Nat Turners Slave Rebellion

Objective 1: You will compare, analyze and determine the points of view of the following documents State the point of Document 1. o Document 1 states that the South should learn a lesson from the Nat Turner rebellion. That if they keep slavery they are asking for trouble and that people will do anything they need to to gain their freedom and if that means killing innocents, then so be it.__

Does document 2 support or contradict the point of view of document 1? Use specific evidence to support your answer. o Document 2 contradicts the opinion of document 1. It says the slaves that rebelled were animals “They remind one of a parcel of blood-thirsty wolves rushing down from the Alps” and Indians “rather like a former incursion of the Indians upon the white settlements” and were not justified because their owners were nice to them. But now the slaves should not even be allowed to learn to read and write for fear of another revolt.

Which document(s) would an abolitionist (a person that wants to end slavery) support? Give two specific reasons to defend your answer. o People who were against slavery would like Document 1, 1) it warns the Whites that if they continue they can expect more of the same and 2) People, including Whites will not look at a massacre as horrible but as an act done by people who are desperate for freedom. OR o An abolitionist would also support Document 4. While this document notes that 55 people lost their lives to ‘inhuman barbarity’ it occurred because Blacks were not given their rights, and because Blacks were brought from their native lands and torn apart from their families and loved ones. Also, by giving Blacks their rights, it would not only give them freedom, but also allowed them to gain wealth.

Objective 2: You will analyze the documents to determine the message of the document, the intended audience of the document and the motivations of the authors What could be the motivation to publish the image in Document 3? Who was the intended audience of this image? o I believe the audience is the nation and is meant to scare people into realizing what the nation can expect if it doesn’t change its ways.

What message about the revolt does Document 4 portray? o Document 4 recognizes that the rebellion was a horrible massacre but that the South is partly to blame because they do not give blacks their freedom and it goes further by saying that if blacks had their freedom they would be both happy and prosperous and furthermore, the blame really belongs to those who brought the Blacks over as slaves in the first place.

Objective 3 You will compare several documents, take and defend a position and recognize and analyze a counter-argument regarding a specific historical topic o Take a position! Based on the evidence above... Based on the information in the documents was Nat Turner’s rebellion justified? o I don’t think Nat Turners rebellion was justified since it killed a lot of children and did not free any slaves. OR o I believe Nat Turner’s rebellion was justified. Enslaved African Americans could not wait for well meaning people to free them, desperate times require desperate measures and the whites had been warned as is evidenced by the article in the Liberator

Explain your answer by using two examples from the text to support your answer. o In Document 2, it is clear the women and children were killed and to what end? I believe that if Nat Turner had killed men he would have shown he was a man and a soldier not just a murderer of women and children and in Document 3 you can see how women and children were killed in a brutal fashion. OR o In document 1 it is clear that there were many who knew of the inherent wrong and danger in keeping people perpetually in bondage and that this type of event was long predicted; and document 4 clearly shows how Nat Turner’s rebellion cannot be blamed solely on the blacks as the slaves were taken from their native lands, forced into enslavement and took families apart.

State one specific counter-argument presented in the above documents citing one specific example. o The counter argument, mainly from Document 4 is that the South, slave holders and those who refused to allow blacks their freedom are to blame for the acts of Nat Turner and in effect caused the deaths of the women and children and got what they deserved. AS it states “Yet we cannot hold those entirely blameless, who first brought them from their native lands--who robbed them of their domestic joys--who tore them from their weeping children and dearest connections, and doomed them in this ”Land of Liberty” to a state of cruel bondage! OR o The Counter argument runs through all of the documents and that is the horrible loss of life to innocent women and children and the horrible ways in which they were killed.