thirty-one were committed to prison, thirty-five executed, and thirty-
seven banished. Of the six ringleaders, Ned Bennet, Peter Poyas,
Rolla, Batteau, Jesse, and Denmark Vesey, all were slaves, except
Vesey, who had been a slave thirty-eight years, a few man twenty-two
years, having in 1800 purchased his freedom.

On July 12th, two slaves were executed; July 26th, twenty-two; July
30th, four; and August 9th, one.

In 1826, the inhabitants of Newbern, Targorough and Hillsborough
were alarmed by insurrectionary movements among their slaves. The
people of Newbern, being informed that forty slaves were assembled in
a swamp, surrounded it, and killed the whole party!!

In August, 1831, there was an insurrection of slaves in Southampton,
Virginia, headed by a slave, who called himself Gen. Nat. Turner, who
declared to his associates that he was acting under inspired
directions, and that the singular appearance of the sun at that time
was the signal for them to commence the work of destruction; which
resulted in the murder of sixty-four white persons, and more than one
hundred slaves were killed. The excitement extended throughout
Virginia and the Carolinas. "Another such insurrection," says the
Richmond Whig, "will be followed by _putting the whole race to the
sword."_ In the same year, insurrections occurred in Martinique,
Antigua, St. Jago, Caraccas, and Tortola.

In January, 1832, James McDowell, Jr., in reply to a member who
called the Nat. Turner insurrection a "petty affair," thus spoke in
the Virginia House of Delegates:--