Close Reading: How does the author describe the attack in lines 5 - 9? What kinds of words does he use to describe the attack? Does his description seem to match the suggestions made in the title of an “authentic and impartial narrative”? Why or why not?

Analysis: Why do you think he chose to emphasize the number of people who were killed by using capital letters?

Sourcing and Contextualization: Keeping in mind the time period and the perspective of the author, what do you think he might have been influenced by? Do you trust this source? Why or why not?

Text:
Horrid Massacre: In consequence of the alarming increase of the Black population at the South, fears have been long entertained that it might one day witness scenes of violence and death of blacks uprising against whites but, these fears have never been realized even in a small degree, until the fatal morning of the 22nd of August last, when it fell to the lot of the white inhabitants of a thinly settled township of Southampton county (Virginia) to witness a scene horrid in the extreme! -- when FIFTY FIVE innocent persons (mostly women and children) fell victims to the most inhuman barbarity.

The melancholy and bloody event was as sudden and unexpected, as unprecedented for cruelty -- for many months previous an artful black, known by the name of Nat Turner, (a slave of Mr. Edward Travis) who had been taught to read and write, and who hypocritically and the better to enable him to effect his nefarious design, assumed the character of a Preacher, and as such as sometimes permitted to visit and associate himself with many of the Plantation Negroes, for the purpose (as was by him artfully presented) of Christianizing and to teach them the propriety of their remaining faithful and obedient to their masters; but, in reality, to persuade and to prepare them in the most sly and artful manner to become the instruments of their slaughter!