The Confessions of Nat Turner by Nat Turner

According to historcial sources, Nat believed he was a Christian prophet destined to fulfill a holy purpose. As a young man, Turner was considered intelligent, disciplined, and extremely pious.

It declares no definitive truths, but merely points to the available information that suggests elusive truths about the man behind the myth.Īccording to the Confessions, Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia. But the words purported to be Turner's were recorded by a white Virginian, rendering their authenticity uncertain. This page provides a general overview of Nat Turner’s life. Thomas Gray’s Confessions of Nat Turner may provide us with a glimpse of Nat Turner's voice. Depite the large number of documents that mention the rebel leader, accurate, verifiable information about him remains elusive. This unique approach to studying Nat Turner and the revolt will postulate new critical methodologies that not only acknowledge but also utilize the historical and religious milieu from out of which Nat Turner emerged.Nat Turner is hard to describe in a few sentences. Finally, it will show evidence of Turner’s use of pre-Christian African religious divinations in conjunction with African Christian revelations by examining Turner’s visions and the Confessions. Then it will discuss why most scholars have overlooked Turner’s African religious background.

This paper will first address the merger of African Christianity and pre-Christian African religious practices to exhibit its relation to Nat Turner. In addition, this approach will display why understanding Nat Turner’s complex and dynamic religious background is important to understanding him and the revolt. His revolt is seen as an attempt to reconcile this tension. The purpose of the analysis will be to demonstrate that Turner manifested significant African religious retentions, reflecting a tense balance between these two religious aspects. Gray’s Confessions and accounts of Nat Turner’s visions to try to show that Turner not only relied on revelations in an African Christian manner but also utilized divination in a pre-Christian African religious manner. The following reading will examine Nat Turner and the revolt by employing Thomas R.

The Confessions of Nat Turner by Nat Turner