The Fires of Jubilee: The Spark of Nat Turner

The Fires of Jubilee: The Spark of Nat Turner

 

Slavery’s echo has been entrenched in American history since the nation’s birth. Its historical influence on culture and society cannot be ignored, especially at a time where activists have shone light on the social injustices plaguing the nation even to this day. While society itself has harbored oppressive attributes for centuries, the people whom societal injustice has impacted have always found a way to fight back. Even in situations that seem hopeless, people still find a way to rage against the injustices wrought upon them by a world that does not prioritize the humanity of those deemed to be at the bottom. One of the most memorable rebels in American history—one who changed the course of the country and may have acted as the first domino leading to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery—was Nat Turner. And his story of revolution is well-documented in Stephen B. Oates’ The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion.

Jubilee tells the story of Nat Turner’s life from the time he was born up through his rebellion against slavery in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831. The rebellion was organized by Nat Turner across several slave plantations in the area, resulting in a massacre of at least fifty white people in the county. The book goes on to list the consequences of his rebellion, as well as the historical influence by which this rebellion started and ended. Nat Turner’s story is told, but so is the story of Southampton County, slavery in the early 1800’s, and the social consequences of revolution that bolstered the subject of slavery into the limelight.

What makes Oates’ documentation of this event so unique is that he goes into detail of that which surrounded Turner in his early life through adulthood that may have acted to influence his rebellion. One of the major recurring ideas presented in the text is that Turner was seen as a messiah of sorts, someone who even at an early age was deemed special due to his knowledge of things that he shouldn’t have reasonably known about. His rare education also assisted in this, drawing some parallels to what can be seen as a more spiritual take on Turner’s ability to organize his militia. Presenting him in this way was unique for a historical novel, indicating Turner as a perceived “chosen one” to many slaves who were fed up with living in poor, harsh conditions for the sake of America’s early economic growth. In this way, belief seeks to triumph over the harshness of reality, something that runs through the blood of every good revolt against social injustices that have been deemed “the way things are.” When history itself has proven time and again that “the way things are” can be altered through revolution. It was how America was founded, after all.

And this revolution is described in harsh details for the audience to unpack themselves. Oates does a good job at contextualizing and detailing the vivid ferocity with which Nat Turner and his fellow rebels slaughtered slave owners and their families. The details indicate the level of planning that went into the rebellion itself, as well as who would be targeted in order to ensure the most amount of fear possible would be struck into the hearts of those at the top. While many scenes in the book are not for the faint of heart—including descriptions of children being hacked to pieces by the rebels—knowing what happened, why it happened, and how the cycle of violence impacted the county and the country felt like a necessary lesson to learn. This is even more understandable both when seeing the consequences of this rebellion as well as looking at the modern era’s own revolts against racial injustice in society. If society today is unable to learn from the rebellions of the past, they will—quite literally—be digging their own graves.

The Fires of Jubilee is a detailed, important documentation of one of the bloodiest slave rebellions in American history. Despite having been written in 1975, this book still manages to capture a spiritual reflection of the present in its pages, acting as a near-prophetic insight of how revolution begins. If the injustices of modern-day society cannot be quelled, then there is little doubt that a modern-day Nat Turner will arise alongside those who are fed up with being treated unfairly by the system. History is doomed to repeat itself should the world not change for the better, a grim indication that perhaps revolution is the only way the world will ever change.