Denmark Vesey

Denmark Vesey, previously named Telemaque, was born either in Africa or on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. At age 14 he was purchased by the slave trader Captain Joseph Vesey and transported to the French colony of St. Domingue, where he was sold along with 389 other slaves. After being returned to Captain Vesey, he accompanied him on many trading voyages as part of the crew. In 1783, after the American Revolution, Captain Vesey relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where Denmark continued to serve him for about another 17 years. In 1799, Denmark won $1,500 in the East Bay Street Lottery in Charleston and purchased his freedom for $600. A highly skilled carpenter, he became well known within free black and slave society, and contemporaries said he was frustrated that he could not legally free his wife and children. His antislavery views may have reached a wider audience after enslaved and free black Charlestonians established a branch of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1818, where he served as a class leader. Vesey envisioned a community where all would be free, but planned state legislation in 1820 made legal emancipation nearly impossible, and repeated attacks by municipal authorities on the AME Church convinced him that rebellion was necessary to obtain liberty. With his lieutenants Gullah Jack Pritchard, Peter Poyas, and Monday Gell, he developed a plan for a revolt that may have involved thousands of followers. Originally planned for July 14, 1822, it called for conspirators to seize weapons and set fires around Charleston, then, after reinforcement by rural slaves, help as many people as possible escape to Haiti. After two slaves informed the authorities, the conspirators tried to move the date to June 16, but the plan failed. Arrests and trials followed, and beginning on July 2, 1822, Vesey and 34 compatriots were hanged, the largest number of slave conspiracy related executions in American history. Thirty-seven others were banished, most outside the United States, and four whites were briefly fined and jailed for sympathizing with the conspirators. Authorities then demolished the AME Church, imposed rigorous new laws including the Negro Seaman Acts, required free black men to have white guardians, and barred those who left the state from returning. By the mid-1820s Charleston had fortified itself with an arsenal and barracks, and in 1842 the Military College of South Carolina, now known as The Citadel, was established on that site. Vesey later became an inspiring symbol of freedom for abolitionists including David Walker, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Charleston, South Carolina · United States