The Violent Road to the Civil War: The Fires of Jubilee by Stephen Oates - Book Report/Review Example

Nat Turner was an intelligent man, and his spirit rebelled against slavery. Although Southampton did not have a record of harsh treatment of slaves, the slaves did not have any freedom. The slave owners allowed their slaves some liberties like allowing them to sing and dance and go to the church. Nat Turner formed a group of eight slaves and made plans for a rebellion. The rebellion was to be violent and take the whites by surprise. For this reason, they included only eight men. Earlier rebellions elsewhere had been aborted because of leakage of plans.

Leakage of information was avoided in Turner's plans. On August 21, 1831, they marched into the Travis household and killed the entire family. They went from house to house killing more white people with quiet weapons. They were finally overpowered by the militia. and the townspeople. Turner based his actions on the visions he got from time to time. His actions made the law more stringent and reinforced the militia. Many of the innocent slaves were viewed with suspicion by their masters and even accused.

But his action in rebelling against slavery was a cornerstone in the abolition of slavery which was to come later. His actions were violent, but violence was the only language understood by the slave owners. Turner laid the foundation for the abolition of slavery by showing how abhorrent it was to the slave to be "owned" by some other human being. The killing of innocent children and infants is reprehensible. I liked the spirit shown by the black slaves in rebelling under such circumstances but did not like the killing of children.