Somen Atwal, Francisco Cisneros, Iven Sisomvang

Mrs. Barnard
Honors US History, P2
1 December 2014
NHD Process Paper
We chose our topic because Nat Turner was a catalyst of future rebellions and how
slaves were treated. He was an interesting character due to his influences and how violent his
rebellion was. Nat Turner has positive and negative impacts giving us a wide variety of
subjects to talk about. He sparked uprisings of slaves and more open minded thinking of
many slaves. Due to the severity of the rebellion which included over 100 dead slaves and 50
dead white southerners, this lead to the locking down of slaves in plantations like that of Nat
Turner's to prevent further rebellions.

Nat Turner was seen a hero and as a martyr to the north, while he was seen as a
dangerous rebel to southerners. We conducted our research by first looking at different
angles and the most obvious was Nat Turner's confession. His confession was recorded by
Thomas R. Gray before he was tried for his crimes. His legacy was put in part by his impact
on the 13th,14th,and 15th amendment, all of which gave slaves more rights. For Nat Turner's
leadership we first looked for his influence and found it was a spiritual influence in which Nat
Turner saw a vision from god. Nat Turner first showed attributes of being a leader when he
was young. Then he later recruited other slaves in his plantation and planned his rebellion.

One of our group members has experience in website design as he has performed it
last year for Honors World History. Another member of ours has interned at a web design firm.
We also saw the opportunity of a website to express the different categories that influenced

nat turner in a creative manner with many possibilities. We included pictures in two forms, the
good and the evil depictions of Nat Turner and overall we created a black and white theme.

The National History Day theme is leadership and legacy, both of which Nat Turner
conveyed a lot of. Nat Turner's leadership left to slaves being more open minded and
rebellious. His legacy left the tightening of control of African Americans due to the disruptive
outcomes by those killed by the rebellion. After they were tried, 100 slaves in part of Nat
Turner's rebellion were killed due to the suspicion of being apart of the rebellion. However, the
more impactful number was the 50 white southerners laid dead. This started an uproar in the
south, but on the other hand northerners saw Nat Turner as a brave soul.
Website link: nhdnatturner.weebly.com