Fires of Jubilee(History) - Essay Example

By the time he was five years old, his parents discovered that he had exceptional abilities to read and write, an extremely commendable feat as education was quite rare among the slaves. This quality earned him immense respect amongst the other slaves. “He was living in the innocent season of his life, in those carefree years before the working age of twelve when a slave boy could romp and run about the plantation with uninhibited glee” (OATES, P.7). But the dramatic events that occurred in the year 1809 had a significant impact on young Nat that changed his life immensely.

When Nat was barely nine years old, his father ran away to escape the slavery regime and never returned. Subsequently, his master, Benjamin Turner died leaving Nat under the aegis of his son Samuel Turner, who was a religious fanatic in his mid twenties and worked his slaves hard; often using Christianity as a tool to scare them into obedience. This was a predominantly widespread belief among the whites who tried to teach the blacks that God was supreme and he allowed slavery as the whites were superior to the blacks.

Moreover, the whites insisted obedience from the slaves on the grounds that it was God’s will and those who questioned his authority were destined to burn in hell and even the thought of escaping slavery could invite his wrath. In 1821, when Samuel Turner hired an overseer Nat was highly displeased. Eventually, he requested his master to set him free but got whipped instead which added to his growing discontent and led him to flee into the wilderness only to return after thirty days. In 1822, after the death of Samuel Turner, Nat was sold to Thomas Moore.

By the summer of 1825, Nat increasingly grew to be more withdrawn, often spending his Sundays in the cabin praying and reading the Bible. As Nat grew older he started having “visions” and dreams of the black spirits defeating the white spirits, which he perceived as God’s messages to him and was,