Turner, born the property of a plantation owner in Virginia, learned to read and eagerly absorbed intensive religious training. In the early 1820s he was sold to a neighboring farmer of small means. During the following decade his religious ardor tended to approach fanaticism, and he saw himself called upon by God to lead his people out of bondage. He began to exert a powerful influence on many of the nearby enslaved men and women, who called him “the Prophet.”

In 1831, shortly after being sold to a man named Joseph Travis, a sign in the form of a solar eclipse caused Turner to believe that the hour to strike was near. On the night of August 21, Turner, together with seven fellow enslaved people, murdered Travis and his family and then marched toward the county seat, a town called Jerusalem, to capture the local armory. In two days and nights, between 55 and 60 white people were killed by the rebels, a force of some 50 or 60 enslaved people. Armed resistance from white people, and the arrival of the state militia, stopped Turner’s rebellion a few miles from Jerusalem.

As much as the rebellion sent shock waves through the region, Turner’s confession from prison cut deeper, striking fear across the entire slaveholding South. A few weeks after he was captured and hanged, Turner’s firsthand account of the events was published in The Confessions of Nat Turner. The confession inflamed white sentiment, leading to immediate instances of brutal retribution and further restrictions on the rights of enslaved people.