His plan was to capture the armoury at the county seat, Jerusalem, and, having gathered many recruits, to press on to the Dismal Swamp, 30 miles (48 km) to the east, where capture would be difficult. In 1831, shortly after he had been sold again-this time to a craftsman named Joseph Travis-a sign in the form of an eclipse of the Sun caused Turner to believe that the hour to strike was near. He began to exert a powerful influence on many of the nearby slaves, who called him “the Prophet.” During the following decade his religious ardour tended to approach fanaticism, and he saw himself called upon by God to lead his people out of bondage.
In the early 1820s he was sold to a neighbouring farmer of small means. He learned to read from one of his master’s sons, and he eagerly absorbed intensive religious training. His mother was an African native who transmitted a passionate hatred of slavery to her son. Turner was born the property of a prosperous small-plantation owner in a remote area of Virginia. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened proslavery, antiabolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861–65). Nat Turner, (born October 2, 1800, Southampton county, Virginia, U.S.-died November 11, 1831, Jerusalem, Virginia), Black American slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. His revolt hardened proslavery attitudes among Southern whites and led to new oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves. Nat Turner destroyed the white Southern myth that slaves were actually happy with their lives or too docile to undertake a violent rebellion.
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