The fear in whites across eastern North Carolina can be seen in the personal diary of Moses Ashley Curtis. Whites feared that slaves all over the state were secretly plotting to rebel and kill them. The reports about the Nat Turner rebellion and events that transpired after show the increasing fear that was created within North Carolina residents. Dave was eventually shot, because it was rumored that rebel slaves were on their way to set him free (Sadler 1978, 364). Stephen Graham’s Narration of the “Duplin Insurrection”: Additional evidence of the Impact of Nat Turner, reports that slave”, Dave had been forced by whipping to give names by his master. The confessions of the slave had been forced out by torture. He reported that the plan was to attack Wilmington and gather reinforcements there. The paper reported that a slave named Dave, who happened to be a preacher, confessed names of slave ringleaders and targets, such as certain families and the city of Wilmington in the eastern part of the state. The following week both papers reported that the so called insurrections were not true, but that more rebellious plots had been uncovered. The North Carolina Star the same day reported that a rebellion had also occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina and that slaves in Edenton, North Carolina had been arrested for suspicion of plotting a rebellion, which was reported by a free man of color. The Raleigh Register reported falsely that on September 15 th that slaves in both Sampson and Duplin County had risen in rebellion against whites and murdered many. When it come to reporting on such events papers had difficulty determining fact from rumor. Papers began reporting similar insurrections throughout the eastern part of North Carolina. The events that transpired in North Carolina after the reporting of the Nat Turner rebellion can be summed up by Herbert Aptheker, scholar on the Nat Turner slave rebellion, as he writes, “Fear created suspicion, suspicion led to torture, torture to confessions” (Aptheker 2006, 69).
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