Organizing over 50 of his fellow enslaved people, Nat Turner leads an uprising that spans multiple plantations in Virginia, beginning on August 21, 1831. It is "one of the bloodiest and most effective in American history" (DocSouth). Turner will escape to the Dismal Swamp and elude capture for over two months. This is just one of many incidents of enslaved people rising up against the institution of slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War.