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'Denmark Vesey' (originally 'Telemaque', 1767? — July 2, 1822) was an African American slave, and later a freeman, who planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States had word of the plans not been leaked. Charleston, South Carolina authorities arrested the plot's leaders before the uprising could begin, and Vesey and others were tried and executed.
Eventually, many antislavery activists came to regard Vesey as a hero. During the American Civil War, abolitionist Frederick Douglass used Vesey's name as a battle cry to rally African American regiments, especially the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Contents

Early life

The Vesey conspiracy

White hysteria?

In art

Notes

References

Early life

In 1781, Vesey was purchased by Captain Joseph Vesey from the then Danish Caribbean island of St. Thomas. He labored briefly in French Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), and then settled in Charleston, South Carolina as a youth, where Joseph Vesey kept him as a domestic slave. On November 9, 1799, he won $1500 in a city lottery; he bought his own freedom and worked as a carpenter. Although previously a Presbyterian, he co-founded a branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816, which was temporarily shut down by white authorities in 1818 and again in 1820.

The Vesey conspiracy

Inspired by the revolutionary spirit and actions of slaves in Saint-Domingue (known today as the 1791 Haitian Revolution), and furious at the closing of the African Church, Vesey began to plan a slave rebellion. His insurrection, which was to take place on Bastille Day, July 14, 1822, became known to thousands of blacks throughout Charleston and along the Carolina coast. The plot called for Vesey and his group of slaves and free blacks to slay their masters and temporarily seize the city of Charleston. Shortly after the rebellion was to take place, Vesey and his followers planned to sail to Haiti to escape retaliation. The plot was leaked by two slaves opposed to Vesey's scheme, and 131 people were charged with conspiracy by Charleston authorities. In total, 67 men were convicted and 35 hanged, including Denmark Vesey.
One of his sons, Sandy Vesey, was transported, probably to Cuba, and his last wife, Susan, later emigrated to Liberia. Another son, Robert Vesey, survived to rebuild the city's AME Church in 1865.
In response to white fears, a municipal guard of 150 men was established in Charleston in 1822. Half the men were stationed in an arsenal called the Citadel. In 1842, the South Carolina legislature replaced the expensive guardsmen with cheaper cadets, and the arsenal was turned over to the newly-established South Carolina Military Academy, which later became known as The Citadel.^[1][2]

White hysteria?

Recent scholarship by the historian Michael Johnson gave a new twist to historian Richard Wade's 1964 theory that the Vesey Conspiracy was nothing more than "angry talk". According to Johnson, Mayor James Hamilton Jr. created a false conspiracy to use as a "political wedge issue" against Governor Thomas Bennett Jr., who owned four of the accused slaves. Somewhat in reaction to the Missouri Compromise, which allowed the federal government to restrict slavery in the west, Hamilton supported a militant approach to protecting slavery that called for draconian measures, while the governor clung to a paternalistic, almost benign view. But no Carolinian, white or black, doubted the existence of a conspiracy in 1822.^[3] Governor Bennett, while believing that the plot was not as widespread as Hamilton thought, nonetheless called Vesey's plan "a ferocious, diabolical design".
Johnson also asserts that alongside questionable court records, no other material evidence exists of Vesey's plans to lead the revolt. However, most specialists observe that a number of blacks familiar with Vesey or the Reverend Morris Brown, especially free black carpenter Thomas Brown, spoke about the plot in later years.
In 2004, historian Robert Tinkler, a biographer of Mayor Hamilton, reported that he uncovered no documentation to support any view besides the one that "James Hamilton believed there was indeed a Vesey plot."

In art

Denmark Vesey is also the name and basis for a character created by Orson Scott Card in ''The Tales of Alvin Maker'', a series of books which detail an alternate history of America. The character Denmark emerges in Book Five, ''Heartfire'', in which his slave rebellion comes under threat by mistakes made by Alvin’s brother, Calvin Miller/Maker. Vesey's life was also fictionalized in John Oliver Killens' brief novella, ''Great Gittin' Up Morning'', and he appears in several cameos in John Jakes' ''Charleston''.
There is a reference to Vesey in Martin Delany's 19th-century novel, ''Blake'', as well as in the drama by Dorothy Heyward, ''Set My People Free''. Several PBS documentaries discuss Vesey, particularly ''Africans in America'' and ''This Far By Faith''.
Vesey's name served as the title for a 1939 opera by novelist and composer Paul Bowles.
He also makes an appearance in the 1991 TV movie ''Brother Future'', in which he was played by Carl Lumbly, and in the 1980s made-for-television drama, ''Denmark Vesey's Revolt'', in which he was played by the Cameroon-born actor Yaphet Kotto.

Notes

1. "Denmark Vesey", Knob Knowledge, Daniel Library, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina.
2. "About The Citadel", Office of Public Affairs, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, May 2001.
3. The historian Robert Gross mistakenly asserted in 2001: "Doubts were raised at the time."

References

★ Egerton, Douglas R. ''He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey'', 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. online review

★ Lofton, John. ''Insurrection in South Carolina''. Antioch Press: Yellow Springs, 1964.

★ Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion''. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2006. ISBN 0313332711.

★ Tinkler, Robert. ''James Hamilton of South Carolina''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0807129364.