Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) (c. 1767–July 2, 1822) was a free Black man and community leader in Charleston, South Carolina, who was accused and convicted of planning a major slave revolt in 1822.
[1] Although the alleged plot was discovered before it could be realized, its potential scale stoked the fears of the antebellum planter class that led to increased restrictions on both enslaved and free African Americans.
[6] Manuscript transcripts of testimony at the 1822 court proceedings in Charleston, South Carolina, and its report after the events constitute the chief documentation source about Denmark Vesey's life.
[11] Telemaque worked as a personal assistant for Joseph Vesey and served Vesey as an interpreter in slave trading, a job which required him to travel to Bermuda (an archipelago on the same latitude as Charleston, South Carolina, but nearest to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and originally settled as part of colonial Virginia by the Virginia Company) for extended periods; as a result, he was fluent in French and Spanish as well as English.
In 1818, white authorities briefly ordered the church closed for violating slave code rules that prohibited black congregations from holding worship services after sunset.
Planters in Upland areas were developing new plantations based on short-staple cotton and needed many workers, so the state approved the resumption of the Atlantic trade.
In 1819, Vesey became inspired by the congressional debates over the status of the Missouri Territory and how it should be admitted to the United States since slavery appeared to be under attack.
Vesey inspired slaves by connecting their potential freedom to the biblical story of the Exodus, God's delivery of the children of Israel from Egyptian slavery.
Vesey held numerous secret meetings and eventually gained the support of both enslaved and free Black people throughout the city and countryside who were willing to fight for their freedom.
[22] Beginning in May, two slaves opposed to Vesey's scheme, George Wilson and Joe LaRoche, gave the first specific testimony about a coming uprising to Charleston officials, saying a "rising" was planned for July 14.
White militias and groups of armed men patrolled the streets daily for weeks until many suspects were arrested by the end of June, including 55-year-old Denmark Vesey.
Historians acknowledge that some witnesses testified under threat of death or torture, but Robertson believes that their affirming accounts appeared to provide details of a plan for rebellion.
[24] Learning that the proceedings were largely conducted in secret, with defendants often unable to confront their accusers or hear testimony against them, Governor Thomas Bennett, Jr., had concerns about the legality of the Court, as did his brother-in-law Justice Johnson.
It noted in its report covering the second round of court proceedings that three men sentenced to death implicated "scores of others" when they were promised leniency in punishment.
Robert helped rebuild Charleston's African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1865 and also attended the transfer of power when US officials retook control of Fort Sumter.
They were already concerned about the growing abolitionist movement in the North, which spread its message through the mail and via antislavery mariners, both white and black, who came ashore in the city.
He also pushed state lawmakers to strengthen laws against both mariners and free Black people in South Carolina in general and anyone supporting slave rebellions in particular.
Bennett downplayed the danger posed by the alleged crisis and argued that the Court's executions and lack of due process damaged the state's reputation.
But Hamilton captured the public with his 46-page account, which became the "received version" of a narrowly avoided bloodbath and citizens saved by the city's and Court's zeal and actions.
As such, it makes important points about the Vesey Court's agenda, regardless of the larger historical truth of the document's claims about the alleged insurrection and accused insurrectionists.
He accused the Charleston City Council of usurping its authority by setting up the court, which he said violated the law by holding secret proceedings without protection for the defendants.
The court took testimony under "pledges of inviolable secrecy" and "convicted [the accused] and "sentenced [them] to death without their seeing the persons, or hearing the voices of those, who testified to their guilt.
This discouraged slave-holders from freeing the people they enslaved and made it almost impossible for slaves to gain freedom independently, even in cases where an individual or family member could pay a purchase price.
[31] Following the passage of the Seaman's Act, the white minority of Charleston organized the South Carolina Association, which was essentially to take over enforcement in the city of control of enslaved and free Black people.
Rather than establish the municipal guard authorized in the act, the State and city agreed with the US War Department to garrison the Citadel from those soldiers stationed at Fort Moultrie.
Based on his study of the primary documents, he suggested that historians had overinterpreted the evidence gathered at the end of Vesey's life from the testimony of witnesses under tremendous pressure in court.
In addition, he notes that Bertram Wyatt-Brown in his Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (p. 402) said that prosecutions of slave revolts were typically so arbitrary that they should be considered a "communal rite" and "celebration of white solidarity."
In 1822, beleaguered whites in Charleston uniformly believed that Black people had planned a large insurrection; such a scenario represented their worst fears.
[17] In a 2011 article, James O'Neil Spady said that by Johnson's criteria, the statements of witnesses George Wilson and Joe LaRoche should be considered credible and evidence of a developed plot for the rising.
Ford concludes, Enlarging the threat posed by Vesey allowed the Lowcountry white elite to disband the thriving AME church in Charleston and launch a full-fledged, if ultimately unsuccessful, counter-attack against the insurgency.