Both Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey led important slaves revolts in the early nineteenth century. Vesey led a revolt in Charleston in 1822. Drawing on free blacks, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and enslaved blacks, he attempted to encourage enslaved people to rise up against slaveholders in Charleston and the surrounding area. Nat Turner led a revolt in Southhampton, Virginia. He killed his slave master and rallied enslaved people on neighboring plantations as he marched to the county seat at Jerusalem. He was apprehended and subsequently executed. Both of these revolts heightened southern fears about the enslaved and the capacity for revolt. They also led to the strengthening of slave codes and the bolstering of slave patrols and militias to counter slave revolt.
