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Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nathaniel Turner:
"As I child, I knew I surely would be a prophet, as the Lord had showed me visions of things that had happened before my birth. My father and mother said I was intended for some great purpose. I was a child of uncommon intelligence and I knew I was never meant to be a slave. To a mind like mine, restless, curious and observant of everything that was happening, religion became the subject that occupied all of my thoughts." Source: These confessions were narrated to lawyer Thomas R. Gray in prison where Nat Turner was held after his capture on October 30, 1831. His confessions were published on November 5, 1831 for his trial. Nat Turner was born into slavery in 1800 in Virginia. Turner believed that he had a gift as a preacher. He believed that he had been chosen to lead his people out of bondage; he thought he was a “prophet” and had the divine power to see “visions of things that happened before [his] birth”. Turner thought of an eclipse in August 1831 to be a signal for action. With 80 followers they attacked four plantations and killed almost 60 white inhabitants before being captured by the state. Turner had been captured, tried, and hanged. Through Turner’s bloody rebellion it had become an extreme form of resistance to slavery. Nat Turner's rebellion had resulted in legal codes against black education, rules, and regulation, and had resulted in a stronger rebellion of the slaves in the civil rights.
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Frederick Douglass
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Frederick like many slaves longed the idea of freedom the “liberty, this beautiful/ and terrible thing”. Freedom is necessary because it is beauty, it is becomes the idea of happiness- but “terrible” because the life journey of being a slave to a free human has caused too much suffering. Frederick Douglass is mentioned a "former slave, this Negro/ beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world/ where none is lonely, none hunted, alien... shall be remembered". Like any other slave Douglass had suffered the pains that pushed him to a vision of a world where slaves are free. He had been "beaten" he had be "on his knees" he had "exiled". Slaves are constantly being compared to animals due to the inferior class and race to the whites. Douglass visions a world where he and his African community will no longer be "lonely", "hunted", or "alien[ated]”.
Frederick Douglass had then escaped from his slave owners; he wanted to promote freedom for all slaves; his goals were to abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the COLORED PEOPLE" (NY. The North Star). He wanted to inform his audience to the idea of freedom he does so by his known ability of speech. Douglass joined the Anti- Slavery Society in 1841, his role was to go from place to place and educate people about freedom through his speech. After four years he was found as a fugitive slave. During this time Frederick Douglass wrote his autobiography on "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass". Afraid of his safety he had to leave, he met Ellen Richardson and Henry Richardson who raised funds to buy Douglass's freedom which protected him from the fugitive slave laws of 1793. Hoping that abolition could be achieved through political action, Frederick began his own anti-slavery newspaper The North Star, the same star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. Douglass had also kept company with other abolitionists, including Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Owen Lovejoy. He also spoke in favor of women's rights and worked alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and many others. |
Solomon Northup
A personal voice Solomon Northup (Twelve years a slave) |
Solomon Northup was forced to live the horrors of slavery because he had become captive of slave traders. Northup was eventually sold to Edwin Eppes, and life at that time was barbaric, himself and other enslaved Africans were forced to endure vile, horrible violent conditions. Northup explains in his memoir the long hours of work. He was required to work at the cotton field “soon as it light in the morning…[until] it I too dark to see”. Sometimes when the moon was also present giving the night light they were required to “labor till the middle of the night”. Northup as a slave confined in a world where work only existed. He was able to stop working or was he able to take too much time for himself. When Northup was free he published the slave narrative Twelve Years a Slave, in his memoir he introduces the difficulties he as a free man who used to work and play the violin to a slave who worked long hours withholding cruelty and punishment because of his race. Northup’s experience written in his memoir gives the abolition movement a greater reason for ending slavery.
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