Australia and the World Past and Present

There is little evidence that the slave Nat Turner was directly influenced by the organised abolitionist movement in America in carrying out his rebellion in Virginia in 1831.

His rebellion seems to have been a spontaneous, local uprising.

Turner believed that he had received religiously-inspired instructions to fight against slavery.

It is important to note that the American Anti-Slavery Society was established two years after Turner’s rebellion – in 1833.

We can try to imagine the environment in which Turner was living.

Across the US, there were debates about slavery and talk about the Enlightenment ideals of the rights of men.

There were newspapers and literature would have scattered about.

Turner was literate.

But we don’t know with certainty everything that Turner had access to and whether he read it.

It is possible that ideas of resistance and rebellion were circulating informally by word-of-mouth in his immediate circle.

But a historian working almost two centuries after the event has to rely upon what was documented.

From what we know, it seems that Turner’s resistance was organic and rose up independently of the organised abolitionist movement in America.