The Fires of Jubilee

The Fires of Jubilee In the Fires of jubilee, author Stephen B. Oates tells the story of a slave who led a revolt to end the white supremacy in the South. This book is a non - fiction book and describes the history of slaves who rebelled against the white supremacy. The author sets images of story for reader to understand the purpose of the book. The author’s main purpose is to describe in detail about the slave rebellions in 1830s. He also explains the culture of that time and how people viewed slavery. Oates begins the book with a thorough biography of Turner. He makes a real effort to show what lead a man to commit the actions he did. Nat was born on October 17, 1800 in Southampton County, Virginia. His mother Nancy was brought to America in 1795. The man who purchased her was Benjamin Turner, a wealthy tidewater planter. Nancy married a slave whose name is not known, and gave birth to Nat. Interestingly, she tried to kill Nat rather than see him grow up to be a slave. By the time he was four or five years old, people started to realize that there was something very special about Nat. His intelligence earned the respect of other slaves as well. One time he was given a book by another slave. Amazingly he knew how to read it. No one knows who taught Nat to read, as an education was very rare among slaves. His master, Benjamin Turner was extremely impressed with Nat and often remarked to friends that, "he would never be of service to anyone as a slave." In 1809 Nat's life changed immensely. The first shock came when his father escaped slavery to the north. The second shock was the death of Nat's master. In 1810 Nat became the official property of Benjamin's oldest son, Samuel Turner. Samuel was a highly religious bachelor in his mid twenties. Samuel worked his slaves hard and used Christianity to scare slaves into obedience. The author takes several pages away from Nat's story to describe some attitudes in the south.