the State colonization society.354 Another act forbade the introduction of slaves either for sale or resident and the immigration of free Negroes. It imposed many disabilities on the resident free people of color so as to force them to emigrate.355 Delaware, which had by its constitution of 1831, restricted the right of franchise to whites356 enacted in 1832 an act preventing the use of firearms by free Negroes and provided also for the enforcement of the law of 1811 against the immigration of free Negroes and mulattoes, prohibited meetings of blacks after ten o'clock and forbade non-resident blacks to preach.357