The Resurrection Of Nat Turner: The Testimonial Part 1

The resurrection of Nat Turner.

The Testimony.

Sharon Ewell Foster.

For Darlene, Mary, Harriet, Easter, Nancie, and all the mothers who have lost their sons. For all the sons who have lost their way. You are welcome. Come home.

There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

-Luke 12:23.

For G.o.d shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

-Ecclesiastes 12:14.

Prologue.

Aksum, Ethiopia.

1849 Years of Grace, Ethiopian Calendar (A.D. 1856).

Minutes stretched into hours, hours into days, years into decades-time seemed bitter, thick, and useless like overboiled stew cooked to scorching. Afework counted the leaves, the pages, in her book of remembrance. There were thirty-two of them, one for each year since the theft of her child, her daughter, Nikahywot.

A month after the night of the theft, a night that sent the women fleeing into the darkness, her husband, Kelile, had found her in the Christian section hidden among the tens of thousands in the great city of Gondar. A family there had taken Afework and her granddaughter, Ribka, in. While there, the women had told her stories of other children-sons and daughters, brothers and sisters-stolen away.

The Arabian Peninsula was less than a mile across the Red Sea from Ethiopia. Ottomans, she had heard the women whisper, Arabs, Berbers, Turks, corsairs, Barbary pirates. The women spoke of Yemen, Hijaz, Cairo, Tripoli, and Tunisia. The thieves stole Christians to ransom and sell, the women whispered to her. They stole Christians from Ethiopia, from Sudan, and from as far away as Italy, Spain, Bosnia, and even beyond, where all the people were of white skin. They transported them to slave markets, even as far away as Morocco across the great Sahara. They sold them as slaves, carrying them back across the Red Sea, up the Mediterranean Sea.

Stolen boys might be turned to eunuchs, the women wept for their stolen sons-there would be no generations to follow. But the young men might become guards, soldiers, or even well-paid officials. Their daughters, however, would most likely become concubines or even part of a harem. Some of the mothers dissolved into hysterical tears at the thought, but as they cried they overlooked the tears of the weeping servants who walked among them. But Afework could not shake the feeling that the slavery that had gripped Nikahywot and Misha was but an echo of that practiced in her own land.

Even in her own family, it was slavery that insisted that some family members were favored while others were born to serve. Some were blessed to be masters, chewa, while others were cursed to be slaves, barya. It was ancient slavery and deeply rooted. Afework worried that the slavery within her family displeased Egzi' abher Ab, G.o.d, the Father of all. They had failed to free Misha and her family, and now there was a family debt they owed. Now Nikahywot had been stolen and bound in slavery, or worse.

"Forgive us, Egzi' abher Ab," Afework whispered.

In the time it took him to find her, Kelile's hair turned gray. He took Afework and Ribka back home to the family farm. They would wait there for Nikahywot and her cousin Misha to return. But years pa.s.sed and there was no word of their beautiful daughters.

Over time, Kelile lost all taste for farming and raising livestock. There was no one to help him-Josef, Nikahywot's husband, and Misha's husband had perished the night of the raid, the night before Misha and Nikahywot were stolen.

The land was raped of the young-the childbearers, those who carried truth and hope forward-and it suffered. The sky was brokenhearted and ran out of tears to cry so that each year the land grew more parched and cracked.

Before Afework's eyes Kelile seemed to shrivel like a gourd abandoned to the sun, drying up like the land that grieved for the stolen lives. Ribka cried every night.

They sold the farm and all their possessions and used the money to travel to slave markets they learned of, like Zanzibar. They hoped to find Nikahywot and Misha, to ransom them, to purchase them back. But the two were nowhere to be found.

With the little they had left, what was left of the family had moved to Aksum. There were many mothers and fathers there also weeping for stolen children.

Now Ribka had become one of the shrouded women, living in a cave, swallowed in the ashen cowl of her grief. Each day she walked to stand outside the cathedral. She sang sorrowful psalms and offered prayers. Kelile found work sweeping the cathedral steps and doing other odd jobs. Afework spent her days in prayer and song, rehearsing the holy stories she had learned from her mother, reciting them aloud as though, far away, she hoped that Nikahywot would hear and remember.

Afework prayed day and night. The sun still shone in the sky over the highlands of Ethiopia like a gold coin against a curtain of blue silk with yellow and red ribbons. Birds like jewels still flew overhead. The water still roared off the edge of the Tis Isat Falls, but all that Afework could see was scorched brown gra.s.s. On her knees, her head bowed, she prayed that Egzi' abher would help her eyes and ears to remember that she was still in ghe net, paradise. She prayed to Iyyesus Krestos to help her to love and not hate-to remember that even those who stole and ruined so many lives were still Abraham's children, and that it was only the greedy ones who used the name of Mohammed to cloak their theft.

Afework turned on her knees to face the Cathedral of Maryam of Zion. Beneath the sun, and at night the moon and stars, she prayed that G.o.d would stir a strong wind that would blow her child back home. "Blow Nikahywot and Misha home." She prayed that the strong wind would destroy the chains and set all the captives free. She prayed that it would blow the dust of ignorance from the eyes of the captors. She prayed each day, but only soft winds and gentle storms arose.

Cross Keys Area, Southampton County, Virginia.

1856.

NATHANIEL FRANCIS USED the money he was paid to start over. Taking advice he got from slave traders, he now shackled the boys and men in the barn at night. There was no need to chain the women and girls; they would never leave the men, never leave their families. He was finally able to sleep comfortably at night.

Twenty-five years ago he had lost his brother, Salathiel, and his sister, Sallie, to the brutal insurrectionists. A quarter century past, as a young man of twenty-four, Nathaniel Francis had gotten his revenge. He looked back at his home-it had grown at least three sizes. With more money, money from the slave trials-Sam, Hark, Dred, Tom, Davy, Moses, Nat Turner-he was now a respected man, one of the elders of Southampton.

His wife, sweet Lavinia, had returned from her father's home in Northampton County in North Carolina and bore him many children.

In 1838 Nathaniel Francis became senior trustee at Turner's Meeting Place. He had the deed reviewed and the property surveyed: He believed in doing things in decency and in order. No n.i.g.g.e.r would ever be trustee.

Nathaniel rubbed his hand over the leather belt he still wore. Some had made wallets from Turner's hide. He had even heard of a lamp shade, but Nathaniel's trophy was a belt. It was a fine belt, a fine, fine belt.

He rarely saw his friend Levi Waller now, only occasionally, staggering drunk down the road. Thomas Gray had drunk away the money he earned from sales of The Confessions. He had lost his wife and, because of his inability to provide for her, his daughter was taken away. Gray no longer practiced law. Nathaniel Francis had seen him last crying and wallowing in the mud, begging for alms. Gray needed to pick his friends better. It was his just reward.

Trezvant no longer held public office. But Nathaniel Francis had done right well.

In all, Nathaniel Francis earned almost three thousand dollars for the lives of eight slaves, more than any other slave owner. He was not paid for Wicked Charlotte because he shot her. Nor was he paid for Will; the boy's body was never recovered.

Nathaniel Francis compulsively fingered his leather belt. Long ago, in 1831, he had dyed it dark brown. A fine belt indeed. He took it off only at night or to show his grandchildren when he told them the story of Nat Turner.

Nathaniel Francis wasn't afraid anymore. He had enough money that the lights in his home were always on.

Jerusalem, Southampton County, Virginia.

1856.

WILLIAM PARKER'S HAIR had grayed prematurely.

The Cross Keys bunch. Rowdies from the area just outside Jerusalem. Troublemakers. William Parker did not want to be one of them.

He had a recurring dream about a man he had seen when he was a boy, in a slave pen in the nation's capital. The man was dressed and s.h.i.+ned like a new wagon waiting for a buyer. But there was something in the man's eyes-something sad, something broken, something angry. William Parker drew closer to his father's side, squeezed his hand.

When he awakened he could not remember if he saw the man's eyes in his dream, or if he had awakened during the night and seen the man's eyes staring at him in the darkness.

He did not make the system, William Parker had told himself for years. He did not make himself white. He could just as easily have been born black. He was one man; he could not change the world. He tried to do good in the spot that was his. He was as much a victim of fate as anyone, he told himself. He had no choice but to live out the life he had inherited.

William Parker had to live the life that had been given to him. He did not want to be one of them, but he was only one man.

Since the slave trials, William Parker hardly ever slept through the night. When he did sleep, he dreamed and saw their faces. There were so many innocent men hanged, and he felt powerless to do anything about it. So many women and children killed and so many families tortured.

Everything was in shambles. The little that still remained was crumbling around him. He dreamed over and over again that there was a decomposing corpse in his cellar and he did not have the courage to bring it out. William Parker had been praying since Nat Turner's hanging about what he should do. He prayed that G.o.d would make it all go away.

He remembered visiting Nat Turner at the jailhouse. He could still see the man's battered face. Nat Turner looked up at him from the bench where he sat chained. William had cleared his throat. "I'm sure that they are not going to allow me to put forth the evidence that you are a free man." It was impossible being the Negro's defense attorney. "In some ways it would only make matters worse. They are angry that you ... They are angry at who you are and they do not want their beliefs challenged. I don't think there's much I can do." William Parker realized after he spoke the words that he had come seeking absolution.

"You owe me nothing," Nat Turner said. "What you do in the courtroom tomorrow, do for G.o.d."

William Parker had expected the next day's trial to be open-and-shut. Levi Waller would testify, some version of what Waller purported to be the truth. He had already testified six times and each time altered his story. But Waller's testimony was good enough; Nat Turner would hang.

Then on November 5, 1831, things in the courtroom had taken a turn. Maybe Waller was overconfident, or maybe he had taken a cup too much of the fruits of his still. Perhaps it was the hand of providence.

Waller stumbled during his testimony, the perjury so great the whole courtroom had gone silent. And against his better judgment, William Parker had pressed Levi Waller further.

"My question is this. Where were you, Mr. Waller? You testified you were in your home, and then you were hidden in the weeds. Now, today, you tell us you were hidden in the swamp. Is there a swamp close to your house? Where were you, Mr. Waller?" William Parker plunged in the blade. "You mentioned some other place I've never heard you mention before. Where was it you said you were?"

Waller hung his head. "My still."

"That just seems peculiar to me. Insurgents are coming, your family is threatened, and you have them loading guns. Your wife and children must be out of their minds with fear. They must have been terrified." William Parker withdrew the b.l.o.o.d.y blade and plunged it in again. "Where were you, Mr. Waller? And please say it loud enough that all the people can hear. Where were you after you learned the insurgents were coming?"

William Parker heard his own heart pounding. "Tell us the truth, Mr. Waller. You didn't see anyone, did you? You have no idea who was or wasn't there. The British? Nat Turner? Sam? Daniel? When your family was insane with fear, when your family was killed, where were you, Mr. Waller?"

Waller whispered his confession. "My still."

That was twenty-five years ago. Nat Turner had hanged. But the lies, the truth, still nagged at William Parker. A few had lied; many had hanged.

There was no doubt that Levi Waller lied. So had Mary Barrow, John Clarke Turner, Jacob Williams, and Nathaniel Francis-the whole Cross Keys bunch. But they were not forced to take their own medicine-there was no rack for them, no beatings, no burnings, no torture to make them confess.

Would there ever be a way to make it right?.

Nat Turner/Negasi.

Chapter 1.

Cross Keys Area, outside Jerusalem, Virginia.

Christmas 1830.

Nat Turner felt in his pocket to be certain the gunpowder mixture was still dry. He knew exactly the time and place he would use it. He had been planning for months. He was on his way to meet the others.

It had been a cruel winter. Snow in Virginia was most often one or two fingers deep or none at all, but this winter it had been heavy and so cold that the top of it was frozen. When he stepped, for an instant he stood above it. Then, shoeless, he was calf-deep again in the icy powder. At first cold pain shot up his knee and through his body with each step he took. Soon his feet were frozen and he numbly made his way past isolated farms and houses where he smelled the aroma of meat roasting outside. But he could not breathe deeply; the frozen air stung his lips, the membranes of his nose, ached his teeth.

The snow had snapped the brittle backs of withered corn plants. It covered the roads like a thick blanket so he barely recognized the fences and places he knew. The trees were his guide.

The trees were in the beginning and they had witnessed it all. They had seen husbands and sons dragged from their homes, castrated men dripping from their branches. They had seen women torn from the breast of their families and raped underneath the moon and stars. They had seen them beaten, burned, starved, and mutilated. The trees had witnessed it all. Their arms had borne the weight of the tortured.

He followed the trees, each one a signpost and a threat. Past sleeping apple trees-their feet and hair covered by the snow blanket-he ducked under leafless boughs and touched aged trunks covered with bark, rough even against his numb, bare hands. The trees were black and crooked against the snow's stark white. In warmer times, their hands and arms gave fruit and all the while told stories of death, strange fruit dangling from their limbs.

If the trees held the land's memories, then his mother held his. "You are a man of two continents," she had told him. "Your father is a man of America. They are the people of justice. An eye for an eye. At least that is what they say. But I am African. Ethiopians are children of mercy. It does not yet appear which will be strongest in you."

Ethiopian memories were rich, ancient, and deep. The images went back, his mother told him, before the ferengi, the foreigners, began to count time.

His mother told him that her mother's mother had told her that the Ethiopian highlands were waves, disobedient waves that had come cras.h.i.+ng too far inland from the sea. The wayward waves had been abandoned by the others who returned to their watery home. Those left behind dried out and hardened, blanketed by green gra.s.s. But if you looked closely, you could see that the mountains were really only waves who'd gone too far and lost their way, his mother said. Heathen strangers.

Most of what he knew about life his mother had taught him. He had a grandmother who had helped raise him, but she was not really his grandmother. She was the old woman who tended all the slave children too old to nurse but too young to work, while their parents slaved in the fields or kitchens. But it was his mother who had taught him most about life, teaching him to honor his elders.

"They carry the wisdom and history of a people," she told him. "In Ethiopia they teach us the elders have learned to live a long time, and if we honor them they will teach us the way."

Ethiopia was a great nation-armies with twelve hundred chariots, threescore thousand hors.e.m.e.n, with a host of a thousand thousand-and at her name other nations quaked.

He was born of a nation of great warriors; the world's first warriors-men who possessed the bravery of lions. Birthed from a nation of warriors who were also holy men, leaders at the world's great councils of holy men. She told him of the warrior priests and saints, like St. Moses of Ethiopia.

From the beginning, she told him, Ethiopia had G.o.d's favor. They were not rich in currency, but they were wealthy in greater things. There were great cities like Lalibela, Gondar, and Aksum. The spirit of G.o.d hovered over Ethiopia, and G.o.d had given Ethiopia's people to Maryam, the Mother of G.o.d, as a precious gift. The proof was in the emerald hills and the ruby valleys; the golden lions and leopards dotted with onyx; exotic birds of topaz, amethyst, and sapphire. The proof was in G.o.d's choice of Ethiopia as birthplace of the majestic Nile. G.o.d had crowned her with rainbows like jewels.

She told him the Nile's names-Blue and White-and as a child he had tried to imagine how the water divided into two colors, separated one from another. When he told her, she laughed and told him that in the old language the word for blue was the same as black. The color was not important. What was important was generosity: It was Ethiopia's gift to Egypt, birthed from Ethiopia's Lake Tana. It was the gift that gave Egypt her beautiful flowers.

From the beginning Ethiopia had been part of G.o.d's Great Church. She told him of the paintings, Bibles, and crosses that dated from the earliest centuries. She told him of Masqal-Kebra, the beautiful and merciful Ethiopian saint and wife-a great queen who advised her husband, good King Lalibela, on issues of state, with gentleness and mercy.

She told him the story of Moses and his Ethiopian wife and of the Ethiopian who rescued the prophet Jeremiah. Yes, there were Jews in Ethiopia, she told him. Families, thousands and thousands of them, who had been followers since the time of Solomon, Candace, and Menelik-and there were also others who followed the new religion, Islam. But all were brothers, Abraham's children, she reminded him as her mother had reminded her.

She shared the story of the Ethiopian Jew who, while reading Isaiah, had met the apostle Phillip and carried the good news of Iyyesus Krestos back to Ethiopia. His mother told him of the ancient bond between Egypt and Ethiopia-holy men had traveled the Nile, the Red Sea, and the Sahara for aeons between the great nations.

She shared stories of the great churches of Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Armenia, and India-all sisters to Ethiopia and part of G.o.d's Great Church. She told him about the Ethiopian priests and their families. She told him about the wise men, s.h.i.+magh.e.l.lis, who lived their lives to serve the people-about people whose prayers awoke thunder and storms thousands of miles away.

She told him how St. Frumentius, a fourth-century Greek from Tyre-the Kesate Birhan, the "Revealer of Light," and Abba Salama, "Father of Peace"-brought Ethiopia the sacraments and helped spread the glory. She taught him of castles, palaces, and of Ethiopian cathedrals carved from stone. His mother whispered to him of the Holy Ark of the Covenant. "It rests in the Cathedral of Saint Maryam of Zion in the great city of Aksum," she told him.

The Ethiopian people believed in G.o.d and in miracles, in His mercy and in His love. What kind of person could look at the sun, the moon, the stars, the water, and not believe? she asked him. Only a fool of the worst kind would think himself greater than all the wonder and not believe, she said. G.o.d was a spirit and all mankind-all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues-were made in His image. G.o.d dwelled among His people and He was to them all things: Father and the Many Breasted One.

Nat Turner continued following the trees. Cold shot up his s.h.i.+ns like steel spikes.

His mother told him that G.o.d heard prayers and always answered; He was not bound by s.p.a.ce or time. G.o.d spoke to people now as He had spoken to their forefathers more than a thousand years ago. G.o.d spoke to King David, to the prophets Daniel and Jonah, and they were no different from the people of today. She shared stories of how G.o.d had answered prayers in her family's life and in the lives of others. "If you open your eyes and your heart, you will hear Him. If your heart is honest and humble, you will understand.

"G.o.d always answers, but He does not always say what we desire." Her hope and prayer had been to stay in Ethiopia with her family. She had prayed to never leave. "If G.o.d always speaks what you want to hear, then you only speak to yourself!"

She always frowned then. "I did not want to leave." His mother told him the stories over and over and she always sighed. "I did not want to leave." But other people had prayed and their groans and cries reached G.o.d's ears. "They were captive Africans, like us, taken from their families." G.o.d had heard and sent her in the belly of a s.h.i.+p on a journey, like Jonah, to plead with the captors to free the captives and repent. His mother had been stolen from Ethiopia. She often cried when she told him of the rapes, the humiliation, and bondage, and of Misha and of her baby floating to their graves.

She could not bear to speak of her daughter, the sister he did not know, the little girl she had left behind, could not speak his sister's name. "Sometimes the things we must do for others are more important than our own lives." Her eyes seemed focused on a place far away that he could not see. Then she shrugged and came back to him.

"Egzi' abher needed you born here-he needed me to be the s.h.i.+p that carried you." He was born to be a deliverer, a prophet, a man of mercy. "G.o.d is lover of us all, the oppressed and the oppressor."

She told Nat Turner-the son she called Nathan, secretly calling him Negasi, her prince-that he was a living answer to the captives' prayers. It was a heavy burden for a little boy to bear. But he was born to it.

It was a family debt he owed.