Nat Turner T-shirt

Carry the fight with the bravery of our ancestors with your Nat Turner T-shirt!

For those who want to remember the most famous American slave rebellion

Nat Turner was the legendary leader of the black slaves rebellion from 1831 in Virginia, the insurrection of Southampton County! Following the insurrection, Turner hid for six weeks, but he was eventually caught and later hanged. The incident ended the emancipation movement in that region and led to even harsher laws against slaves. While Turner became an icon of the 1960s Black power movement, others have criticized him for using violence as a means of demanding change.

The fear caused by Nat Turner's insurrection and the concerns raised in the emancipation debates that followed resulted in politicians and writers responding by defining slavery as a "positive good". Such authors included Thomas Roderick Dew, mentioned above. Other Southern writers began to promote a paternalistic ideal of improved Christian treatment of slaves, in part to avoid such rebellions. Dew and others believed that they were civilizing black people (who by this stage were mostly American-born) through slavery. The writings were collected in The pro-slavery argument, as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the southern states.

Pay homage to the leader of the American slave rebellion with this Nat Turner T-shirt!