In addition to Blacks, Turner garnered White followers such as Etheldred T. Turner often conducted services, preaching the Bible to his fellow enslaved people, who dubbed him "The Prophet". In it, "the Saviour was about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and the great day of judgment was at hand". In 1824, he had his second vision while working in the fields under a new enslaver, Thomas Moore. After becoming delirious from hunger and receiving a vision which told him to "return to the service of my earthly master", he returned a month later. At age 21, he escaped from his enslaver, Samuel Turner. He frequently had visions which he interpreted as messages from God, and these visions influenced his life. He was identified as having "natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, surpassed by few." He grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting, praying, or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible. Turner learned how to read and write at a young age. Turner spent his entire life in Southampton County. Turner knew little about the background of his father, who was believed to have escaped from slavery when Turner was a young boy. For most of his life, he was known simply as "Nat", but after the 1831 rebellion, he was widely referred to as "Nat Turner". When Benjamin Turner died in 1810, under then-current laws which made slavery legal, Nat was inherited as property by Benjamin's son Samuel Turner. Born into slavery on October 2, 1800, also in Southampton County, a rural plantation area with more Black people than White, Turner was recorded as "Nat" by Benjamin Turner, the man who enslaved him and his family. Nat Turner (October 2, 1800 – November 11, 1831) was an enslaved African-American preacher who organized and led the four-day rebellion of enslaved and free Black people in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. Because Turner had been educated and literate as well as a popular preacher, state legislatures subsequently passed new laws prohibiting education of enslaved people and free Black people, restricting rights of assembly and other civil liberties for free Black people, and requiring White ministers to be present at all worship services. The Commonwealth of Virginia later executed an additional 56 enslaved people accused of being part of the rebellion, including Turner himself many Black people who had not participated were also persecuted in the frenzy. Approximately 120 enslaved people and free African Americans were killed by militias and mobs in the area. There was widespread fear in the aftermath, and militias organized in retaliation to the rebels. The rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. The rebels killed between 55 and 65 people, at least 51 of whom were White. Nat Turner's Rebellion, also known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner.
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