The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 35

A bill for removal, however, was promptly offered on the twenty-seventh of January.[44] On the first of February there was presented an additional report deeming it expedient to set apart for the removal of the free colored population so much of the claims of Virginia on the General Government as may come into and belong to the treasury of the State.[45] A few days later Mr. Moore submitted a resolution covering the same ground and calling upon the Senators and Representatives of Virginia in Congress to use their best efforts to promote this project.[46] The Matter was tabled but on the 6th of February the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole to take this bill into consideration. After prolonged discussion the matter was again tabled with a view to future consideration. The feeling of the majority seemed to be that, if the Negroes were removed, no coercion should be employed except in the case of those who remained in the State contrary to the law of 1806.[47] $35,000 for 1832 and $90,000 for 1833 was to be appropriated for transportation. A central board consisting of the governor, treasurer, and members of the Council of State was to decide the place to which these Negroes were to be expatriated and the agents to carry out the law would also be named by the same board.[48] The bill for the removal of free Negroes was indefinitely postponed in the Senate by a vote of 18 to 14 and therefore was never taken up.

The next effort of the legislature in dealing with the Negroes was to strengthen the black code as it then existed so as to provide for a more adequate supervision and rigid control of the slaves and free people of color. There was offered thereafter a bill to amend an act ent.i.tled "an act to revise under one the several acts concerning slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes." The important provisions of the bill were that slaves and free Negroes should not conduct religious exercises nor attend meetings held at night by white preachers unless granted written permission by their masters or overseers. Thereafter no free Negro should be capable of purchase or otherwise acquiring permanent ownership, except by descent, of any slave, other than his or her husband, wife or children. Further penalties, moreover, were provided for persons writing or printing anything intended to incite the Negroes to insurrection. The State had already enacted a law prohibiting the teaching of slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes.[49]

The other pet.i.tions requiring that Negroes be restricted in the higher pursuits of labor and in the ownership of hogs and dogs were, because of the spirit which existed after the excitement had subsided, rejected as unnecessary. The law providing for burning in the hand was repealed. The immigration of free Negroes into the State, however, was prohibited in 1834.[50]

The effect of this insurrection and this debate extended far beyond the borders of Virginia and the South. Governor McArthur of Ohio in a message to his legislature called special attention to the outbreak and the necessity for prohibitive legislation against the influx within that commonwealth of the free people of color who naturally sought an asylum in the free States. The effect in Southern States was far more significant. Many of them already had sufficient regulations to meet such emergencies as that of an insurrection but others found it necessary to revise their black codes.

Maryland pa.s.sed, at the session of its legislature in 1831-1832, a law providing a board of managers to use a fund appropriated for the purpose of removing the free people of color to Liberia in connection with the State colonization society.[51] Another act forbade the introduction of slaves either for sale or resident and the immigration of free Negroes. It imposed many disabilities on the resident free people of color so as to force them to emigrate.[52] Delaware, which had by its const.i.tution of 1831, restricted the right of franchise to whites[53] enacted in 1832 an act preventing the use of firearms by free Negroes and provided also for the enforcement of the law of 1811 against the immigration of free Negroes and mulattoes, prohibited meetings of blacks after ten o'clock and forbade non-resident blacks to preach.[54]

In 1831 Tennessee forbade free persons of color to immigrate into that State under the penalty of fine for remaining and imprisonment in default of payment. Persons emanc.i.p.ating slaves had to give bond for their removal to some point outside of the State[55] and additional penalties were provided for slaves found a.s.sembling or engaged in conspiracy. Georgia enacted a measure to the effect that none might give credit to free persons of color without order from their guardian required by law and, if insolvent, they might be bound out. It further provided that neither free Negroes nor slaves might preach or exhort an a.s.sembly of more than seven unless licensed by justices on certificate of three ordained ministers. They were also forbidden to carry firearms.[56] North Carolina, in which Negroes voted until 1834, enacted in 1831 a special law prohibiting free Negroes from preaching and slaves from keeping house or going at large as free men. To collect fines of free Negroes the law authorized that they might be sold.[57] The new const.i.tution of the State in 1835 restricted the right of suffrage to white men. South Carolina pa.s.sed in 1836 a law prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read and write under penalties, forbidding too the employment of a person of color as salesman in any house, store or shop used for trading. Mississippi had already met most of these requirements in the slave code in the year 1830.[58]

In Louisiana it was deemed necessary to strengthen the slave code. An act relative to the introduction of slaves provided that slaves should not be introduced except by persons immigrating to reside and citizens who might become owners.[59] Previous legislation had already provided severe penalties for persons teaching Negroes to read and write and also had made provision for compelling free colored persons to leave the State.[60] In 1832 the State of Alabama enacted a law making it unlawful for any free person of color to settle within that commonwealth. Slaves or free persons of color should not be taught to spell, read or write. It provided penalties for Negroes writing pa.s.ses and for free blacks a.s.sociating or trading with slaves. More than five male slaves were declared an unlawful a.s.sembly but slaves could attend worship conducted by whites yet neither slaves nor free Negroes were permitted to preach unless before five respectable slaveholders and the Negroes so preaching were to be licensed by some neighboring religious society. It was provided, however, that these sections of the article did not apply to or affect any free person of color who, by the treaty between the United States and Spain, became citizens of the United States.[61]

So many ills of the Negro followed, therefore, that one is inclined to question the wisdom of the insurgent leader. Whether Nat Turner hastened or postponed the day of the abolition of slavery, however, is a question that admits of little or much discussion in accordance with opinions concerning the law of necessity and free will in national life. Considered in the light of its immediate effect upon its partic.i.p.ants, it was a failure, an egregious failure, a wanton crime.

Considered in its necessary relation to slavery and as contributory to making it a national issue by the deepening and stirring of the then weak local forces, that finally led to the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, the insurrection was a moral success and Nat Turner deserves to be ranked with the greatest reformers of his day.

This insurrection may be considered an effort of the Negro to help himself rather than depend on other human agencies for the protection which could come through his own strong arm; for the spirit of Nat Turner never was completely quelled. He struck ruthlessly, mercilessly, it may be said, in cold blood, innocent women and children; but the system of which he was the victim had less mercy in subjecting his race to the horrors of the "middle pa.s.sages" and the endless crimes against justice, humanity and virtue, then perpetrated throughout America. The brutality of his onslaught was a reflex of slavery, the object lesson which he gave brought the question home to every fireside until public conscience, once callous, became quickened and slavery was doomed.

JOHN W. CROMWELL

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nat Turner was a familiar name in the household in which the author was reared, as his home was within fifty miles of the place of Turner's exploits. In 1871, the last term of the author's service as a teacher in the public schools of Virginia, was spent in this same county, with a people, many of whom personally knew Nat Turner and his comrades.

Nat Turner was born October 2, 1800, the slave of Benjamin Turner. His father, a native of Africa, escaped from slavery and finally emigrated to Liberia, where, it is said, his grave is quite as well known as that of Franklin's, Jefferson's or Adams's is to the patriotic American. There is now living in the city of Baltimore a man who on good authority claims to be the grandson of Nat Turner and a son of his was said to be still living in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1896.

In his early years Turner had a presentiment which largely influenced his subsequent life and confirmed him in the belief that he was destined to play an unusual role in history. That prenatal influence gave him a marked individuality is readily believed when the date of his birth is recalled, the period when the excitement over the discovery of Gabriel Prosser's plot was at its height. Nat's mind was very restless and active, inquisitive and observant. He learned to read and write with no apparent difficulty. This ability gave him opportunity to confirm impressions as to knowledge of subjects in which he had received no instruction. When not working for his master, he was engaged in prayer or in making sundry experiments. By intuition he, in a rude way, manufactured paper, gunpowder, pottery and other articles in common use. This knowledge which he claimed to possess was tested by actual demonstration during the trial for his life. His superior skill in planning was universally admitted by his fellow workmen. He did not, however, attribute this superior influence to sorcery, conjuration or such like agencies, for he had the utmost contempt for these delusions.

"To this day," says T. W. Higginson, "There are the Virginia slave traditions of the keen devices of Prophet Nat. If he were caught with lime and lampblack in hand conning over a half-finished county map on the barn door, he was always planning what he would do if he were blind. When he had called a meeting of slaves and some poor whites came eavesdropping, the poor whites at once became the topic of discussion; he incidentally mentioned that the master had been heard threatening to drive them away; one slave had been ordered to shoot Mr. Jones' pigs, another to tear down Mr. Johnson's fences. The poor whites, Johnson and Jones, ran home at once to see to their homesteads and were better friends than ever to poor Nat."--T. W. Higginson's _Travellers and Outlaws_, pp. 282-283.

[2] T. W. Higginson's _Travellers and Outlaws_, p. 284.

[3] Nat Turner's _Confessions_.

[4] Drewry, _The Southampton Insurrection_, pp. 35-74.

[5] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Aug. 30, Sept. 4, 6 and 20, 1831.

[6] Based on statements made to the author by contemporaries of Nat Turner.

[7] Higginson, _Travellers and Outlaws_, p. 300.

[8] The statement of Rev. M.B. c.o.x, a Liberian Missionary, then in Virginia.

[9] Higginson, _Travellers and Outlaws_, 302-303.

[10] _Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, p. 9.

[11] Drewry, _The Southampton Insurrection_, 102.

[12] _The Richmond Enquirer_, August 30 and September and October, 1831.

[13] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Sept. 4, 1831.

[14] Higginson, _Travellers and Outlaws_, 303.

[15] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Nov. 4 and 8, 1831.

[16] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Nov. 4, 1831.

[17] The trial and execution over, the _Confessions_ of Nat were published in pamphlet form and had a wide sale. An accurate likeness by John Crawley, a former artist of Norfolk at that time, lithographed by Endicott and Sweet of Baltimore, accompanied the edition which was printed for T. R. Gray, Turner's attorney. Fully 50,000 copies of this pamphlet are said to have been sold within a few weeks of its publication, yet today they are exceedingly rare, not a copy being found either in the State Library at Richmond, the Public Library at Boston nor the Congressional Library at Washington. These _Confessions_ purport to give from Turner's own lips circ.u.mstances of his life. "Portions of it," says _The Richmond Enquirer_, "are eloquent and even cla.s.sically expressed; but," continues the critic, more than sixty miles away, "the language is far superior to what Nat Turner could have employed, thereby giving him a character for intelligence which he does not deserve and should not receive." On the contrary, however, Mr. Gray, his attorney and confessor who did not write from long range, said: "As to his ignorance, he certainly had not the advantages of education, but he can read and write and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension is surpa.s.sed by few men I have ever seen. Further the calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm; still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him; clothed with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven; with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man, I looked on him and my blood curdled in my veins."--_The Confessions of Nat Turner._

[18] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, pp. 9 and 10.

[19] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, p. 10.

[20] In Fluvanna this memorial of certain ladies was agreed upon and sent to the legislature: "We cannot conceal from ourselves that an evil is among us, which threatens to outgrow the growth and eclipse the brightness of our national blessings. Our daughters and their daughters are destined to become, in their turn, the tender fosterers of helpless infancy, the directors of developing childhood, and the companions of those citizens, who will occupy the legislative and executive offices of their country. Can we calmly antic.i.p.ate the condition of the Southern States at that period, should no remedy be devised to arrest the progressive miseries attendant on slavery? Will the absent father's heart be at peace, when, amid the hurry of public affairs, his truant thoughts return to the home of his affection, surrounded by doubtful, if not dangerous, subjects to precarious authority? Perhaps when deeply engaged in his legislative duties his heart may quail and his tongue falter with irresistible apprehension for the peace and safety of objects dearer than life.

"We can only aid the mighty task by ardent outpourings of the spirit of supplication at the Throne of Grace. We will call upon the G.o.d, in whom we trust, to direct your counsels by His unerring wisdom, guide you with His effectual spirit. We now conjure you by the sacred charities of kindred, by the solemn obligations of justice, by every consideration of domestic affection and patriotic duty, to nerve every faculty of your minds to the investigation of this important subject, and let not the united voices of your mothers, wives, daughters and kindred have sounded in vain in your ears."--Drewry, _The Southampton Insurrection_, p. 165.

[21] Drewry, _The Southampton Insurrection_, pp. 1-100.

[22] October 18. This memorial circulated in Petersburg and in adjoining towns and counties is typical:

"The undersigned good citizens of the County of ........ invite the attention of your honorable body to a subject deemed by them of primary importance to their present welfare and future security.

"The mistaken humanity of the people of Virginia, and of our predecessors, has permitted to remain in this Commonwealth a cla.s.s of people who are neither freemen nor slaves. The mark set on them by nature precludes their enjoyment in this country, of the privileges of the former; and the laws of the land do not allow them to be reduced to the condition of the latter. Hence they are of necessity degraded, profligate, vicious, turbulent and discontented.

"More frequent than whites (probably in tenfold proportion) sustained by the charitable provisions of our laws, they are altogether a burden on the community. Pursuing no course of regular business, and negligent of everything like economy and husbandry, they are as a part of the community, supported by the productive industry of others.

"But their residence among us is yet more objectionable on other accounts. It is incompatible with the tranquility of society; their apparent exemption from want and care and servitude to business, excites impracticable hopes in the minds of those who are even more ignorant and unreflecting--and their locomotive habits fit them for a dangerous agency in schemes, wild and visionary, but disgusting and annoying.

"We would not be cruel and unchristian--but we must take care of the interests and morals of society, and of the peace of mind of the helpless in our families. It is indispensable to the happiness of the latter, that this cause of apprehension be removed. And efforts to this end are, we firmly believe, sanctioned by enlightened humanity toward the ill-fated cla.s.s to whom we allude. They can never have the respect and intercourse here which are essential to rational happiness, and social enjoyment and improvement. But in other lands they may become an orderly, sober, industrious, moral, enlightened and christian community; and be the happy instruments of planting and diffusing those blessings over a barbarous and benighted continent.

"Your pet.i.tioners will not designate a plan of legislative operation--they leave to the wisdom and provident forecast of the General a.s.sembly, the conception and the prosecution of the best practicable scheme--but they would respectfully and earnestly ask that the action of the laws pa.s.sed to this effect be decisive, and the means energetic--such as shall, with as much speed as may be, free our country from this bane of its prosperity, morality and peace."--_The Richmond Enquirer_, Oct. 21, 1831.

[23] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, pp. 1-123.

[24] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, pp. 41, 56, 119.

[25] _Ibid._, 1831, p. 93.

[26] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, p. 93.

[27] _Ibid._, p. 93.

[28] _Ibid._, p. 125.

[29] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Jan. 7, 1832.