Another Form of Freedom
THE OVERLOOK
By Tom Clavin
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Next Tuesday celebrates American independence, so this is a good time to offer a tale of a bid for freedom and independence in America. Probably the most famous slave revolt was the one led by Nat Turner in 1831. Few people know of an earlier one planned by a remarkable man named Denmark Vesey in South Carolina.
Some background: By 1708, the majority of the population of that colony was enslaved, reflecting the numerous Africans imported as laborers on the rice and indigo plantations. Exports of these commodity crops, and cotton from the offshore Sea Islands, produced the wealth enjoyed by South Carolina's planters. This elite class controlled the legislature for decades after the American Revolution.
During the Haitian Revolution of slaves from 1791 to 1803, many whites and free people of color fled to Charleston and other port cities and brought their slaves with them. In the city, the new slaves were referred to as "French Negroes.” Their accounts of the revolt and its success spread rapidly among Charleston's slaves. The free people of color occupied a place between the mass of blacks and the minority of whites in Charleston. This coincided with South Carolina reopening its ports to importing slaves from Africa. This was opposed by many South Carolina planters, who feared the disruptive influence of new Africans on their slaves. Still, from 1804 to 1808, Charleston merchants imported some 75,000 slaves, more than the total brought to South Carolina in the 75 years before the American Revolution. Many of the new Africans were held in Charleston and on nearby plantations.
Denmark Vesey was born into slavery about 1767 in St. Thomas, at the time a colony of Denmark. The original name given to him by Captain Joseph Vesey was Telemaque, when he was 14 and had just been purchased by the Bermudian sea captain and slave merchant. By the way, over the years the Vesey family has produced notable Bermudian businessmen and politicians including master mariner Captain Nathaniel Arthur Vesey and his sons, Sir Nathaniel Henry Peniston Vesey and John Ernest Peniston Vesey, and grandson Ernest Winthrop Peniston Vesey. After a time, Vesey sold the youth to a planter in Haiti. When Telemaque was found to suffer strange fits, Captain Vesey took him back and returned his purchase price to the former master. Some historians believe the teenager may have faked the seizures to escape the particularly brutal conditions on his plantation.
Telemaque worked as a personal assistant for Joseph Vesey and as an interpreter in slave trading, a job which required him to travel to various islands, and as a result, he was known to be fluent in French and Spanish as well as English. Following the American Revolution, the captain retired from his nautical career (including slave trading), settling in Charleston. There he married Mary Clodner, a wealthy free East Indian woman, and the couple used Telemaque as a domestic at Mary's plantation just outside Charleston.
In November 1799, Telemaque won $1500 in a city lottery, and at the age of 32, he bought his freedom from Vesey for $600. He took the surname Vesey and the name of Denmark after the nation ruling his birthplace. He 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 doctrine by which children of a slave mother took her status. Vesey 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, he was among founders of a congregation on what was known as the "Bethel circuit" of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It had been organized in Philadelphia two years earlier 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 rules that prohibited black congregations from holding worship services after sunset. 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,” which was illegal.
Even after gaining his freedom, Denmark 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 Missouri and how it should be admitted to the Union. To him, it appeared that slavery itself was under attack. He also developed followers among the mostly enslaved blacks in the independent AME African Church, who represented more than 10 percent of the blacks in the city.
In 1821, Vesey, now in his 50s, and a few slaves began to conspire and plan a revolt. For it to be successful, Vesey had to recruit others and strengthen his army. Because he was a lay preacher, when he had recruited enough followers, he would review plans of the revolt with them at his home during religious classes. Vesey inspired slaves by connecting their potential freedom to the biblical story of the Exodus and God's delivery of the children of Israel from Egyptian slavery.
He planned the insurrection to take place on July 14, 1822. This date was notable as Bastille Day in the French Revolution. News of the plan was said to be spread among thousands of blacks throughout Charleston and for tens of miles through plantations along the Carolina coast. Vesey held numerous secret meetings and eventually gained the support of both slaves and free blacks throughout the city and countryside who were willing to fight for their freedom. By using intimate family ties between those in the countryside and the city, Vesey created an extensive network of supporters.
The plan called for a coordinated attack on the Charleston Meeting Street Arsenal. Once they secured these weapons, the rebels were to commandeer ships from the harbor and sail to Haiti. Vesey and his followers also planned to kill white slaveholders throughout the city, as had been done in Haiti, and liberate their slaves.
Alas, it was not to be. Two of the slaves involved in the plot leaked details before it could be implemented. On receiving word of the possible insurrection, Charleston authorities mobilized quickly and arrested Vesey and many of his supporters. Out of 131 men arrested and charged with conspiracy, 67 were convicted and 35 were hanged, including Vesey, on July 2. The 201st anniversary is this Sunday.
Additionally, as Vesey's rebellion relied on assistance from free black sailors, South Carolina passed legislation known as the Negro Seamen Act. It called for the incarceration of visiting free black sailors in local jails while their vessel remained in Charleston to eliminate contact between free black sailors from outside of South Carolina and black Charlestonians. Despite protests from northern states and British consuls, South Carolina stubbornly insisted on its right to police its population in this way.
The inspiration of Denmark Vesey did not die with him. He was later held up as a hero among abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, before and during the Civil War. Douglass used Vesey's name as a rallying cry in recruiting and inspiring African American troops, including the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Vesey's son, Robert, attended the April 14, 1865, end-of-war ceremony at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. During the event, Henry Ward Beecher discussed the meaning of the war and argued against the evils of slavery as the 33-star American flag was raised over the fort where the Civil War had begun four years earlier.
As it happens, this week saw the opening of the International African American Museum. According to an article in last Sunday’s New York Times, “It’s the first major new museum in the country to bring the whole Afro-Atlantic world, including Africa itself, fully into the picture.” The museum can be found in Charleston.
Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including the recent (and instant!) New York Times bestseller Follow Me to Hell and his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, The Last Hill. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.