Nat Turner had been dead for nearly thirty years by the time the Civil War began in 1861. He was hanged in November of 1831 for his role in leading a large and violent slave revolt in Southampton County Virginia earlier in that year. While he obviously played no role in the Civil War, his revolt, which killed over 50 white people, heightened Southern fears about slavery, and especially about the abolitionist movement, which they...
Nat Turner had been dead for nearly thirty years by the time the Civil War began in 1861. He was hanged in November of 1831 for his role in leading a large and violent slave revolt in Southampton County Virginia earlier in that year. While he obviously played no role in the Civil War, his revolt, which killed over 50 white people, heightened Southern fears about slavery, and especially about the abolitionist movement, which they deemed destabilizing to the institution. Turner's revolt led to a serious debate about emancipation and deportation of former slaves in the Virginia legislature. When emancipation measures were voted down, lawmakers instead attempted to place their enslaved population under even tighter control, banning private meetings among slaves (Turner was a lay Baptist minister) and restricting travel between plantations. Thus Turner's revolt led to increased tensions in the South between whites and their growing slave populations. These tensions made Southerners even more defensive when it came to what they saw as Northern threats to slavery and its expansion into the West, where many Virginians hoped to be able to sell their slaves.
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