The senior judge quickly dismissed Phipps and turned to Peter Edwards. “Where is the villain? Do you have him secured?”
“He has made no struggle or attempt to run.”
“Lead me to him.” Trezvant cleared his throat and then, as an afterthought, he acknowledged Parker. “Lead us to the bandit.” As Trezvant followed behind Peter Edwards—from the foyer, down the hall to the living room—from where he sat, Nat Turner watched the congressman’s face. Trezvant seemed to be taking inventory, making a list of things he needed to acquire to be in fashion. He seemed to be tallying desks, chairs, portraits, light fixtures. How many captives would have to be bred and sold or hanged, how many acres of corn would he have to beat out of the captives to attain what was required of a proper gentleman?
As they walked, Peter Edwards turned to speak to Trezvant and Parker. “Has he been assigned a lawyer? I’m not sure it’s proper for you, as judges, to speak with Nat Turner before the hearing. Shouldn’t the sheriff take him into custody and question him first?”
Trezvant was in control. “The sheriff is coming soon. He’s gathering guards. But as officers of the court, I have decided that the two of us must interrogate the black rascal first.”
Keen-eyed, Trezvant swept into the house, and Peter Edwards’s living room became Trezvant’s stage, Edwards’s table his judicial bench. Tall and thin with sparse gray curls plastered about the sides of his head, age had not been his ally. He continued inventorying Peter Edwards’s living room where they sat, as though he were looking to be sure there was nothing there that he didn’t already have—still tallying crystal, frosted glass, a chandelier.
Nat Turner had seen the man and his brother, the general store owner and postmaster, before on occasions when he went to town. The congressman, lawyer, militia colonel, was now chief justice of the court called to oversee the rebellion trials—if they could be called trials. Whether he officially had the authority was no matter; the congressman had wrested control.
From his pocket, Trezvant withdrew glasses that he perched on the tip of his nose. He did not look through them but over them, like props, as though the glasses themselves made him a judge. Despite his thinness, all of who Trezvant was strained at the seams of his clothes, pushed at his buttons, puffed his face, and pooched his stomach. It reminded Nat Turner of something his mother had told him about Americans cinching themselves in clothes rather than wearing robes, as though they were afraid bits of themselves, or the best parts of them, might fly away.
At Trezvant’s side was the much younger, and adequately insecure, James Parker. Nat Turner had heard that the thirty-year-old farmer and slave owner was the youngest judge sitting for the slave trials. Parker fidgeted, his eyes darting from place to place.
It was easy to figure why Trezvant and the others had chosen the young man to sit as judge. Parker was suitable because he did all the right things and bore the right name. He was the soft-spoken son of the outspoken Parker family, a family known for having the courage not to beat their slaves, a family that had the courage to feed their captives adequately, despite criticism that they were too generous. The Parker name appeared to lend balance to the court: A Parker was watching so there would be no mistreatment of the slaves.
But looking at the younger man, Nat Turner knew that he had the name but not the family courage or self-assurance. James Parker was ginger-haired, clean-shaven, and perpetually red-faced. He did not have the experience or the confidence to stand against the formidable will of Congressman Colonel Judge Trezvant.
Trezvant alone was Grand Inquisitor. He was Pontius Pilate, and it was clear, as he peered over his spectacles, from the lift of his brow and the wrinkling of his forehead, that he was certain Nat Turner was no match for him.
Trezvant looked around the room, settling his gaze on Peter Edwards’s liquor cabinet. He stared at it until Edwards ordered that a glass of whiskey be brought to him. Then Trezvant began the questioning.
“You don’t look like the big, black strapping sort of fellow who I would think the jigs would choose to lead their murdering, thieving enterprise. But then I understand you’ve been living in the woods, not far from here. Dining on wild nuts and berries? That might account for your thinness, though not your lack of height.” Trezvant chortled and lifted one brow. “Thought you’d come in for a meal?”
His left hand moving like a snake’s tongue, Trezvant slapped the servant who stood nearby and grabbed his arm, jerking him toward Nat Turner. “How dare you seat him on an upholstered chair. He stinks to high heaven! The chair will be ruined, you imbecile! Get him off the chair and fetch a wooden stool.”
Peter Edwards looked away, dropped his head, faded into the curtains.
The stool the servant brought was rough and unpainted. Nat Turner sat on it, thanking the servant, who would not look at him. This captive, too, would be a witness: He would have a story to tell.
Trezvant stared over his glasses at Nat Turner and pursed his lips. “Comfortable?” The old man meant to rattle him. “So you’re the general, the leader of a band of murderers! No tears? No remorse? You are a coldhearted fellow.”
“I am guilty of nothing. I struck the first blow for freedom, but it was not murder. I am no guiltier than George Washington, Nathan Hale, or any other soldier. We were an army working together. Everything we did, we did in common. It is war, the Lord’s judgment.”
Trezvant shook his head and looked around the room at the other white men. “See how childish and simple the darkies are that they would allow themselves to be led by someone like this? They might have chosen someone to follow like Red Nelson. But they chose this… this thing.” He gestured at Nat Turner. “Well, they all deserve what they got. They brought it on themselves. But, of course, we’re the ones to suffer; look at all the lost property.”
“Some slaves were loyal,” Parker inserted.
“Indeed. But the filthy insurrectionists got just what they deserved. They are the cause of hundreds of their kind being killed all over the state—even in North Carolina.” He pointed at Nat Turner. “Look at the culprit. His stench is unbearable.”
All his life white people had been speaking of Nat Turner as though he wasn’t there, as if they knew better than he what was best for his life.
Trezvant’s expression and tone changed. He smiled at Nat Turner as though seconds ago he had not insulted him. “Your life held so much promise. Many white people were taken with you. You could have followed after someone like Red Nelson, someone more like you, and stayed in your place. Why did you choose to be with the others, to be with the darker… the common field hands?”
All his life, he had held his tongue; it was the only way to survive. Now God had removed the muzzle, and he would say whatever came to his mind and to his heart. “I didn’t choose; you chose for me.
“But the truth is, if I have to choose between standing with captives or captors, I would always choose to stand with those in chains.”
Trezvant looked over his glasses and smiled. This was a debate, a debate Trezvant was certain he would win: He was smarter; Nat Turner was inferior. Nat Turner would lose the contest and die.
Trezvant began to drill Nat Turner with questions. He took notes on sheets of paper spread in front of him. “I have heard that you are an intelligent creature, but your battle plan makes no sense. Did you think with no weapons, no training, and with your simple minds, that you’d be able to take over Jerusalem? Take over Virginia? This whole nation? Do you know how many white men there are? How many guns we have? Only a crazy person could think that unarmed and with so few men you could take over the county, let alone the state.”
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in our God.
“This was not a war against Jerusalem or Southampton County or Virginia or all white men. It was the righteous judgment of God; we beat our plowshares into swords, judgment began at the house of God.”
“But you were not successful. Was it worth it? The odds w
ere always against you. Do you regret what you did?”
“Does America regret its revolution? Some causes are worth fighting for, even if defeat seems sure.” This was only the first battle. War would grip the nation. “History will judge if our small battle, our small beginning, helped win the war that is to come. This is only the start of God’s harvest. I do His will.”
“So now you are Moses or some other prophet.” Trezvant stared at him as though he were insane. “So you killed Sallie and Joseph Travis?”
“I struck the first blow for freedom.”
“Did you kill the Williamses?”
“We were an army moving as one.”
Trezvant peered over his glasses and dipped his quill in the ink that Peter Edwards had provided him. “What about the Whiteheads? Were you there?”
“We were an army. We all worked in common.”
Nat Turner thought then of Will. He would aid his escape. He would make it so they would hope to never find Will. They wouldn’t want to speak of him. “But I will tell you that the fiercest warrior of us all was Will. He vowed to kill everything white that moved—man, woman, or child. He was executioner. Most of the kills were his. He was a fury, an angel of death wreaking vengeance.”
Trezvant did not counter. Instead, he looked at his notes, returning to his questioning. “You killed more than fifty people—women and children among them—yet there are no tears, your head is not bowed.” Trezvant narrowed his eyes. “What kind of creature are you?”
“You say I am a creature. If I am, why should I weep? Does the wolf weep after devouring its prey?”
Trezvant stopped scribbling and stared over his glasses at Nat Turner. “There is ice water in your veins, Preacher. It does not seem to faze you, all the blood and murdered bodies you’ve seen.”
“As a slave, I have been well trained. I have seen a great deal of blood, many wounded and murdered bodies in my lifetime, and I have been taught that I should not react. The overseer says slave life is nothing—kick the body out of the way, then back to work. Peculiar that now someone seems to care.”
Trezvant’s face reddened with anger momentarily, then it was back to his interrogation. “Were you at the Whiteheads’? Were you at the Barrows’?”
“We were an army moving as one—you cannot separate me from my men; what one did we all did. Just as you are all guilty of hanging innocent men, even a woman. I hear that Virginia pays handsomely.” Trezvant intended to win, but Nat Turner would exact a price. “There is innocent blood on your hands, and that blood will damn you.” Nat Turner turned and looked at young James Parker. “There is blood on both your hands.”
Trezvant did not speak again until he had regained his composure. He looked at Parker. “This is what comes with allowing niggers to read, treating them as equals, and allowing them to strut around and call themselves preachers.” He muttered to himself. “Nigger preachers.”
He turned back to Nat Turner, paused, took a deep breath, and reapplied his sheepish smile. “Nat, you don’t have to put on airs for me. Speak naturally. Feel free to speak your own language.”
“My own language?”
“You know, the way you people speak.”
“Do you believe that it is the way I speak that makes me a Negro?”
“I mean you should be more like the others. Less formal. You know, nigger talk, gibberish. Speak like your people. You would have gotten less agitated if you had not tried to be a white man, if you had acted like the others. You would have been happier if you acted like old Hubbard or Red Nelson.”
“Who are you to choose how I speak or whose lead I follow? Or is it that you want me to play the Zip Coon for you, to dance and shuffle my feet like Red Nelson does to entertain you white men?”
They still did not see who he was. They did not treat him as who he was, but as they thought they saw. They treated him as the role they created for him. When he did not play his part, they were angry. They wanted him to be less and accept less. He was their brother, but they were only satisfied if he played the role of inferior and slave.
They deceived themselves: He spoke one way but they heard another.
They said he was ignorant, so he must be ignorant. They said he was a frightening savage, and in their minds it was so. “It is all a lie. You don’t see the truth in front of your eyes. You don’t see goodness or intelligence cloaked in black. You don’t recognize evil if it has white skin.
“None of us has any value to you except as your property—property you are willing to destroy for money. We have no value in your eyes unless you say so.”
Nat Turner had held his tongue for so long. The words rushed from him like an unpent dam. “Who are you to tell me how to speak? You want me to play a part for you that justifies your not treating me as a man. I won’t do it!”
Trezvant glared; the veins bulged in his neck. He stopped and seemed to stuff his anger back into his suit. Then he sighed as though Nat Turner were a willful child, shuffled his papers, and then resumed his questioning. “How much money did your banditti steal? Was it worth the lives of so many people?”
“We didn’t steal money or property.”
Trezvant chuckled, looking at Parker, and then turned back to Nat Turner. “Do you mean to convince me that you did this all for some noble cause?” Trezvant smirked and leaned back in his chair. “I’m a military man, myself—a colonel in the militia. Do you know what that is, a colonel?”
Nat Turner was silent.
“Do you mean to tell me that as the leader, as the general, as it were, of this little … band… this little group of niggers, that you expected no spoils or money? Perhaps ten dollars a week for you and five dollars for your captains? Here and there snatching a bank note or a gold coin as you romped through an old widow’s home? No one would hold it against you for pocketing a few coins. Even white men are tempted.”
“I have no interest in money. God provides—”
Trezvant interrupted, leaning forward again. “Then tell me why. Did you plan to rape the women, but they fought you off?”
“Why would I want to rape a woman? I married the woman I desired. And there has been enough rape among us, don’t you think? My mother was raped.
“We are men of honor! We are godly men! We fight for freedom and for honor. We fight to do the Lord’s will.”
“Godly men? You are murderers and nigger fools!” Trezvant’s face remained emotionless, though he was one of the culprits who attacked Cherry.
Nat Turner could not help thinking of his wife. Cherry, sweet Cherry with exotic Africa in her hair. He would never see her again, never feel the softness of her skin or her arms wrapped around him. None of the captors was worthy of her. “It is my wife and other captive women who need protection from the likes of you.”
Suddenly angry, Trezvant pounded the table. “Don’t you get smart with me, black devil! I hold your life in my hands!”
“You hold no power over me. I have already seen the worst.
“All this is in my Father’s hands, hands greater than either yours or mine. I am in the hands of the Awesome Defender of the motherless, the poor, and the alien. All this is His doing. Does it not strike you as odd that I—a simple man, a captive, a mere slave—sit before you great men? You should not even notice me. But it is the will of God that I am here. God’s judgment is upon you.
“I have learned to fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul. You cannot harm me.”
“Just as I have heard, you are insane! Only a crazy man would speak as you do.” Trezvant shook his head and rustled his papers as he turned in Parker’s direction. “We are talking to a crazy man, a nigger zealot.”
Trezvant pushed the papers from in front of him, laid down his pen, and spoke again to Nat Turner. “All right then, holy man, tell me why, in your twisted thinking, you shed so much innocent blood?
“Even as insane as you are, you must admit that Travis was a good master. Nathaniel Francis tells me that Travis and your
mistress, Sallie, doted on you. You know it is true; all the men in Southampton are known to be good masters. Slavery here is probably of more benefit to the slave than it is to the master.” Trezvant nodded his head, looking about at Parker and Peter Edwards. “We Virginians are known for being kind to our slaves, unlike our heavy-handed brothers in the Deep South,” Trezvant said as though to comfort them. He turned back to Nat Turner. “Though slaves like you make me believe our more Southern brothers may be correct in their judgment of how to treat you darkies.”
“So, you take pride that you are kinder masters: moderately cruel, but not exceedingly cruel? Where is the line?”
Trezvant’s mouth puckered and his eyes narrowed to slits, as though he needed to see better, to reassess his prey. He paused, tapping the paper in front of him, and then asked, “If you had complaints, why did you not come to us? Look at all the blood that has been shed, your own people’s blood. Your masters were kindly.”
“A kindly master? The first word comforts you but the second word tells the tale. You have never worn chains or felt a whip. How can you be the judge of kindness?
“Good master? Good or bad, kind or evil, he keeps the captives from freedom.”
“You are a cold-blooded fellow, sitting here calmly while white people have died! You sit here without crying, with your head held high; don’t you know you’re going to hang for what you’ve done?
“They were good white people, all of them. I knew them. Yours was a heartless crime.”
A sardonic smile tugged at Nat Turner’s lips. “Good to you. If I am guilty of crime, then all soldiers are guilty.”
“What?”
“I said, the people you speak of were good to you. Their kindness to you has nothing to do with how they treated their captives. Kind or not, they were manstealers. You cannot judge from where you sit how they treated us when you yourselves are guilty of the same crimes.”
“Crimes? We’ve done nothing against the law.” Trezvant’s tone was defensive.
“Then I say the law itself is criminal and has no authority over me.” Whose laws did they uphold? The captors created laws that justified and benefited them. “‘Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD pondereth the hearts.’
The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial Page 25