The Confessions of Nat Turner

by William Styron

So because my mother was motherless, Alpheus Turner brought her up out of the cabins and into his own home, where she was reared by a succession of black aunts and grannies who taught her nigger-English and some respectable graces and where, when she grew old enough, she became a scullery maid and then a cook, and a good cook to boot. Her name was Lou-Ann, and she died when I was fifteen, of some kind of tumor. But I am ahead of myself. What matters here is that the same happenstance that caused my mother to be brought up in Alpheus Turner’s house caused me in the course of events to become a house nigger, too. And that may or may not have been a fortunate circumstance, depending upon how you view what came to pass in Jerusalem so many years later.

I have long and do still steadfastly believe that slavery is the great cause of all the chief evils of our land. It is a cancer eating at our bowels, the source of all our misery, individual, political, and economic. It is the greatest curse a supposedly free and enlightened society has been saddled with in modern times, or any other time. I am not, as you may have perceived, the most religious of men, yet I am not without faith and I pray nightly for the miracle, for the divine guidance which will somehow show us the way out of this terrible condition. It is evil to keep these people in bondage, yet they cannot be freed. They must be educated! To free these people without education and with the prejudice that presently exists against them would be a ghastly crime.”

My little inner group of followers were excited about such a plan when first I outlined it to them. Bedeviled, torn apart by hatred, sick unto death of bondage, they would have cast their lot with the most evil ha’nt or phantom of the woods to be shut forever of the white man’s world. They had nothing more to lose. They were passionately eager to set out with me any night, any day. “When?” said their eyes as I told them of my conception. “When, man?” Nelson asked bluntly, and I saw Runaway Sam’s eyes glitter with the wildest agitation as he muttered: “Shit! C’mon, le’s go.” But I was able to calm them all and—counseling infinite cunning, slowness, and patience—quickly put their excited hopes to rest. “I’ve got to receive the last sign,” I explained to them. “They’s plenty time,” I added.

“Well, I got to go, Reverend. I’ll see you tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll put down in my deposition to the court which precedes your confession that the defendant shows no remorse for his acts, and since he feels no guilt his plea will be that of ’not guilty.’ Now, one last time, are you sure you feel no remorse at all? I mean, would you do it again if you had the chance? There’s still time to change your mind. It ain’t goin’ to save your neck but it’ll surer’n hell look better for you in court. Speak up, Reverend.”