On This Day 30 October Events that happened on this date.

Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebels, made up of enslaved African Americans, killed between 55 and 65 White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt for the latter racial group in U.S. history. The rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for approximately ten weeks afterward: six weeks only leaving his hiding place "in the dead of night" for water; two weeks eavesdropping on the neighborhood at night, for the purpose of gathering intelligence, and returning to his hiding place before dawn; and two weeks being "pursued almost incessantly", having been discovered by a dog.
There was widespread fear among the White population in the rebellion's aftermath. Militias and mobs killed as many as 120 enslaved people and free African Americans in retaliation. After trials, the Commonwealth of Virginia executed eighteen enslaved people accused of participating in the rebellion, including Turner himself; many Black people who had not participated were also persecuted in the frenzy. Because Turner was educated and a preacher, Southern state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting the education of enslaved people and free Blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil liberties for free Blacks, and requiring White ministers to be present at all worship services.
Lonnie Bunch said that the "Nat Turner rebellion is probably the most significant uprising in American history".

Preparations

Nat Turner was enslaved in Southampton County, Virginia in the early 19th century. Turner said he wanted to spread "terror and alarm" among Whites. And the group decided that "until [they] had armed and equipped [themselves], and gathered sufficient force, neither age nor sex was to be spared." According to a letter sent to Richmond Enquirer by an initial interviewer of Turner after his capture, "women and children would afterwards have been spared, and men too who ceased to resist."
Turner began communicating his plans to a small circle of trusted fellow slaves. "All his initial recruits were other slaves from his neighborhood". These scattered men had to find ways to communicate their intentions without revealing the plot. Songs may have tipped the neighborhood members to movements: "It is believed that one of the ways Turner summoned fellow conspirators to the woods was through the use of particular songs." According to author Terry Bisson, Turner entrusted his wife, Cherry, with "his most secret plans and papers". According to a report by James Trezvant immediately following the uprising, Cherry said that Nat had been "digesting" a plan for the revolt "for years".
Turner eagerly anticipated God's signal to "slay my enemies with their own weapons". He began preparations for an uprising against the slaveholders in Southampton County. Turner said, "I communicated the great work laid out to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence": fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam.

Rebellion

Beginning in February 1831, Turner interpreted atmospheric conditions as signs to prepare for the revolt. An annular solar eclipse on February 12, 1831, was visible in Virginia and much of the southeastern United States; Turner envisioned this as a Black man's hand reaching over the sun. Illness prevented Turner from starting the rebellion as planned on Independence Day, July 4, 1831. The conspirators used the delay to extend planning. On August 13, an atmospheric disturbance made the Virginia sun appear bluish-green, possibly the result of a volcanic plume produced by the eruption of Ferdinandea Island off the coast of Sicily. Turner took this as a divine signal and started the rebellion a week later, on August 21.
The rebellion expanded from several trusted slaves to over 70 enslaved and free Blacks, some of whom were on horseback. They were armed with knives, hatchets, and blunt instruments; firearms were too difficult to collect and would have drawn unwanted attention. Additional weapons were collected as the rebels moved from house to house; they also added to their numbers, growing from fifteen to fifty or sixty.
The rebels killed White people without discriminating by age or sex. Turner's slaveowner and his family were the first to be killed. Over the course of 48 hours, the rebels then traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing Whites. Historian Stephen B. Oates writes that Turner called on his group to "kill all the white people".

According to the Richmond Enquirer, "Turner declared that 'indiscriminate slaughter was not their intention after they attained a foothold, and was resorted to in the first instance to strike terror and alarm.'" A few homes were spared "because Turner believed the poor White inhabitants 'thought no better of themselves than they did of negroes.'" The rebels also avoided the Giles Reese plantation, even though it was en route, likely because Turner wanted to keep his wife and children safe. Turner confessed to killing only one person, Margaret Whitehead, whom he killed with a blow from a fence post. The last house to be attacked was the Rebecca Vaughan House. The state militia suppressed the rebellion at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23. The rebels killed between 55 and 65 White people before being defeated by the militia, making it the deadliest slave revolt in U.S. history. The militia had twice the manpower of the rebels and three companies of artillery. Turner was not immediately captured; he survived in hiding for approximately 10 weeks afterward.

Retaliation

Within a day of suppressing the rebellion, the local militia was joined by detachments from the USS Natchez and USS Warren in Norfolk and militias from neighboring counties in Virginia and North Carolina. Brigadier General William Henry Brodnax commanded the Virginia militia.
In Southampton County, Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia, and "their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation". A local road (now Virginia State Route 658) was called "Blackhead Signpost Road" after it became the site of one such display.
Rumors quickly spread that the slave revolt had spread as far south as Alabama. Fears led to reports in North Carolina of slave "armies" on highways, burning and massacring the White inhabitants of Wilmington, North Carolina, and marching on the state capital. The fear and alarm resulted in White violence against Blacks on flimsy pretenses. The editor of the Richmond Whig described the scene as "the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity". The violence continued for two weeks after the rebellion. General Eppes ordered a halt to the killing:

He will not specify all the instances that he is bound to believe have occurred but pass in silence what has happened, with the expression of his deepest sorrow, that any necessity should be supposed to have existed, to justify a single act of atrocity. But he feels himself bound to declare, and hereby announces to the troops and citizens, that no excuse will be allowed for any similar acts of violence, after the promulgation of this order.
In a letter to the New York Evening Post, Reverend G. W. Powell wrote that "many negroes are killed every day. The exact number will never be known." A company of militia from Hertford County, North Carolina, reportedly killed forty Blacks in one day and took $23 and a gold watch from the dead. Captain Solon Borland, leading a contingent from Murfreesboro, North Carolina, condemned the acts "because it was tantamount to theft from the White owners of the slaves".
Modern historians concur that the militias and mobs killed as many as 120 Blacks, most of whom were not involved with the rebellion.