David Walker, Nat Turner, Frederick Essay

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Walker specifically addresses this point when he writes that "God rules the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, having his ears continually open to the cries, tears, and groans of his oppressed people; and being a just and holy Being will at one day appear fully in behalf of the oppressed." Thus, Walker's passage suggests that he knows that slave owners see God in a different way than slaves do, in addition to acknowledging that slaves believe this position to be false. Further, Walker goes on to suggest that the God of the slaves is not only opposite of this God, but is also the God of uprising and the end of slavery.

Unlike the slave owners, who understood the concept of slavery as being ordained by God as a benefit to the slaves, slaves understood the concept as a trial and tribulation through which they would ultimately be lead by God. Just as Walker warns that God will eventually come out on the side of the oppressed because of the injustice of slavery, Nat Turner's description of his revolt has a distinctly Christian flavor. At the beginning of his piece, Turner describes his revolt as a calling by God, saying that he knew in his infancy that he was destined to make a difference for his brothers and sisters in slavery and for God. Further, Turner goes on to suggest that he saw signs, which he interpreted were God compelling him to lead the revolt.

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When the slave owners try to impress their opinion of God as having ordained slavery on him by asking, "Do you not find yourself mistaken now," Turner replies in flowery language that he was not mistaken and was, indeed, doing God's work. Even though Turner's description of his revolt is filled with violence against both the innocent and guilty, he uses God's will to rationalize this action, saying that God called upon him to end the injustice of slavery.

Thus, in a society steeped with religion, God was adopted by each side of the slavery issue. By slave owners, God was the one who ordained slavery and who created blacks to serve whites. Slave owners were actually able to understand the concept of slavery, and most likely engage in its horrors, because they associate it with divinity. On the other side, slaves saw God as their deliverer and rescuer. For some, like Frederick Douglass, God was the one to whom the slaves could cry in pain. Douglass even claimed he received solace when doing this. David Walker, however, said that God would hear those cries of pains and eventually end slavery. Nat Turner used a similar interpretation to rationalize his violent revolt. Thus, both sides of the slavery issue used the concept of God and religion to make sense of the abomination......

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