Talk:Nat Turner's slave rebellion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points are appropriately cited. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no

Feel free to redirect this page to Nat Turner if that's a better choice. I think it's worth starting anew considering that the Nat Turner article seems to be heavy copyvio though.

[edit] 200+ Black Casualities?

Turner and 18 others were hung for conspiracy where does the rest come from revenge killings?--Bushido Brown 05:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Victims?

It is interesting that a separate page has been created to honor the "victims" by naming all of them, after emphasizing how cruel Nat Turner was. Interesting only because these "victims" were part of the heinous institution of slavery that regarded blacks as animals to be discarded. Perhaps...just perhaps Nat Turner got tired of being treated like an animal. Perhaps children were killed also because, more than likely, they were going to grow up to inherit the institution of slavery, and its capital (slaves), from their parents. Part of truly understanding history is being able to put actions into context. And slaves living in the 1700s were not ruthless killers who slaughtered innocent white victims. If there were victims, they were the slaves themselves. You can't regard human beings as "property" and not expect backlash. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.210.113.50 (talk) 07:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

I agree. This is a military article. It might be easiest to rename it "causalities" as this is the usual word used for people killed in wars. futurebird 08:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

"Near victims" I wonder how this is al all significant? futurebird 08:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Slavery, although horrific and inhuman, is not murder. Hacking women and children to pieces is worse than being forced to labor and whipped for disobedience. They are both terribly wrong but since murder is worse the victims are recognized as such. And by the way, the "war" Nat Turner started was not simply a fight for freedom, since some free blacks participated in it. It was a war of extermination. There was no plan of "escape" so to speak, but a deliberate seeking out and slaughtering of white people.72.192.16.31 21:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I added a POV tag to this section. The language used to describe the deaths of the white victims — especially when contrasted with the language used to describe the deaths of the Black victims — inserts a very clear point of view.

I also think it's ridiculous that more space is taken by the names and identification of the white victims and non-victims than the article spends describing the slave rebellion itself. Again, I think this inserts a point of view.

If a roster of the white victims must stay — and I object to it — it should be (a) limited to their names, (b) shown in two or three columns, (c) omit the non-victims, and (d) (maybe) appear in smaller type. There is no reason why an article about a slave rebellion should be overtaken by a selective list of its victims. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 01:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The list of victims (yes, that's what they are) is part of an historical account which is relevant to the article. This is what happened to people who were white. NOT people who were merely slave-owners. If they had tried to stop the slaves from escaping, the killing would have been justified. No. They hunted down people, particularly women and children, and hacked them to pieces or shot them. POV? Not at all.72.192.16.31 05:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not questioning the fact that there were white victims. I'm saying that an article that has 4 times more information about the white victims of the Turner Rebellion than it does about the Rebellion itself is pushing a POV:

“

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

”

(The quote is from WP:Undue weight, a section of WP:NPOV.) If you think the proportion is right, I'd like to hear why. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 07:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties -- proposed language

I'd like to propose the following language for the section on casualties. It's not perfect, but I think it fairly describes the brutality with which the white victims of the Rebellion were killed, and at the same time avoids the POV balance problem I described above.

According to the book "The Fires of Jubilee" by Stephen Oates, Nat Turner had ordered his followers to "kill all the white people", including women and children. Because their lives were considered of little or no value, no record exists of the number and names of Turner's followers who lost their lives.

Fifty-seven white men, women and children were killed during Nat Turner's Rebellion; most were hacked to death with axes, stabbed, or bludgeoned. The largest number of casualties were children. In one instance, Turner and his insurgents stopped at an elementary school, where they killed the teacher, decapitated ten of the children, and stacked the headless corpses in the front yard of the school.

Nat Turner's Rebellion resulted in a vicious response by Southern plantation owners. Eager to show that actions such as Turner's would not be tolerated, plantation owners throughout the south executed vigilante justice with terrorist-fervor, killing slaves and other persons of African descent (many of whom had no connection with the rebellion).

I hope we can word-smith this language to reach some sort of consensus. I'd like to know what other editors think. Thanks! — Malik Shabazz | Talk 20:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)