Nat Turner By Kyle Baker: The Violence That Created Nat Turner
In Nat Turner, Kyle Baker illustrates how religion is used by the oppressed and their oppressors to justify violent acts and a claim to power. By emphasizing the influential relationship between the African American slaves and the imposed Christian religion, Turner’s actions are characterized as predestined. This relationship is influenced by a growing division within Christianity due to evolving and conflicting societal morals involving slavery and an acceptable practice of Christianity. Despite the minority class he was born into, Turner finds a voice through religious beliefs for himself, which sets him apart from fellow slaves and fuels his violent leadership that takes place during the rebellion.
Nat Turner was born into the era of the Second Great Awakening. This religious movement supported widespread conversion, Christian salvation, steadfast devotion, and was more open to the idea of zealous acts of God occurring. This revival of religion was also used by abolitionist to promote the idea of equality for slaves, on the basis that slavery was sinful. In fear of the underlying ideals of liberation and consequential economic loss, the Southern slave owners pushed to remain in opposition by enforcing their own pro-slavery religious agenda. Arguing that they were being devout Christians by instilling the institutionalization of slavery because God told them to do so. For slaves, this brought upon further oppression and harsh conditions. Baker illustrates the slave owner’s enforcement of certain rules out of fear of losing power in various panels throughout Nat Turner. A man attempts to communicate through drums to other slaves and is caught by slave owners. He is punished by being strung up to a tree by his wrists, whipped, having salt poured into his wounds, his hands are chopped off, and destroying the drums. This scene is particularly graphic and pans out to show horrified slaves presumably being forced to watch this punishment take place and ending with his severed hands laying on the ground. He also includes panels that show slaves singing songs to one another in order to pass a code and another attempting to read. By electing to not omit any of the details behind the cruel and disgusting actions of slave owners, Baker’s graphic portrayals further support that the true continuation for slavery has no positive religious backing and the reality of the violent and dehumanizing conditions that slaves lived in.
This oppressive environment however cannot be sustained by these physical and psychological traumas. Nat Turner’s father escapes the plantation leaving his family behind but with his family’s support. When Turner realizes it’s his father who is attempting to escape, his reaction is to immediately rush outside and tell him to “RUN!”. This is one of the most important and impacting scenes in the entire novel. It is the only time that Baker draws Turner using actual speech bubbles and is effective and conveying an intense but hopeful moment in Turner’s life. Although he already believes that he is destined for some other purpose than the unjust slave life he’s been given, his beliefs are confirmed and called to action because it is his father that is the one to escape. This also explicitly shows that slaves do not need to initially defy their oppressors to be inspired to overthrow them, which is the idea that the slave owners have been trying to suppress. Baker further expresses the continued challenges of authority by using Nat Turner as an example of a slave who is not accepting of his owned life and finds his own way of being defiant. Unlike his family before him, he questions the religious basis for his master’s justification of power and seeks to find answers through his own interpretations.
Nat Turner is the first and only slave within the story to seek religious expression through his own means and exemplifies why an individual like him is characterized as a deliverer. This is further supported in panels where a visiting evangelical leader/preacher is professing to Turner and fellow slaves. Everyone around him is enraptured by his message, except for Turner. He looks surprised or shocked, most likely because Southern Christianity promoted subservience to their masters and other biased messages censored by slave owners. It was likely even more shocking because another African American was promoting these ideologies. In the text included in the panel, Turner states that he “studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer”. His individuality gives him a respected position amongst the other slaves and ultimately is what gives him a powerful enough voice to lead a rebellion.
Despite his devout and secluded lifestyle, the debasing and brutal environment he cannot seem to escape from effects his perception of how to obtain liberation. Having never experienced kindness or basic human decency from his slave owners, his attempt to successfully liberate himself and fellow slaves is rooted in the only thing familiar: violence. Baker continually emphasizes Turner’s reflective Christian beliefs in comparison to the slave owners. Similar to those in power over him, Turner claims that “visions from the Spirit” and his innate “divine interpretation” are what helps justify his plans to overpower his oppressors. Baker also illustrates how early religious ideals influence Turner’s perception his life and is shown being astonished and inspired by the story of the enslavement and salvation of the Hebrew people from the Egyptians. This also gives readers a deliberate evocation of a violent Old Testament period in the Bible that relates personally for Turner and his identified place in society. In particular, the similar positions of Nat Turner/Moses and later Nat Turner’s rebellion/God’s deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from the Egyptians, alludes to how religion helps incite Turner to readily accept blood thirsty retribution as the only satisfactory course of action to gain liberation and freedom.
The Bible describes Moses as a man who was set apart from his fellow enslaved Hebrew kin. Not just because he was raised within the Pharaoh’s household but also because he became a prophet of the Lord. He claimed that God called him to deliver the Hebrew people from their enslavement in Egypt. Although Moses attempts to convince Pharaoh multiple times, he is not successful and he angrily warns the leader against his “hard-heart” actions. It is ultimately widespread murder through a referenced “destroyer” or angel(s) of the Lord that gains them their freedom. In parallel to this biblical narrative, Turner is described as a prophet and continually mentions visions and other interactions with God. Coinciding with his role to Moses as the emancipator of his fellow people, he is also spurred through anger to proclaim retaliation to his enemies through the “Lord’s word”. It is this similarly angry and final declaration that illustrates the anger and misguided basis for their actions. In the panels, Baker causes the reader to focus on the angry faces, a strongly clutched Bible, and the clenched and raised fists of the men Turner has rallied to join him. During the rebellion, Turner also has his own “destroyer” and symbolically angelic army that come to aid them in their rebellion. The most clearly noted is Will, the “executioner”. Turner recounts that it is specifically Will that delivers multiple “death blows” to their victims and is one of men to kill the forgotten baby house.
In reference to the “the Exodus and Passover”, Moses “instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing…and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians”. During the “Passover”, it is stated the Pharaoh’s household will be the first to be “struck by God” affected and the rest of Egypt will also face the same fate. By showing the bloodbath within the first house and continued bloodshed, Baker is reaffirming here that the slaves’ actions were self-proclaimed to be influenced by their Christian beliefs and higher calling but was instigated by the lack of equality and unforgivable mistreatment from the slave owners. It also continues to support the overall concept that both of these groups took advantage of bending religion, a driving prominent force, to their quest for power over another.
The stripping of basic human rights enforced by a physically and psychologically oppressive enslavement had brutal consequences for both the slaves and slave owners during this time. However, the reality that slavery and intentional violence is inhumane and unjustifiable may not have been acknowledged sooner if not for slaves like Nat Turner. Kyle Baker has given a voice to the silenced by providing the opportunity to visual slavery from the perspective of the enslaved. Additionally, he effectively illustrated how African Americans were and are seen as the negation of humankind because of oppression. Graphic novels help generate open discussions about topics that may be otherwise glossed over.
