The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial

by Sharon Ewell Foster

  Nat Turner wiped his arm across his forehead. Back and forth.

  The unloved, the captors, secretly believed, behind their pretense of superiority, that God despised them—their bodies, their thoughts, their spirits. He could not bear to look upon them. The captors believed that instead of mercy, the invisible God waited, numbering their sins, waited with glee until He could punish them. They believed in a loveless God who saw them as monsters, a God who lorded His superiority over them, forcing them into servanthood.

  Though they felt unloved and despised, they believed they were created in His image. To earn His approval, they must be like Him and treat others as mercilessly as their merciless God treated them.

  The solution was hate. The solution was oppression—oppression hidden behind color, academics, religion, economics, and theories of power. The captors would treat others as their God treated them. They would hate others and make them their despised servants.

  It was an irrational solution that required the oppressed to be at peace with and desire the solution: The only good slave was the quiet, obedient slave—one who mindlessly submitted to captivity, even craving it and demeaning himself. The bad slave was one who desired his freedom, to be more, to be a light in the world. The solution required boundless attention and energy, constant vigilance to keep the oppressed, the captured, in place beneath them. Steely control was required. More hate. Violence. Each act of oppression took both the captor and the captive further from what they both desired.

  Back and forth. Back and forth.

  The solution was no solution. It was impossible to keep control—a flower, a son, a thought might break out anywhere. God-given, by the One True God, whose name is Love, there was no way to contain them.

  The solution was no solution, no medicine real medicine for their disease, because the only true antidote for the problem of insecurity and fear was love.

  Back and forth. A drop of sweat dripped from his nose and made a dark dot in the dust where it landed. How long? He saw discouragement on the faces of his people and didn’t know how much longer the captives would have faith to believe. They all had been waiting for what seemed like forever.

  He heard the mournful prayers and songs. He saw the anger building. He saw them on bended knee. He saw the hopelessness.

  Nat Turner preached to them, when they gathered, to be patient. “Be patient, brothers and sisters. The day of the Lord’s harvest is coming. Only He knows when the yield is ripe. We must wait for His sign.” Only those who knew of the coming revolution understood the true interpretation of his words. “The Lord is full of mercy, even for our captors, but He has promised the harvest will come. ‘Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’”

  But the captive people he spoke to had not been to the Great Dismal Swamp. They had not heard the voice of God. It was August, most of the corn harvest was over, and still nothing had been seen in the heavens. They were losing patience. They were losing hope. They were losing faith.

  Nat Turner prayed as he worked culling the weeds from among the corn that remained, prayed as he had so many times. This time he prayed without words.

  Back and forth. Back and forth. The suffering seemed forever, endless. Nat Turner hoped and waited for God.

  THOUSANDS OF MILES away, in Ethiopia—in Lalibela, in Aksum, in Gondar—the old ones prayed, prayers that shook mountains and made clouds weep.

  A small storm began in the highlands there. It continued to grow. The old men and women—toothless, ancient, gnarled, and wrinkled—said it was God blowing; the storm had a special mission. As in the time of Moses, God had heard the captives’ cries, they said.

  The storm left Ethiopia and traveled over the Sahara, picking up warmth. Weeks after the tiny storm began, gaining strength as it traveled, it spread its enormous fury out over the Atlantic Ocean, expanding into a great hurricane.

  ON AUGUST 12, 1831, waters off the Caribbean coast, blown by the Ethiopian winds, battered the slave-holding state of Barbados. Back and forth. St. John’s Church and Bridgetown Synagogue were swiftly turned to rubble. People, before the water and wind swept them away, pointed at the blue sun in the sky.

  Sailors pointed at blue sails before their ships tumbled end over end in the ocean. The wind shook slave shackles in Puerto Rico and Cuba, including Guantánamo Bay. The hurricane, led by the smoldering indigo sun, killed people in the American slave states of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana and battered the shores with hail and water. Men, horses, houses, and ships crumpled, tumbling like dried leaves. Back and forth. The waters of Lake Pontchartrain flooded the slave port of New Orleans. The auction blocks were swept to sea. The Great Barbados Hurricane, the hurricane of the blue sun, left more than twenty-five hundred people dead.

  BACK AND FORTH. The corn fell before his scythe.

  Nat Turner had read all the scriptures, had sung all the songs to himself, and whispered a lifetime of prayers. Just once, this once, he begged to see a prayer answered. He needed it before he died. He thought of all the people he had preached to in Southampton and beyond. He saw their faces, their scars, their broken hearts, and the tears in their eyes. He breathed the scriptures instead of speaking them.

  Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

  Nat Turner held the scythe at his side, closed his eyes, and prayed to his Father. He wiped the sweat from his face again. “Abba, help us.”

  Back and forth.

  There was eeriness in the air in Southampton. In the still, in the heat, Nat Turner thought he smelled death. He raised his head from where he had bowed it. A small, cool breeze kissed the back of his neck and he opened his eyes. His arm stilled.

  The sun, as he stared, turned from yellow to green to blue—bluish-gray, the color of death, and then to an ominous indigo.

  God had been forced to choose and He had chosen. It was August 12, 1831, the year and day of the Lord’s judgment. Gripping his scythe, Nat Turner left the field where he worked.

  Running, he headed for Cabin Pond.

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  He could not turn around. He would not turn around. Nat Turner waded through the corn headed for the woods. He took no thought of overseers. This was the moment. God had sent him back for His people, for the children, for their dreams. He would blind the overseers and stop their ears.

  Again, as he ran, Nat Turner heard the voice of God.

  Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth; Even every one that is called by My name: for I have created him for My glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

  As he ran, God’s words filled his ears and encouraged his heart for battle.

  Yea, before the day was I am He; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand: I will work, and who shall let it? For your sake I have brought down all their nobles, whose cry is in the ships.

  Nat Turner’s bare feet pounded the ground. What was before him seemed like a dream.

  I am the Lord, your King, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power—they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.

  Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert to give drink to My people, My chosen.

  Though he charged ahead, Nat Turner felt slowed, as if he ran through some thick substance like honey. It must have been the same for Washington, Nathan Hale, and Crispus Attucks. Each step forward brought him closer to the beginning. Each step forward brought h
im closer to the end. Nat Turner’s feet touched familiar grass, took him past trees he had grown with since a boy. Branches he had touched a lifetime ago reached out to touch him.

  Going to Cabin Pond meant people, people he knew, people he was raised with, people he loved, were going to die. It was the price of freedom, revolution, and war.

  Would any of the captives have the courage to meet him at the pond? Would they recognize the sign?

  But there was no doubting the sign. The indigo sun was the sign of God’s judgment. God had made His choice and the time of mercy had ended.

  The captives had talked—they were ready to be God’s army, they were ready to die for freedom. But they had had lifetimes of being afraid, of obeying tyranny just for survival. Now that it was time, would they have the courage to join him? They were farmers, not warriors—the descendants of generations of farmers stolen from Africa. They were peaceful people who wanted only to grow things from the soil. Who could expect them to do battle?

  Nat Turner ran on, stopping at moments to use the scythe to hack his way through the brush. It would be a miracle if any of them came. His people had been frightened and tortured for so many years; it would be a miracle if someone had not already betrayed him. After waiting so long, there might be a hangman’s party waiting for him rather than an army.

  The harvest had come. People would be killed—the roots of Turner’s Meeting Place—the pastor, the trustees, and their heirs. He had known the names all his life—the Whiteheads, the Francises, the Turners, the Newsoms. They would be the first among the deaths of the church’s members—all those who used God’s name in vain, pretending to be holy and pretending to love.

  But it was not only family names; the names also belonged to faces. Like Sallie. Nat had known her since they were children. Nathaniel and Salathiel. Richard Whitehead. Nat Turner thought of all the faces. All of them were captors, but they were also his childhood friends and brothers. Brother to both captors and captives, he should not have to choose.

  His own brothers would have no part in it—Samuel was already dead and John Clarke had no place in the Turner’s Meeting Place deed.

  The blue sun was hot on his neck and shoulders. It changed the color of everything around him. The grass beneath his feet was dark gray, no longer green. The wind that blew about him lifted the leaves and the branches. Each step brought him closer to the end.

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  He thought of the people who would be lost, the ones who cried, “Lord! Lord!” Pretending to be holy, pretending to love God, but breaking God’s greatest commandments.

  Nat Turner forced his feet to keep moving. This would be his last harvest. No turning back. He was the instrument of God’s judgment. It was not his will—he was no more than an axe in the hands of God. He had surrendered his choice. “And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” The yoke of Jesus was upon him. He had surrendered ten years ago.

  No turning back. It was the sure and righteous judgment of the Lord. He moved faster now. No birds, no dogs barking, only the steady sound of Nat Turner’s breathing and of his feet pounding the earth. Conviction grew with each step.

  The witnesses, dressed in white, came to him then as he ran. They sang to him, swirling around him. “Remember Mother Easter.” He saw her gray hair and her eyes reddened with tears. So many tears. So many broken hearts. The witnesses sang laments about Cherry, about Charlotte, and about his mother. They reminded him of the children who had been violated and stolen. The murdered ones. They showed him the bleeding, cracked young feet and the calloused, tormented hands and feet of the elders—hands that had scrubbed and plowed too much, feet that had seen too many fields. So many tears. So many broken hearts. They sang him requiems of those who had been betrayed, like him, their hopes slaughtered.

  “What is the price of a man’s dignity?” they sang, whispering in his ears. “What is the cost to generations that follow?” They showed him black people—ivory, pecan, ebony—weeping and praying. Most he did not know. Then they showed him Mother Easter again, this time asleep on the floor. He felt her bones aching and heard her heart weeping. He could hear her murmuring prayers as she slept, begging for rescue. Other voices were added to hers, so many he could not decipher the words, but he understood their meaning.

  They reminded Nat Turner that he was God’s son chosen to do this special work. They reminded him of the reward promised him. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

  Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. The witnesses sang a sad hymn of summer harvest.

  For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect,

  and the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

  he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks,

  and take away and cut down the branches.

  They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains,

  and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them,

  and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

  He was breathless now and looked up at the unmoving indigo sun. Then Nat Turner clawed through the bushes in front of him and stepped out onto the edge of the waters of Cabin Pond.

  The sad-eyed girl, Charlotte, was waiting there for him.

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  Sad-eyed Charlotte—she was tiny, not much more than a girl. “I know where they meet. I know where they go—Nathaniel Francis and his friends. You can find them at the still on Sunday nights, drinking at Waller’s.” She pleaded with him. “Let me help. Let me go with you.” She had overheard Sam and Dred speak of the revolt; she always kept her ears open. She knew the meeting place. “I’ve been waiting for the sign.”

  “This is no battle for women. We will all most likely die.”

  “I am already dead, Prophet Nat. Don’t women want to be free? Don’t women suffer enough to fight?” Charlotte cried as she confessed to him the things that had been done to her.

  “We will come back to the Francis place for the rest of his heirs. It is the judgment of the Lord; no heirs are to be left alive.”

  “I can help you,” she told him. “I can make your way clear. And Mother Easter and I can make provision for you.”

  He patted her head. She bore too much burden for such a small girl. But her eyes said she had already seen too much, been hurt too much. Her dress poked out in front of her. Charlotte lifted her head in defiance. “No child of mine will die a slave. Please. Let me help.”

  He walked with her to the clearing where others were waiting. So many betrayals. So much heartbreak. “Judgment will begin with the house of the Lord,” he told them. “No heirs can be left alive. We must destroy the root.” Nat Turner knew the faces and he knew their stories—their suffering was his—they were one. Too many beatings and too many brinings. He looked at sad-eyed Charlotte. Too many rapes and violations. He looked around at all the men. Too much cruelty—whippings, amputations for missing quotas—and too many deaths.

  “We are not murderers! We are innocent men! We are men of peace forced to take up arms against our brothers to save our lives. They have forced our hands.”

  A man in rags, his head bowed, spoke up. “Is there no other way?”

  For years Nat Turner had pleaded the same thing himself. He looked at the speaker and then at the other men. “What haven’t we tried? Haven’t we prayed? Haven’t we begged? How many times have we asked them, begged them to turn? What else could we do to reconcile?

  “How many times have we prayed for a deliverer? God has heard our prayers. Look at the sign.” He pointed at the indigo sun. “We are to be our own deliverers! We are God’s hands here on earth.” Nat Turner looked back at the man. “We cannot turn back now. No matter what
happens, we are victors.

  “God has decreed that the time for mercy is over. If we do nothing, they will continue to kill us. They kill us daily, wrapping themselves around us like vines—choking our wives, our sons, and our daughters, our dreams, our faith, and our land.

  “Like them, we are all children of God. They are our brothers, but they have asked our Father to deny us. They show us no respect. They say we are mindless, heartless.” Nat Turner looked at Hark and Yellow Nelson, the preacher. “They say we are animals who deserve nothing. Animals.” He looked at Will, Sam, and Dred. “But God is our Father and we are His sons. We are men of honor, and where He leads we will follow—even if He leads us to death. It is a reasonable sacrifice for our freedom, for our children, for our seed who will follow.”

  Then Will stepped into the clearing. Nat Turner looked at Sam and Dred, also captives of Nathaniel Francis. They shook their heads; neither of them had told Will.

  Nat Turner had seen Will when he preached on Sundays. He was a silent, solitary man, but Nat Turner had heard his story—the loss of his family, of his wife and little daughter. He had seen the war on Will’s face—the war between anger and hurt. He knew that Will, like many others, was looking for a way out, for deliverance, a way to make the pain go away—even death—his own death or the death of others. “Why are you here?”

  “I am as willing to die,” Will said, “as anyone.” Nat Turner looked into the eyes of the Death Angel. It was settled then. Will’s presence was the last sure sign of the judgment of the Lord.

  Nat Turner looked into the other men’s faces. “God has remembered the covenant He made with our forefathers—with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His spirit is among us to rescue us from our enemies.” When Nat Turner looked away from Will, Charlotte was gone. “We are the army of the Lord, come to ransom His people.