Dehumanized

In the first accounts that came out after the rebellion, Nat Turner became a figure to be reviled as a “monster,” a conclusion often drawn after vivid descriptions of the carnage. Dehumanizing Turner was one way to explain one of the mysteries of the rebellion: why had the rebels spared neither women nor children? Such dehumanized portrayals of Turner were resurrected sporadically in the decades that followed as a way to counter abolitionist championing of him. Turner was not always a monster in these depictions, however; in one instance, he is a sly fox, evading capture.  

	Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August Last		"Dirge" from The Liberator
	"Nat Turner's Massacre" from the Richmond Daily Dispatch		Nat Turner; or the "Old Red" Gone to His Last Earth.
	Old Dominion		"The Southampton Insurrection" from The New York Leger