Nat Turner: Villain, hero, or insignificant?

[70/30]

Okay posters, go way back (171years) and recall the Nat Turner's slave revolt. How should history and civilization remember him?

http://www.virginia.edu/history//courses/courses.old/hius323/turner.html

 

[medjay]

"Bad Motherfucker"

Sam Jackson should play him in the movie.

 

[70/30]

The Nat Turner story along with the conflict between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton are my favorite stories of Americana. You almost root for Nat(accounts reveal he actually killed "just" one in the uprising) but you kinda figure you aren't supposed to. I'm a liberal from the younger generation, I'm wondering if some others had a stance as a youth but maybe changed it because they had kids or times changed. Maybe I just root for the underdog, especially considering I side with Burr when pitted against Hamilton.

 

[medjay]

You almost root for Nat(accounts reveal he actually killed "just" one in the uprising)

I just wonder why this sort of thing didn't happen more often back then.

 

[70/30]

Obviously they didn't have enough resources and communication was difficult. In another thread we were talking about the 2nd Amendment giving citizens the right to bear arms, it hit on me slave revolts were another reason the populace was heavily armed. I figured the slaves would have greater body strength and endurance, so they could be a major foe. The weapons in that era were cumbersome at best, so the authorities trying to round slaves up could be subdued. However, a large number of slaves that could steal those guns might have difficulty loading/handling them in any kind of armed battle. I too figured more revolts would have occurred during that era but history surely has forgotten some liberation attempts. I don't think Nat Turner was given more than a passing mention in high school and I was one to pay attention. Really is a fascinating story.


http://www.historyguy.com/slave_rebellions_usa.htm

 

[medjay]

There was a movie several years ago called Sankofa which was a fictionalized account of a slave revolt. Pretty brutal stuff. I actually got to see it in a theatre but the run was extremely limited. No distributors would touch it. What made it a facinating picture was the fact that the subject matter was treated in a realistic, non-exploitative way, with little sermonizing or phony uplift one might expect from such a movie.

Below is a link to an interview with the director, who talks about the hassles and censorship he encountered trying to get the film released in the U.S.

It's an interesting article and a film really worth seeing if you can find it.


http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/issue695/hailegerima.html

 

[70/30]

Interesting, Africa has millions of stories to tell but America hasn't seen much more than "The Gods Must be Crazy" . Since Natural Born Killers was lashed by social critics, The Nat Turner Story would never stand a chance. Too political and too black. Many times documentaries are the only means to tell certain stories, I stumbled on "The Fatal Flood" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/filmmore/fd.html on PBS several months ago. It's about the 1927 flood of the Mississippi, really it shows that even advocates for African-Americans can easily switch sides if their power is at stake. I'd never heard of the event but it was a definite turning point in America's history. Afterward African-Americans hastened their exodus to northern big cities and 75years later many are now permanently stuck on an island of concrete.