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Conclusion

When Nat Turner was captured in October, he was questioned in hopes that he would reveal more information on other insurrections. When questioned about plots in North Carolina, Turner denied all involvement, but stated, “I see sir, you doubt my word; but can you not think the same ideas, and strange appearances about this time in the heaven’s might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking” (Aptheker 2006, 146). The events that conspired in North Carolina after the Nat Turner Rebellion were all most all rumors, and the so called confessions were forced out of many slaves. Fear among whites had already begun to be cultivated long before Nat Turner’s Rebellion by events such as the Walker’s Appeal along with changes in North Carolina’s government. The Nat Turner rebellion made many of these fears a reality, and created a brutal response by whites against African Americans. Slaves were many times tortured until they gave false confessions, and numerous slaves were killed without trial. Fear had captured North Carolina whites into treating African Americans as enemies, because they believed slaves would kill them at any moment if given a chance. The North Carolina response was a contradictory message compared to the patriarchal defense of many slaveholders. Slaves were not treated as loving members of the family, but as threats to the safety of the southern white society.