"Go in De Wilderness": Evading the "Eyes of Others" in the Slave Songs (Essay‪)‬

--Unknown author, "Go in the Wilderness" In the late summer of 1831, for weeks after he staged the most notorious slave rebellion in United States history, Nat Turner became a man of the wilderness. After he and nearly 70 other slaves had spent two days massacring white families across the Southampton, Virginia, countryside, his rebellion was quelled and Turner was forced to take refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp area in order to avoid capture (Aptheker, 1993, p. 298). In the final days of his life, the wilderness was integral to his survival, providing a natural retreat and place of camouflage, just as it had for the many slaves before him who escaped the bonds of slavery.