Proslavery Thought and the Reaction to the Nat Turner Revolt
“Actions speak louder than words” is a proverb that is widely accepted in American culture. People value what a person has done as a reflection of their personality over anything that person might say about his or her self. This logic also applies to the study of history. Much can be learned about a historical actor’s beliefs or thoughts by his or her actions, as opposed to just their words. This is particularly true in the case of antebellum proslavery ideology. From the early 1830’s to the start of the Civil War, Southerners were under increasing scrutiny for their peculiar institution and as a result many individuals came up with arguments on the behalf of slavery. According to historian Peter Kolchin, the different proslavery arguments were born of slaveholder’s desire to “express their commitment to slavery in terms of principle rather than interest.” However, the reaction on the part of southerners to an event in 1831 shines a different light on the true ideology of southerners. The Southampton Insurrection brought about mobs of angry and, more importantly, frightened whites who carried out numerous summary executions on local slaves. It also sparked legislation which restricted African Americans, both free and enslaved, from reading or assembling or both, depending on the state. These reactions, both the mob vengeance and the legislation, show that southerners did not truly believe many of the proslavery arguments they espoused, that they defended it based on their interest in it, rather than on principles as they would have liked outsiders to believe.

Antebellum proslavery ideology consisted of practical, religious and racist arguments. The racist element of proslavery ideology was less popular. Thus it is not surprising that the racist argument for slavery is the most contradictory to the actions of whites in the wake of the Turner Revolt. This argument rested on the idea that Blacks were mentally inferior and naturally suitable to slavery. Richard H. Colfax’s 1833 essay Evidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists is a perfect example of this racial argument on behalf of slavery. About all Blacks in general, Colfax stated, “his want of capability to receife a complicated education renders it improper and impotitic, that he should be allowed the privileges of citizenship in an enlightened country.” His argument is that Blacks are incapable of higher learning. However, those in power in the south surely did not believe this. In the two years preceding this essay Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina each passed laws barring Slaves and free people of color from learning to read and write. It is logical to say that if legislators had believed Blacks incapable of higher learning, as Colfax stated, it would not have been necessary to forcibly keep them from learning to read and write. These laws were passed because whites knew if slaves were able to read then they would inevitably learn of ideals about liberty and justice, and in turn they would rebel as they did in Southampton. A critic of this argument could say that these laws were passed to prevent white abolitionists from being able to seed rebellion among slaves, since the laws put the punishment on the individuals doing the teaching. Thus it could be said that Southerners didn’t think Blacks capable of higher thought on their own, but that they feared what could happen if they were lead to rebellion by Northerners. However if this were the case the reason why reading and writing were singled out Is not apparent. If southerners were worried about whites educating slaves, they would not have outlawed only the teaching of reading and writing but other skills as well. An abolitionist could sow seeds of rebellion while teaching a slave how to repair a gin or how to multiply just as easily as while teaching one to read or write. The specific nature of the laws regarding reading and writing shows that Southerners knew Blacks were capable of learning about freedom and deciding on their own to fight for it.

Another element of antebellum proslavery ideology was the argument which appealed to religion. It consisted of the idea that slavery was an ancient institution and Blacks were chosen by God to be a slave race. It also includes statements about religious figures’ lack of condemnation of slavery in their own time. While this argument differs in the specific reasoning, the main idea is the same as in the racial argument: that blacks are supposed to be slaves. If this is what Southerners really believed then they would have reacted to the Southampton Insurrection as if it were an isolated, freak incident. However they did not. Anti-literacy laws were passed to safeguard against more revolts. Additionally, when word of the revolt broke out, people all over Virginia and parts of North Carolina reacted by accusing their own slaves of insurrection and killing them. This appears to be hysteria because no evidence exists of a larger conspiracy other than the event at Southampton. This paranoid, hysterical reaction to Turner’s revolt shows that, at the time, whites already feared that slaves would revolt. If they truly believed slaves to be meant for slavery, the idea of them all wanting to revolt would not make sense. North Carolina forbade slaves or free people of color to preach. Additionally, rules set up in South Carolina allow whites to conduct religious education of blacks. This shows that southerners knew that religion could be used both ways. It could be used to justify slavery or to justify abolition. Thus it is apparent that Slaveholders did not really believe God himself intended Blacks to be a slave race. In other words, if the Bible indisputably showed that Blacks were meant to be slaves, or even that slavery was not morally wrong, then it would not be dangerous for Blacks to learn about Christianity and the bible from other Blacks. If this were the case then the aforementioned laws would not have been necessary.

While the racial argument was not widely accepted on its own, it was common for it to be part of other arguments, such as the so called “social justification of slavery”. Those who proposed this argument said that slavery was beneficial to African Americans and that as a system, it was better than free labor. A good example of this argument from the antebellum period comes from the preface to a poem by William Grayson entitled The Hireling and the Slave. Grayson states that “There is no such thing with slavery as a laborer for whom nobody cares or provides. The most wretched feature in hireling labor is the isolated miserable creature who has no home, no work, no food, and in whom no one is particularly interested. This is seen among hirelings only.” According to Kolchin this argument, “occupied a central place in the thought of leading pro-slavery propagandists. . .” However this ideology, like the racial and religious arguments, does not fit with what happened in the wake of the Turner Revolt. The Southampton revolt created what could only be called a massive panic. After word of the revolt spread, Virginia Governor John Floyd received requests from all over the state for aid to quell separate suspected revolts. Rumor spread and as people began to look at their own slaves as immediate threats. Most of the estimated 200 deaths that occurred in Southampton were extra-legal executions carried out on suspected slaves by local whites. Apparently the idea that slaves had an inherent desire to rebel and kill their masters did not seem unusual to these Southerners. This would mean that the slaveholders saw slavery as an inherently risky situation which required force and vigilance to maintain rather than a benevolent institution that left everyone involved with good feelings as the social justification states.

The earliest argument for slavery also happens to be the only one which seems to agree with the reaction to the Turner Revolt. This is the idea that slavery was a necessary evil; that regardless of its morality it was a central cog in the machine of the American economy and could not be adequately replaced by any other labor system. The argument was made popular by Thomas Dew in his 1832 essay The Abolition of Negro Slavery. The legal measures taken to prevent another Turner Revolt as well as the violent reprisals against the Southampton slaves fit with this argument. The reaction shows that most people thought that slaves were discontent with their position and wanted to escape it. Thus they did not think that slaves were meant for slavery, either by nature or by God. Nor did they think that Slavery was the best thing for slaves. They felt that slaves needed to be watched and kept in line by force. This must mean that they thought of slavery as not a natural or benevolent institution but a necessary evil.

Excellent write up. You cut to the core of this issue and that is quite refreshing. As terrible as slavery was/is, one must understand the idealogy of the times.