God, Individualism, and Slavery in The Fires of Jubilee

The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion by Stephen Oates is a tragic but fascinating tale of a slave who understood and embraced what could be called American exceptionalism—a man who understood his potential but was unable to realize it because of his place in society who lashed out in frustration and righteous anger. The result was a man whose spirituality and indignity at his condition turned him into an incendiary and dangerous leader within his community and someone who gave his life in an attempt to end the social stratification system of slavery.

Religion figures prominently in the story of Turner as depicted in The Fires of Jubilee, shaping who Nat Turner was and became. Oates introduces Nat Turner and the Methodist branch of religion within three paragraphs of each other, signaling the importance of the religion. Furthermore, he states, “Like scores of other striving, acquisitive Americans, the Turners were very much attracted to Methodist doctrine, with its emphasis on free will and individual salvation, and to the church’s irrepressible missionary zeal” (8–9). This is an important note because those elements of free will, individualism as interpreted through salvation or damnation, and zeal would become powerful tools and drivers for Nat Turner. Furthermore, Turner was growing up in a community in which there were some freed slaves who were freed thanks to the pressure of “Methodists, Quakers, and antislavery Baptists” (9). This means Nat Turner grew up in a community where he would have seen at least one or two freed slaves, understanding that it was a possibility and was made possible through compassion based on religion. Finally, Nat Turner himself was raised within his family and slave community with the belief he would be a prophet (12), influencing him with both expectation and the promise of a greater calling than the one he was predestined for.

Religion also gave Nat many opportunities. For example, because Benjamin Turner was a Methodist, he encouraged Nat’s education (13). Nat was nourished and also conflicted by and agitated to action because of the slave prayer meetings that were held after the church service attended by the plantation owner and other white members of the community. After Nat became a slave of the Moores, he ordained himself a Baptist preacher and had some freedoms not afforded to other slaves because of his status, such as the freedom of movement (38). Finally, religion emboldened Nat with a righteousness that his violent methods, including the =murder of children, were admissible because he was a furious agent of the Lord. Of course, religion was also a hindrance at times, particularly under Samuel Turner’s ownership, and the way Samuel Turner would use religion to scare, oppress, and subjugate his slaves (14–15). And throughout the book, Oates mentions how the intentions fueled by religious belief were often too weak to penetrate deeply or change social institutions or behaviors such as slavery.

Abolitionists were people who wanted to abolish the social institution of slavery. Though Oates doesn’t explicitly state it, it seems as if the Quakers as a religious branch were opposed to slavery. Benjamin Lundy started an abolitionist newspaper, “The Genius of Emancipation,” which would have propagated the idea of abolitionists (44–45). Other abolitionists included “free coloreds” (45). Among these were Denmark Vesey and David Walker, two literate freed blacks who were militant and vocal. The abolitionists contributed to the paranoia that the whites had about the uneasy power structure between blacks and whites. Oates describes it succinctly, “Southerners feared that the antislavery movement, though incipient in the 1820s, would some day lead to… forced emancipation, and the wholesale destruction of the South’s slave-based social order” (44). Abolitionist ideas threatened the social institution, which in turn affected white Southerners potential for prosperity and their sense of identity and society. Obviously not all abolitionists represented such danger to every Southerner, but abolitionists both empowered slaves who heard the message and upset or frightened whites who had a vested interest in maintaining the current social structure. Oates also claims that such a fascination with abolitionist movement and literature may have distracted Southerners from some of the more egregious causes of social unrest among blacks in the South (134–135).

Following the aftermath of Turner’s rebellion, white society acted as might be expected—by more forcefully and brutally reinforcing their power and dominant status in society. They seized upon abolitionists and abolitionist thinking as a major cause for unrest (129–130). The emancipation issue was considered briefly before being silenced under the pressures of wealthy and influential Virginians who had much to lose if slavery was abolished (138). The other Southern states and communities watched Virginia’s debate about emancipation with unease, but eventually the system was reified because:

“Given their racial fears and attitudes, their investments and status symbols, their whole way of life really, Virginia whites were incapable of ever uprooting slavery by themselves… Thanks to white intransigence and to those oppressive new codes, Virginia’s blacks were more shackled to the rack of slavery than they had ever been.” (141)

In order to keep these shackles tights, militias and violence against blacks increased, laws were passed to prevent slaves from obtaining rights, and the people of the South doubled down on the notion that the institution of slavery was an intrinsic and unmalleable part of society.

One of the most arresting images used to describe Nat Turner was, “He was like a powerful angel whose wings were nailed to the floor” (41). This image is evocative for its religious identity, its metaphor of Turner as otherworldly, and it conjures the intense pain that Turner must have suffered under the yoke of slavery—physical but more importantly, the pain of confinement, of being—like the angel—bound and unable to fly. Turner’s visions seem like they could be mental illness, which would not be surprising, given his intellectual capabilities and his life. The reports at his trial and the documents which his wife gave up were reported to be crusted in blood and indecipherable in parts (102), which could indicate deep mental illness, white cultural bias, or—more likely—some combination.

Oates narrates that Nat Turner did not kill anyone until Margaret Whitehead (75). It seems as if Oates is trying to be neutral about the violence; however, murder is such a basic violation of the social contract humans share that Nat cannot be truly redeemed or excused, especially once he condoned or ordered the murder of children after the news of the insurrection had leaked, such as with the actions on Waller’s plantation (83–84). Nat Turner may have been a product of the brutality of slavery, driven by rage and indignation and oppression, but he was still brutal and uncoordinated, lashing out savagely without the ability to lead a true rebellion because he could not control the brutality and anger in his soldiers, he could only incite it and help it burn.

In the end, it seems fair to say that Nat Turner was the other side of the coin to the experiences of people like Frederick Douglass, men of passion and intellect who understood the plight of slavery so keenly as to burn brightly for others to see. Douglass was free and able to channel his passion into writing and political and social action. Turner, too, was a man of action, but because he was stunted under the burden of slavery and was denied the opportunity to flourish, he broke badly, destroying lives as he sought to violently end the institution that had kept his wings nailed to the floor.

Stephen Oates is a historian and expert on 19th-century America. After concluding the narrative of Nat Turner and the aftermath, he includes his trip to Southampton County. Oates, along with his wife, states, “We quickly learned that whites and blacks were still separated by a strict racial caste system at the same time that they were bound inextricably together” (147–148). He recounts the historical marker that is “terse” (148), and finds hostility from both blacks and whites. He recounts being run off the road by people suspicious of his motives and the open and easy racism he encountered at the bank. The architecture too remained, as he hoped it would, to inform him that “1831 was really only yesterday” (151). Oates found that the legacy of Nat Turner and the conditions which shaped him and his decision still remained in Southampton County.

The Fires of Jubilee is a book about the potential of one man’s mind and spirit to burn darkly when it is prevented the opportunity to flourish. Nat Turner, promised a life that would never come to him, lashed out in anguish and anger, disrupting a community and being a signal flare for the inferno that would engulf the country 40 years later over the issue of American exceptionalism as it applies to everyone, and difficulty to reconcile God’s gift of free will and the pursuit of happiness while caught in the chains of slavery.

Work Cited

Oates, Stephen. The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion. Harper Collins E-Books.