Denmark Vesey
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Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) (ca. 1767 – July 2, 1822) was a literate, skilled carpenter and leader among African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina. He is notable as the accused and convicted ringleader of "the rising," a major potential slave revolt planned for the city in June 1822; he was executed. Likely born into slavery in St. Thomas, he served a master in Bermuda for some time before being brought to Charleston, where he gained his freedom.
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 became active in the Second Presbyterian Church; in 1818 he was among the founders of an independent AME Church in the city, which had the support of white clergy. It rapidly attracted 1,848 members, making this the second-largest AME congregation in the nation after Mother Bethel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1822 Vesey was alleged to be the ringleader of a planned slave revolt. Vesey and his followers were said to be planning to kill slaveholders in Charleston, liberate the slaves, and sail to the black republic of Haiti for refuge. By some accounts, it would have involved thousands of slaves in the city and others on plantations miles away. City officials had a militia arrest the plot's leaders and many suspected followers in June before the rising could begin. Not one white person was killed or injured.
Vesey and five slaves were among the first group of men rapidly judged guilty by the secret proceedings of a city-appointed Court and condemned to death; they were executed by hanging on July 2, 1822. Vesey was about age 55. In later proceedings, some 30 additional followers were executed. His son was also judged guilty of conspiracy and was deported from the United States, along with many others. The church was destroyed and its minister expelled from the city.
Manuscript transcripts of testimony at the 1822 Court proceedings in Charleston, South Carolina and its Report after the events constitute the chief documentation about Denmark Vesey's life. The Court judged Vesey guilty of conspiracy in a slave rebellion and had him executed by hanging.
The court reported that he was born into slavery about 1767 in St. Thomas, at the time a colony of Denmark. He was called Telemaque; historian Douglas Egerton suggested that Vesey could have been of Coromantee (an Akan-speaking people) origin. Biographer David Robertson suggested that Telemaque may have been of Mande origin, but his evidence has not been generally accepted by historians.
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