1945 (ca.), William H. Johnson, Nat Turner -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington)
From the museum label:
Visionary liberator to some, murderous rebel to others, the enslaved preacher Nat Turner (1800-1831), along with six others, went from farm to farm killing entire families of white enslavers in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.
Retribution was immediate. Virginia's militia hunted down Turner's raiders, and white vigilantes indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of enslaved and free African Americans. Newspaper headlines expressed outrage, although some conceded the raiders' cause. The African Sentinel and Journal of Liberty wrote, "Slaves done vastly wrong in the late insurrection .. have .. but their struggle for freedom is the same in principle as the struggle of our fathers in '76." Johnson painted fifty white crosses at the left to stand for the murdered enslavers and their families opposite ninety crosses in shades of brown that represent African Americans who were slaughtered. Turner's sword, musket, and Bible symbolize the violence of the uprising and Turner's moral justification for leading it.
1945 (ca.), William H. Johnson, Nat Turner -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington)
From the museum label:
Visionary liberator to some, murderous rebel to others, the enslaved preacher Nat Turner (1800-1831), along with six others, went from farm to farm killing entire families of white enslavers in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.
Retribution was immediate. Virginia's militia hunted down Turner's raiders, and white vigilantes indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of enslaved and free African Americans. Newspaper headlines expressed outrage, although some conceded the raiders' cause. The African Sentinel and Journal of Liberty wrote, "Slaves done vastly wrong in the late insurrection .. have .. but their struggle for freedom is the same in principle as the struggle of our fathers in '76." Johnson painted fifty white crosses at the left to stand for the murdered enslavers and their families opposite ninety crosses in shades of brown that represent African Americans who were slaughtered. Turner's sword, musket, and Bible symbolize the violence of the uprising and Turner's moral justification for leading it.