Nat Turner Rebellion

In his article “I Come Here Before You Did and I Shall Not Go Away” Randolph F. Scully is reviewing events leading up the Nat Turner Rebellion. These events which took place within the early nineteenth century, highlighted difficult situations such as gender, race, morality and authority that pervaded evangelical churches in the southeastern Virginia. Slavery that occurred during this time was one of the most controversial and prominent issues in United States history. During slavery, it wasn’t uncommon for masters to demand more than labor from their slaves. In cases like Dick vs. Jones, which was detailed in Scully article, the masters would take the slaves wife as possession. This case, like many of its kind, highlighted the roles of gender
Randolph stated “Religious issues and tensions pervaded the Turner rebellion so thoroughly that their influence cannot be reduced to a single tendency or set of tendencies.” Nat Turner was known as a well-spoken preacher, this along made the whites uncomfortable. Randolph asserted that Turner became fluent in evangelical ideas and he cultivated his leadership and becoming the representative for the black community. The author states “In constructing his own leadership as divinely inspired while denying the authority of white-controlled churches, Turner upset the delicate balance white evangelicals sought to maintain between unfettered access to spiritual authority and communal regulation of that authority.
As a result of reviewing this article it is evident that the tensions between the black and white communities in the church, assisted in the uproar of the Nat Turner Rebellion. The author was correct when he advised that religion was an important part of the century and he provided several facts that supported his beliefs. Agreeing with Scully, the religious dynamics that took place during this century affected Turner rebellion’s meanings for the black and white communities in