In the following months he collected a small band of followers, and in
August they went into action. Unlike Prosser and Vesey, he began with
only a very small band which lessened his chance of betrayal. As they
moved from farm to farm, slaughtering the white inhabitants, they were
joined by many of the slaves who were freed in the process. However,
word of the massacre spread. At one farm, they were met by armed
resistance. Slaves as well as masters fought fiercely to stop the
attack. Some of Turner's men were killed and wounded, and the planned
drive towards Jerusalem was thrown off stride. This enabled the
militia to arrive and break up the attack. In due time Turner and
several of his followers were captured and executed.
White men in both the South and the North saw little similarity
between these insurrections and the American Revolution. The Turner
massacre was universally depicted as the work of savages and brutes,
not of men. Vigilance was tightened, and new laws controlling the
slaves were passed throughout the South. Both the violence of the
slaves and the verbal abuse of the abolitionists only served to
strengthen the South in its defense of the peculiar institution.
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