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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]
Vesey then planned to sail with these freed slaves to Haiti, with Vesey having reached out to officials in that country to gain their support. However, the plan fell apart when a slave reported the plot to his owner. [2] Vesey and several co-conspirators were arrested in summer 1822, and five days later, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Eventually, the Vesey plot was leaked by other enslaved people who were coerced into confession. Gullah Jack was arrested for his part in the plot on July 5, 1822, and was tried for his role in the planning, along with 130 others. [3] Ultimately, South Carolina authorities hanged Vesey, Gullah Jack, and 34 other leading conspirators.
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.
The Vesey Plot causes fear among whites in South Carolina, who are convinced that Denmark Vesey and other slaves are planning a violent slave uprising in the Charleston area. The plot is discovered and Vesey and 34 of his presumed followers are seized and hanged. [87]
By 1820, Charleston's population had grown to 23,000, with a black majority. When a massive slave revolt planned by Denmark Vesey, a free black man, was discovered in 1822, such hysteria ensued among white Charlestonians and Carolinians that the activities of free blacks and slaves were severely restricted. Hundreds of blacks, free and slave ...
Vesey's home, listed as 20 Bull Street under the city's former numbering system, is now evidently gone. A nearby home, most likely built in the 1820 and currently numbered 56 Bull Street, was thought in the 1970s to have been the home of Denmark Vesey, and it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 by the Department of Interior.
Like Denmark Vesey, most of South Carolina's free blacks lived in Charleston, where there were opportunities for work and companionship. A free African American subculture developed there. Charlestonian blacks held more than 55 different occupations, including a variety of artisan and craft jobs.