Denmark Vesey - WikiHQ

Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) (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. There, Vesey won a lottery and purchased his freedom around the age of 32. He had a good business and a family but was unable to buy his first wife, Beck, and their children out of slavery. Vesey worked as a carpenter and became active in the Second Presbyterian Church. In 1818, he helped found an independent African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation in the city, today known as Mother Emanuel. The congregation began with the support of white clergy and, with over 1,848 members, rapidly became the second-largest AME congregation in the nation.

His insurrection, which was to take place on Bastille Day, 14 July 1822, became known to thousands of Blacks throughout Charleston, South Carolina, and along the Carolina coast. The plot called for Vesey and his group of enslaved people and free blacks to execute their enslavers and temporarily liberate the city of Charleston. Vesey and his followers planned to sail to Haiti to escape retaliation. Two enslaved men opposed to Vesey's scheme leaked the plot. Charleston authorities charged 131 men with conspiracy. In total, 67 men were convicted and 41 hanged, including Denmark Vesey.

Early life

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. The court judged Vesey guilty of conspiring to launch a slave rebellion and executed him by hanging.

The court reported that he was born into slavery about 1767 in St. Thomas, at the time a colony of Denmark. Captain Joseph Vesey renamed him Telemaque; historian Douglas Egerton suggests that Vesey could have been of Coromantee (an Akan-speaking people) origin. Biographer David Robertson also suggests that Telemaque may have been of Mandé origin.

Telemaque was purchased at around the age of 14 by Joseph Vesey, a Bermudian sea captain and slave merchant. Little is known of the life of Joseph Vesey, though the Vesey family is one of some influence in Bermuda, more recently producing notable businessmen and politicians including master mariner Captain Nathaniel Arthur Vesey (1841–1911; MCP for Devonshire Parish), and his sons, Sir Nathaniel Henry Peniston Vesey, CBE (known as Henry Vesey; 1901–1996, MCP for Smith's Parish) and John Ernest Peniston Vesey, CBE (1903–1993), MP for Southampton Parish, and grandson Ernest Winthrop Peniston Vesey (1926–1994). After a time, Vesey sold the youth to a planter in French Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). When the youth was found to suffer epileptic fits, Captain Vesey took him back and returned his purchase price to the former master. Biographer Egerton found no evidence of Denmark Vesey having epilepsy later in life, and he suggests that Denmark may have faked the seizures to escape the particularly brutal conditions on Saint-Domingue.

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. Following the Revolutionary War, the captain retired from his nautical career (including slave trading), settling in Charleston, South Carolina, which had been settled from Bermuda in 1669. In 1796, Captain Vesey wed Mary Clodner, a wealthy "free East Indian woman", and the couple used Telemaque as a domestic at Mary's plantation, The Grove, just outside Charleston on the Ashley River.

Freedom

On November 9, 1799, Telemaque won $1,500 (~$ in ) in a city lottery. At the age of 32, he bought his freedom for $600 () from Vesey. He took the surname Vesey and the given name of 'Denmark' after the nation ruling his birthplace of St. Thomas. Denmark Vesey began working as an independent carpenter and built up his own business. By this time, he had married Beck, an enslaved woman. Their children were born into slavery under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, by which children of an enslaved mother took her status. Vesey worked to gain freedom for his family; he tried to buy his wife and their children, but her master would not sell her. This meant their future children would also be born into slavery.

Along with other slaves, Vesey had belonged to the Second Presbyterian church and chafed against its restrictions on Black members.

In 1818, after becoming a freedman, he was among the founders of a congregation on what was known as the "Bethel circuit" of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church). This had been organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1816 as the first independent Black denomination in the United States.

The AME Church in Charleston was supported by leading white clergy. In 1818, white authorities briefly ordered the church closed for violating slave code rules that prohibited Black congregations from holding worship services after sunset. The church attracted 1,848 members by 1818, making it the second-largest AME church in the nation. City officials always worried about slaves in groups; they closed the church again for a time in 1821, as the City Council warned that its classes were becoming a "school for slaves" (under the slave code, slaves were prohibited from being taught to read). Vesey was reported as a leader in the congregation, drawing from the Bible to inspire hope for freedom.

Background

By 1708, a majority of South Carolinians were enslaved, reflecting the numerous enslaved Africans imported to the state as laborers on the rice and indigo plantations. Exports of these commodity crops and cotton from the offshore Sea Islands produced the wealth South Carolina's planters enjoyed. This elite class controlled the legislature for decades after the American Revolution. The state, the Lowcountry, and the city of Charleston had a majority of the population who were enslaved Africans. By the late 18th century, slaves were increasingly "country born," native to the United States. They were generally considered more tractable than newly enslaved Africans. Connections of kinship and personal relations extended between slaves in the city of Charleston and those on plantations in the Lowcountry, just as those connections existed among the planter class, many of whom had residences (and domestic slaves) in both places. Some of these slaves were sold to the Uplands and other areas, but many of the new Africans were held in Charleston and on nearby Lowcountry plantations.

Planning

Even after gaining his freedom, Vesey continued to identify and socialize with many slaves. He became increasingly set on helping his new friends break from the bonds of slavery. 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.

In his 50s, Vesey was a well-established carpenter with his own business. He reportedly planned the insurrection to take place on Bastille Day, July 14, 1822. This date was notable in association with the French Revolution, whose victors had abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue. News of the plan was said to be spread among thousands of Black people throughout Charleston and for tens of miles through plantations along the Carolina coast. (Both the city and county populations were majority black; Charleston in 1820 had a population of 14,127 Black people and 10,653 white people.) Within the black population was a growing upper class of free people of color or mulattos, some of whom were slave-holders.

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. He was said to have organized thousands of slaves who pledged to participate in his planned insurrection. By using intimate family ties between those in the countryside and the city, Vesey created an extensive network of supporters.

His plan was first to make a coordinated attack on the Charleston Meeting Street Arsenal. Once they secured these weapons, they planned to commandeer ships from the harbor and sail to Haiti, possibly with Haitian help.

Court of Magistrates and Freeholders

As leading suspects were rounded up by the militia ordered by Intendant/Mayor James Hamilton, the Charleston City Council voted to authorize a Court of Magistrates and Freeholders to evaluate suspects and determine crimes. Tensions in the city were high, and many residents had doubts about actions taken during the widespread fears and quick rush to judgment. Soon after the Court began its sessions, in secret and promising secrecy to all witnesses, Supreme Court Justice William Johnson published an article in the local paper recounting an incident of a feared insurrection of 1811. He noted that a slave was mistakenly executed in the case, hoping to suggest caution in the Vesey affair. He was well respected, having been appointed Justice by President Thomas Jefferson in 1804. Still, his article appeared to produce a defensive reaction, with white residents defending the Court and the militancy of city forces.

From June 17, the day after the purported insurrection was to begin, to June 28, the day after the court adjourned, officials arrested 31 suspects and in more significant numbers as the month went on. The Court took secret testimony about suspects in custody and accepted evidence against men not yet charged. 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. The remainder of Vesey's family was also affected by the crisis and Court proceedings. His enslaved son Sandy Vesey was arrested, judged to have been part of the conspiracy, and included among those deported from the country, probably to Cuba. Vesey's third wife, Susan, later emigrated to Liberia, which the American Colonization Society had established as a colony for formerly enslaved Americans and other free Black people. Two other sons, Randolph Vesey and Robert Vesey, both children of Beck, Denmark's first wife, survived past the end of the American Civil War and were emancipated. 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.

White involvement

On October 7, 1822, Judge Elihu Bay convicted four white men for a misdemeanor in inciting slaves to insurrection during the Denmark Vesey slave conspiracy. These four white men were William Allen, John Igneshias, Andrew S. Rhodes, and Jacob Danders. The men were sentenced to varied fines and short jail terms. Historians have found no evidence that any of these men were known abolitionists; they do not seem to have had contact with each other or any of the plotters of the rebellion. William Allen received twelve months in prison and a $1,000 fine, the harshest punishment of the four. When tried in court, Allen admitted to trying to help the slave conspiracy but said that he did so because he was promised a large sum of money for his services. Reports from the judge show that the court believed that Allen was motivated by greed rather than sympathy for the slaves.

The other white conspirators' punishments were far more lenient than Allen's. John Igneshias was sentenced to a $100 fine and three months in prison, as was Jacob Danders. Igneshias was found guilty of inciting slaves to insurrection, but Danders was charged for saying that he "disliked everything in Charleston, but the Negroes and the sailors." Danders had said this publicly after the plot had been revealed; city officials thought his comment suspicious. Danders was found guilty of showing sympathy to the slaves who had been caught ostensibly as part of the conspiracy. The final white defendant, Andrew S. Rhodes, received a sentence of six months and a $500 fine; there was less evidence against him than any of the other whites.

In 1820, the state legislature had already restricted manumissions by requiring that both houses approve any act of manumission (for an individual only). 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. After the Vesey Plot, the legislature further restricted the movement of free Black people and free people of color; if one left the state for any reason, that person could not return. In addition, it required each free black to have documented white "guardians" to vouch for their character.

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. In late 1822, the City petitioned the General Assembly "to establish a competent force to act as a municipal guard for the protection of the City of Charleston and its vicinity." The General Assembly agreed and appropriated funds to erect "suitable buildings for an Arsenal, for the deposit of the arms of the State, and a Guard House, and for the use of the municipal guard" or militia.

The South Carolina State Arsenal, which became known as the Citadel, was completed in 1829, when white fears of insurrection had subsided for a time. Rather than establish the municipal guard authorized in the act, the State and city agreed with the US War Department to garrison the Citadel with soldiers from Fort Moultrie.

Long term effect

In Prelude to Civil War, William W. Freehling provides an encapsulation of the Vesey conspiracy as it was viewed by the white elite of South Carolina, because "The planters' beliefs about the affair, rather than what was objectively true, produced their intransigence in the face of abolitionists." Many Palmetto State planters, in fact, blamed the Vesey plot and other slave conspiracies on northern abolitionists, who, they believed, met slaves at night in the guise of Yankee peddlers to trade alcohol for stolen plantation supplies and indoctrinate them with propaganda about civil rights in drunken sessions. These kinds of beliefs served to further over-sensitize the planters to abolitionist advocacy, even at a time when they were not at all popular in the North or generally influential in the country. This rawness was an important factor in creating the state's obstinate positions in both the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 and the Secession Crisis which led to the Civil War.

Historical debate

The Court published its report in 1822 as An Official Report of the Trials of Sundry Negroes ... This was the first full account, as newspaper coverage had been very restricted during the secret proceedings. In particular, the Court collected all the information available on Vesey in the last two weeks of his life and eight weeks following his hanging. Their Report has been the basis of historians' interpretations of Vesey's life and the rebellion. Since the mid-20th century, most historians have evaluated the conspiracy in terms of black resistance to slavery, with some focusing on the plot, others on the character of Vesey and his senior leaders, and others on the black unity displayed. Despite the threats from whites, few enslaved Black people confessed, and few provided testimony against the leaders or each other. Philip D. Morgan notes that by keeping silent, these slaves resisted the whites and were the true heroes of the crisis.

Johnson found that the two versions of the court manuscript transcripts disagreed and contained material not in the court's official report. He concluded that the report was an attempt by the Court to suggest that formal trials had been held since the proceedings had not followed accepted procedures for trials and due process. Their proceedings had been held secretly, and some defendants could not confront their accusers. After Vesey and the first five conspirators were executed, the Court approved the arrest of another 82 suspects in July, more than twice as many as had been arrested in June. Johnson suggested that, after public criticism, the Court was motivated to prove there was a conspiracy.

Morgan notes that two prominent men indicated concerns about the 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." "a religious more than a normal criminal process."

Wade noted the lack of material evidence: specifically no arms caches were found and no documents related to the rebellion came to light. Johnson's article provoked considerable controversy among historians. The William and Mary Quarterly invited contributions to a "Forum" on the issue, published in January 2002. Egerton noted that the free Black carpenter Thomas Brown and other Black people familiar with Vesey or the Reverend Morris Brown, the leader of the AME Church, continued to speak or write about Vesey's plot in later years, supporting conclusions that it did exist. In 2004, historian Robert Tinkler, a biographer of Mayor Hamilton, reported that he found no evidence to support Johnson's theory that Hamilton conjured the plot for political gain. Hamilton ruthlessly pursued the prosecution, Tinkler concluded, because he "believed there was indeed a Vesey plot." Ford noted that Hamilton presented those aspects of and reasons for the insurrection that enabled him to gain control of slavery, which he had wanted before the crisis.

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. Neither slave was coerced nor imprisoned when he testified. Each volunteered his testimony early in the investigation, and LaRoche risked making statements that the court could have construed as self-incriminating. Spady concluded that a group had been about to launch the "rising" (as they called it) when their plans were revealed. Perhaps it was of a smaller scale than in some accounts, but he believed men were ready to take action.

In 2012, Lacy K. Ford gave the keynote address to the South Carolina Historical Association; his subject was an interpretation of the Vesey Plot. He said, "The balance of the evidence clearly points to the exaggeration of the plot and the misappropriation of its lessons by Hamilton, the Court, and their allies for their own political advantage." Charleston officials had a crisis in which not one white person had been killed or injured. Ford contrasted their actions to the approach of Virginia officials after the 1831 Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion, in which slaves killed tens of whites. Charleston officials said the "brilliant" Vesey led a large, complex, and sophisticated conspiracy; but Virginia officials downplayed Turner's revolt, stressing that he and his few followers acted alone. Ford concludes,

<blockquote>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. The local elite's interpretation of the Vesey scare prepared the state for politics centered on the defense of slavery. The agenda reinforced tendencies toward consensus latent in the Palmetto state's body politic; tendencies easily mobilized for radicalism by perceived threats against slavery.</blockquote>

Legacy and honors

The Denmark Vesey House in Charleston, although almost certainly not the historic home of Vesey, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 by the Department of Interior.
In 1976, the city of Charleston commissioned a portrait of Vesey. It was hung in the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, but was controversial.
From the 1990s, African-American activists in Charleston proposed erecting a memorial to Denmark Vesey to honor his effort to overturn slavery in the city. The proposal was controversial because many white residents did not want to memorialize a man whom they considered a terrorist. Others believed that in addition to acknowledging his leadership, a memorial would also express the slave's struggles for freedom. The Denmark Vesey Monument, representing Vesey as a carpenter and holding a Bible,
During the 2020 NFL season, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins wore a decal on his helmet with Vesey's name.

In popular culture

Literature

The title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1855) is an escaped slave and religious zealot who aids fellow slave refugees and spends most of the novel plotting a slave rebellion. He is a composite of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner.
Martin Delany's serialized novel, Blake; or the Huts of America (1859–61), referred to Vesey and Nat Turner, as well as having a protagonist who plans a large-scale slave insurrection.
Denmark Vesey is the name and basis for a character in Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker, an alternate history series of books set in the United States, which have been published from 1987 to 2014.
Sue Monk Kidd's 2014 novel, The Invention of Wings, includes Denmark Vesey as a character; the slave revolt and its reaction are major plot points. The novel perpetuates the myths that Vesey practiced polygamy and that he was hanged alone from a large tree in Charleston.
Denmark Vesey is spoken about in John Jakes' historical novel Charleston (2002).

Theatre

Dorothy Heyward's drama Set My People Free (1948) refers to Vesey's life.
After Denmark, a play by David Robson, is a 21st-century exploration of the historical Denmark Vesey.

Radio

Vesey's life is retold in the 1948 radio drama "The Denmark Vesey Story", presented by Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham
The same script was retooled for The CBS Radio Workshop, retitled Sweet Cherries in Charleston and with some dialogue changes. Broadcast August 25, 1957, it tells the story of the aborted 1822 rebellion.

Television

Vesey was the subject of the 1982 made-for-television drama A House Divided: Denmark Vesey's Rebellion, in which he was played by actor Yaphet Kotto.
Several PBS documentaries have included material on Denmark Vesey, particularly Africans in America and This Far By Faith.
Vesey was portrayed by Carl Lumbly in the 1991 television film Brother Future. Vesey's planned uprising plays a crucial role in the film's plot.

Music

Vesey was the subject of a 1939 opera named after him by novelist and composer Paul Bowles.
Joe McPhee's composition "Message from Denmark", featured on the 1971 album Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II at WBAI's Free Music Store, refers not to the country, but to Vesey.

References

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography

::Primary sources

Bennett, Thomas Jr. "Circular Letter", dated August 10, 1822, n.p. reprinted in National Intelligencer, August 24, 1822; and in Nile's Weekly Register, September 7, 1822.
Egerton, Douglas R., and Paquette, Robert L., eds. The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History, 2017. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Digital Library on American Slavery
Hamilton, James. An Account of the Late Insurrection Among A Portion of the Blacks of this City. Charleston: A. E. Miller, 1822. Also published as Negro Plot: An Account of the Late Insurrection Among A Portion of the Blacks of Charleston, South Carolina. Joseph Ingraham, Boston, 1822. Available online at Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina.
Kennedy, Lionel; Parker, Thomas. An Official Report of the Trials of Sundry Negroes Charged with an Attempt to Raise an Insurrection in the State of South Carolina, Preceded by an Introduction and Narrative and in an Appendix, a Report of the Trials of Four White Persons, on Indictments for Attempting to incite the Slaves to Insurrection. Prepared and published at the request of the Court. Charleston, 1822. Available online at the Library of Congress, American Memory.

::Secondary sources

Accessed 2017-03-23.
Freehling, William W. “Denmark Vesey's Peculiar Reality,” in Robert Abzug and Stephen Maizlish. New Perspectives in Race and Slavery: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Stampp. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1986.
Johnson, Michael P., Douglas R. Egerton, Edward A. Pearson, David Robertson, Winthrop Jordan, et al. in “Forum: The Making of a Slave Conspiracy, Part 2”, William and Mary Quarterly, LViV, No. 1, (January 2002)
Johnson, Michael P., and James L. Roark. Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South, W.W. Norton & Co. 1984,
Lofton, John. Insurrection in South Carolina: The Turbulent World of Denmark Vesey. Yellow Springs, Ohio: The Antioch Press, 1964. Reissued 1983 as Denmark Vesey's Revolt, Kent State University Press.
Pearson, Edward A. editor. Designs against Charleston: The Trial Record of the Denmark Slave Conspiracy of 1822, University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Paquette, Robert L. "From Rebellion to Revisionism: The Continuing Debate About the Denmark Vesey Affair", Journal of the Historical Society, IV (Fall 2004), 291–334, .
Powers, Bernard E., Jr. Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822–1882, University of Arkansas Press, 1994,
Robertson, David., Denmark Vesey: The Buried History of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It, New York: Knopf, 1999
Rubio, Philip F. "Though He Had a White Face, He Was a Negro in Heart": Examining the White Men Convicted of Supporting the 1822 Denmark Vesey Slave Insurrection Conspiracy", South Carolina Historical Magazine 113, no. 1 (January 2012): 50–67. America: History & Life, EBSCOhost (accessed October 16, 2014),
Rucker, Walter G., The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America, LSU Press, 2006,
Spady, James O'Neil, "Power and Confession: On the Credibility of the Earliest Reports of the Denmark Vesey Slave Conspiracy,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., 68 (April 2011), 287–304.
van Daacke, Kirt. Denmark Vesey. Teachinghistory.org. Accessed June 2, 2011.
"Executions in the U.S. 1608–1987: The Espy File" (by state)