The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial

by Sharon Ewell Foster

  John Clarke Turner was teaching him that though they shared a father, they were not brothers. Along with the others, he was teaching him that their whiteness, their loyalty to their tribe, transcended any friendship or relation. John Clarke was the son to go to picnics and to be held up in the sun. John Clarke was the white one who had freedom of speech. John Clarke was the son bequeathed liberty.

  John Clarke was teaching Nat Turner that—despite what their father promised—he would grow up to be his brother’s slave. When they would become men he would whip him; the law would help and put him in chains.

  John Clarke was teaching him, showing him in front of the others, that he was the one who mattered. All his father’s dreams were for John Clarke Turner. There were no dreams of what Nat Turner would become. Even if their father at night brought Nat Turner sweets, publicly he would deny his paternity. Nat Turner’s whiteness brought him nothing—mixed with even a drop of blackness, his whiteness did not exist.

  They were teaching him that their forefathers across the ocean were worth more than his. Their ancestors were treasure and they took them out to show off and to play with. They made crests and held parades. But his black ancestors were stinking refuse and he should hide them away. His forefathers swung from trees, cannibals, heathen. They were teaching him to resent the black—his hair, his skin, his eyes, his heart, his spirit—within him. It was the cursed blackness that kept him from winning.

  They were all learning. They were learning to choose sides. They were learning to choose tribes. No game was just a game. They were teaching him the lessons all black children silently learned in the “land of the free.”

  Salathiel nodded at Gray. “Secure the prisoners.”

  On the way back, Nat Turner and Hark walked ahead, their arms behind them as though they were bound. Little Nathaniel Francis walked behind, prodding them and flailing them with his switch. He walked next to Gray, who pretended to hold their chains. When they stepped out of the forest, Cherry was still there waiting, her tattered shirttail in her hand.

  February 1831

  IT WAS A clear but cold February day and frost blew from Nat Turner’s nose and the mare’s. He attached the hames while Hark offered the animal a handful of oats.

  “Awful quiet today, Nat. Even for you.”

  Nat Turner nodded to his friend, uncertain how to respond.

  In the midst of his certainty, he was unsure. It had been ten years since his return from the Dismal Swamp and he still waited for a sign. It had been so long that sometimes he doubted his memories. Maybe it was all in his imagination.

  Things still went on the same. People were beaten and still heartbroken. Summer and winter still came and went. There had been years of corn in the fields, but Nat Turner had seen no battles—the sun had not darkened and the moon still gave her light.

  Perhaps, like a merciful father, God had changed His mind. After all, the captors were also His children and He also loved them. What torment it must be for a parent to have to destroy one child to rescue another.

  The truth was Nat Turner loved those he was preparing to kill. There seemed to be no choice: to save one brother he would have to pass judgment on another. So he prayed for mercy on them in the same breath he prayed for their destruction.

  But when he awakened this morning, he had seen an eagle circling overhead. Nat Turner remembered an old circuit rider telling him it was an omen, a symbol of resurrection.

  Though he still smiled and joked, Hark had seemed more thoughtful since Nat Turner’s return from the Great Dismal. It was as though his friend sensed something. “Why you suppose God put us here? If God loves us so much, why are we treated like animals? If Africa is where we are from, why didn’t He leave us in Africa?”

  Even after the vision in the Great Dismal Swamp, even after returning, Nat Turner had not wanted to believe that this was his fate. He had not wanted to believe that God’s judgment began with the families he knew, with the church that bore his father’s name. But it was no accident, then, that his mother had been brought to Southampton County against her will. It was no accident that his father named him Nathan, after a prophet of old. It was no accident that he was born just beyond a town called Bethlehem that was on the road to Jerusalem, Virginia.

  Nat Turner nodded. He stroked the horse’s mane. Soon he would not see the creature again. “Wherever there are greedy men, they will find the ones others think are least to misuse for their profit.

  “But what men see as worthless, God sees as treasure. And who knows but that our suffering is a sign of God’s favor.” Nat Turner stroked the horse again.

  “But why is it that the black man is chosen to suffer?”

  “We are not alone. Look at our Nottoway brothers. Maybe we are here to teach. The Bible is born of Eastern men—of our forefathers around the Red Sea and the Mediterranean—those who were first part of the Great Church—and it is full of Oriental thought. We know He is a living God, a God of power, a God of miracles, and we know He hears us.”

  Hark scoffed. “Oriental thought? I was born and raised in Virginia.”

  “We have been gone from our homeland for generations, but the thoughts and ways of our forefathers still live within us—share with your brother, honor your elders, sacrifice this life for a better life after. The truth is in our hearts, the fire burns in our bones. It seems to me the captors read the Bible with frozen hearts.”

  Hark listened, but he did not answer.

  “Even if I lose my life in this world, eternally it is for my good. This life is just the beginning and we are promised something greater—that is what my ancestors taught. We are willing to be last because we believe the promise that one day we will be first.

  “We are willing to suffer in this world in hope of a better afterlife. That is the lesson taught us by our fathers, by our ancestors, a thought buried in the Eastern heart. Our troubles have made us forget who we are.

  “Sometimes I believe God sent us on this journey. He knew it would be an arduous voyage, a life-or-death struggle—most would not survive—so God only sent the strongest, those He knew could endure. He sent us, the best of us, as part of the First Great Church. Perhaps He sent us here to teach what was taught to us by those who came before us—to teach of caring for one’s brothers more than for one’s self. He knew He was sending us into the hands of a great enemy, but perhaps we are here to teach about love.”

  He had known and trusted Hark almost all his life and he wanted to tell him about the vision in the Great Dismal Swamp. He wanted to tell Hark about the mission ahead of him. But it was not time yet. Nat Turner waited for the sign.

  Chapter 18

  Hark was Nat Turner’s friend, his best friend. Hark and the others were his people, God’s people, and he had come back for them.

  When he was a boy of ten, his father had promised Nat Turner his freedom and promised to make him a trustee in the church his father donated land for, the church he planned to build: Turner’s Meeting Place. “You are the smart one, Nathan. You have the gift for numbers. You are a boy, but I would trust you to manage the books for this farm even now,” his father told him. “You are the devout one and I think it is only fair.”

  His father did not say explicitly that his freedom and the trusteeship were payment for his silence, but Nat always felt they were. His sisters never guessed—they did not want to know—but John Clarke resented Nat Turner’s paternity and their shared fraternity. He resented the relationship. He resented that their father intended to free Nat. He resented that Nat Turner’s name—Nathan Turner—was added to the Turner’s Meeting Place deed.

  But Nat Turner dreamed that one day he would replace the small wooden church his father planned with a cathedral like the ones his mother had told him were spread throughout the ancient Ethiopian city of Lalibela.

  Nat Turner had never owned anything of his own except his Bible. There was nothing for him to leave behind. But in the deed, the church and the land were given to the truste
es and their heirs forever. The trusteeship was something he could hand down to his children.

  It had been something of a scandal when Old Benjamin listed Nat Turner’s name first, as trustee. It was irreverent and illegal, some said, to list his name at all.

  The Southampton County clerk, along with witnesses, had come to the farm and insisted on speaking with Elizabeth, Old Benjamin’s wife, alone before they would witness the document.

  Persimmon-faced over her husband’s humiliating indiscretion, Elizabeth told the visitors she grudgingly approved—she would not go against her husband—but hoped to die before the shame came to pass. Some people said it was the disgrace of it that eventually killed her.

  Old Benjamin had thought he would live to see not only the land cleared and the church built but also to see Nat Turner grow to manhood. Benjamin Turner had thought he would live to see Nat Turner manumitted, quietly, so the state could not interfere. Perhaps it was Old Benjamin’s way of atoning eternally for the shame he had caused Nancie, Nat Turner’s mother. Old Benjamin thought he might live to see Nat Turner become a Methodist bishop like Richard Allen.

  Old Benjamin lived to see the church built and saw to it that Nat received what his father called “proper Methodist instruction.” He saw to it that his son was referred to as Nat Turner, as a human being and not an animal.

  Benjamin Turner lived to see the building dedicated by a circuit-riding Methodist preacher.

  Nat Turner listened to the teachings of the circuit riders. He studied the Discipline, the Twenty-Five Articles of Religion, and the tenets of Methodism. He learned the Methodist history of Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. He studied the writings of John Wesley and memorized the words, the words to John Wesley’s prayer.

  O thou God of love, thou who art loving to every man, and whose mercy is over all thy works; thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and who art rich in mercy unto all; thou who hast mingled of one blood all the nations upon earth; have compassion upon these outcasts of men, who are trodden down as dung upon the earth! Arise, and help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt upon the ground like water! Are not these also the work of thine own hands, the purchase of thy Son’s blood? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land of their captivity; and let their complaint come up before thee; let it enter into thy ears! Make even those that lead them away captive to pity them, and turn their captivity as the rivers in the south. O burst thou all their chains in sunder; more especially the chains of their sins! Thou Saviour of all, make them free, that they may be free indeed!

  He prayed the prayers himself. “Oh Lord, turn our captivity and make us free indeed! Do great things among us so that even the heathen will see. Send us, Lord, a deliverer!”

  When his father had told him about the church, about Turner’s Meeting Place, he had believed that all things were possible. His father had dreamed that it would be like Nimmo United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach, where Negroes would be allowed to worship inside, along with the white people.

  His father promised him that one day he might be a leader in Turner’s Meeting Place and reminded Nat again that he might even be a black man leading white men, a great man like Richard Allen.

  Bishop Richard Allen had been a slave and he had studied the Bible. His master had allowed him to attend the local Methodist church. Allen was so bright, it was said, that he soon became a leader—a slave sometimes teaching among black and white people.

  Allen bought his own freedom. When some whites later objected to Negroes sitting with them in church and wanted to segregate, Allen led the black people out of the church. Ordained by Bishop Francis Asbury, Allen started the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became the first black bishop.

  A circuit rider told Nat that Bishop Allen lived in Philadelphia, and Nat Turner hoped to be like him. He dreamed of traveling to meet him.

  A black leader? A black church? It had seemed impossible and Nat Turner had wondered if the circuit rider was joshing him.

  But, as proof, his father had driven him one Sunday past Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. “Don’t ever tell the others I brought you here, Nathan. My children, my family, they would object. It would only cause needless confusion. You know.”

  Nat Turner had been stunned. Negroes, black people like him, milled around the church. It was true. There was really a Richard Allen. And he could be like him. He could be a trustee in his father’s church.

  His father showed him the deed and pointed out his name. “This is yours, Nathan. And, should you have children, it will pass from generation to generation. No one can take it from you. And if I don’t survive, your eldest brother, Samuel, has promised to free you when it is safest, when you are twenty-one.”

  Nat Turner’s father lived to see the small church full of people, black and white, though the blacks—slave and free—had to sit on the back pews or stand in the back of the tiny sanctuary. Nat Turner rode in the back of the wagon following the family carriage when Old Benjamin and the rest of his family went to visit the Nimmo United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach. He still remembered the whitewashed walls and the high-backed wooden pews. He had sat in the balcony there with the other blacks and looked down on his father, brothers, and sisters below.

  Benjamin thought he would live, but no man can be certain of the day of his demise. Despite his plans, Old Benjamin passed away while Nat Turner was still a boy.

  Perhaps Elizabeth had extracted a secret promise from her first son, Samuel, and his wife, also named Elizabeth, to never let the wicked offense come to pass. As executor of his father’s will, Samuel announced, “I promised my mother. None of it will ever come to pass!”

  OLD BENJAMIN THOUGHT he would live to see it all. The afternoon of his burial, the people in the church—Nat Turner’s brother Samuel, and the others named on the deed, his father’s friends—made a pact.

  Nat Turner had stood outside the window that afternoon when he was twelve years old. His older brother Samuel and Samuel’s wife, Elizabeth, were in their twenties. The other trustees and their wives, who advised Samuel, were closer to their father’s age.

  Samuel Turner led the meeting. The other trustees—Samuel Francis, John Whitehead, and Turner Newsom—and their wives gathered in the church to agree that Nat Turner would never have what legally belonged to him.

  “He was an old man,” Samuel Turner said of his father.

  “Feeble,” John Whitehead, sitting in the church on the first pew, added. Since Old Benjamin had died, no black people had been allowed in the church. They were not even welcomed any longer to stand behind the back row.

  “In his right mind, Old Benjamin would never want to bring this kind of shame upon his family… not for a slave,” Turner Newsom added.

  “It doesn’t just shame his wife and family; it shames our church and the whole community! Who ever heard of such a thing, making a slave, a darkie, a trustee?” Brown-haired Caty Whitehead fanned herself.

  Samuel’s wife, Elizabeth Turner, shook her head. “It shames you, my husband, as well as your dear mother. I always thought it was a shame Old Benjamin let the darkies sit inside the church with us anyway. It gave them the wrong notion.

  “Whatever was your father thinking? And he listed that wretch’s name first—even before yours!”

  Samuel Francis turned the screw as he did with his own sons, Salathiel and Nathaniel. “Nat Turner is not only a darkie, but he is a child! Why would Old Benjamin put him first? Was he saying that Nat was smarter than his own, John Clarke, and even you, Samuel? If Old Benjamin wanted to name a boy trustee, why not John Clarke Turner? Poor John’s name does not even appear on the deed!”

  Samuel Francis’s wife sniffled. “Did Old Benjamin really think so little of us?”

  “God could never have wanted this.” Samuel Francis tapped a finger on the deed.

  His wife began to cry. “How could Old Benjamin even think to sit us under a son of Ham?”

  Samuel
Turner looked pained, humiliated by his father’s actions. Turner Newsom’s eyes were full of empathy. “How could he have thought that white men and white women would sit under the direction of a jig?”

  John Whitehead’s face reddened. “Do you think he really believed it, really intended it? It’s as ridiculous as thinking a white man would sit under a black preacher.”

  Mrs. Whitehead nodded. “That would be a devilish thing.” She fanned herself again. “We shouldn’t even have to have this dreadful conversation. Can you imagine a darkie trustee advising a white preacher? It would be appalling!” She sputtered and huffed.

  Almost more to herself than to the others, she added, “I had always imagined my young son, Richard, a preacher. Who would give such authority to a slave?”

  Mrs. Francis began to cry harder. “How could I let my children—Wiley, Salathiel, Sallie, and Nathaniel—attend here?” Her face clouded. “That darkie Nancie, do you think she might have used some sort of black magic she brought here from Africa?”

  Samuel Turner, boyish and shamefaced, looked at the older woman.

  Nat Turner ducked beneath the window that afternoon so they would not see him. He had known these people all his life. They had patted his head. They had said he was too smart to be a slave, and they had acted as though they cared for him. They had said he knew the Bible better than anyone. Now, in God’s house, they were stealing what was his.

  When his father was alive, they had told his father that Nat Turner was so intelligent that he was a mystery to them. Now they were stealing his birthright.

  He was the one who had studied the Bible. He was the one who knew chapter and verse. Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

  THEY HATED TO go against Old Benjamin’s wishes, but it was best for everyone. Benjamin was tenderhearted and deluded. Now things would change.