Summary Of Stephen B. Oates's The Fires Of Jubilee

Stephen B. Oates writes about a slave named Nat Turner, who led a rebellion against slavery in the book “The Fires of Jubilee”. Turner was born on October 17, 1800 in Southampton County, Virginia. His mother Nancy was bought by a man named Benjamin Turner in 1795 and was transported to America. Nat’s father was never named, but was married to Nancy.
When Nat got to the age of 4, others began to notice his intelligence level was above most. This attribute about himself immediately earned respect from the other slaves. Nat could even read, which was extremely rare at the time among slaves. Benjamin Turner, his master, noticed Nat’s gift of intelligence and always made remarks of how Nat could do much better things with his life other than being a slave. Two life changing events were soon to happen. First, Nat’s father escaped the plantation and left his family behind. Second, his master died. Benjamin Turner’s oldest son named Samuel Turner took Nat and became his new owner. Samuel worked the slaves

Nat met a group of his good friends in the backwoods that morning. He and his friends all had one thing in common; they hated whites. Nat was sure that once he started the rebellion, others would join his army as he took over more and more whites. Nat and his friends started taking over houses. Before going into each house, he would go into the slave quarters and add more to his army. After a while, his army got so big that he split them up to kill more whites. Some slaves didn’t want to join Nat’s rebellion, and even started fighting against him. Nat’s troops started becoming less and less disciplined and Nat was becoming overcome by fatigue. He tried acquiring more slaves but they went against him. Weeks later, Nat was still being looked for by whites all around for a prize. He was hiding behind a tree and poked his head out to find a shotgun aimed right at