This text centers on the first person recollection of Nat Turner about the details of what happened within a span of roughly 36 hours between August 21 and August 22, 1831. The story is told by Nat Turner, but written by a lawyer who attempts to transcribe not just Turner’s words but his inflection and even, to a point, his conscience. The latter part is essential because Turner does not shy away from the savagery of his recollection of the insurrection.
Turner first provides background of his life as a slave, beginning with his birth. Things take a sharp left turn from other slave narratives with Turner’s contention that the adults who helped raise him told him he would become a prophet. Almost as if reproducing the story of Jesus, he then goes on to assert that as an adult, a Holy Spirit entered into his body as a revelation of what he terms “the knowledge of the elements.” There is within him, this section more than that strongly suggests, an expectation of greatness from Nat Turner that far exceeds the limitations as a slave held in bondage. Nevertheless, mythic awareness of himself takes on a life outside himself as he begins to talk of rebellion against masters that extends not just to the male owners, but the entire families. His rallying cry is one of laying waste to the concept of slavery through fields flowing with blood. It is a cry entices many other slaves whether they believe he was truly endowed with spiritual leadership by the Almighty or not. This, then, represents the conscience of Nat Turner.
The remaining elements of the narrative can be summarized as a very intensely described and uncharacteristically honest recollection of a mass murderer from one perspective and a heroic freedom fighter from another. One by one, Turner confesses (the title is perhaps of the most factually accurate for any historical document in American history) to each of the 55 deaths suffered by slaveholding families during the two-day uprising. (External accounts put the figure as high 65 victims). Which is not to suggest that each individual death is described. For instance, in detailing the deaths of Mrs. Waller and ten children, the narrative mercifully glosses over the particulars of the attacks and murder of the kids.
Nevertheless, the account proceeds from one attack to the next, covering the two day outbreak of vicious violence with a relentlessness that fails to desensitize the reader. The description of the last attack is just as horrifying as the first, but with one difference. By the last attack, one perhaps begins to look at the massacre from more than just one perspective. Which is to say that a reader on Turner’s side from the beginning is likely to be equally horrified by his viciousness while a reader starting from an anti-Turner perspective may expect to have softened somewhat.
If the softening has not occurred by the last attack, then perhaps it may as the narrative winds to an end with Turner’s account of going into hiding in the nearby caves, being discovered by fellow negroes with a dog and deciding to seek shelter elsewhere. Why? Because he knew they would betray him. Eventually, his hiding place is discovered not by fellows slaves willing to leave him, but a white man named Phipps who, armed a cocked and loaded shotgun, is only willing to grant Turner his one request: to spare his life.
The Confession ends with a listing of the victims of the uprising and listing of the participants and the sentences they eventually received.
