Denmark Vesey

Denmark Vesey (originally Telemaque ; * 1767  ? † July 2, 1822 ) was an Afro-American slave and freedom fighter who planned the largest slave revolt in US history . However, he was unable to implement the plan because it was betrayed. The authorities arrested the ringleaders . Denmark Vesey and the other leaders were executed.

Many abolitionists worshiped him as a hero . During the American Civil War , his name was used as the battle cry of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment , which consisted entirely of African Americans.

Early life

In 1781 Vesey was bought by Captain Joseph Vesey from the Danish Caribbean island of St. Thomas . He worked briefly in French Saint-Domingue (now Haiti ) and then came to Charleston , South Carolina , where Joseph Vesey made him a house slave. On November 9, 1799, he won $ 1,500 on a local lottery , bought his way out, and then worked as a carpenter.
Although he was already a Presbytarian , he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church , or AME Church for short , in 1816 . The AME Church was temporarily banned in 1818 and 1820.

The Vesey plot

Inspired by the revolutionary goings-on in Saint-Domingue (now known as the Haitian Revolution ) and angry with the closure of the African Church, Vesey began planning a slave revolution. The revolt was supposed to take place on July 14th, the national holiday of France . Thousands of African Americans in Charleston and the coast of South Carolina were aware of this plan. The conspirators, slaves and free blacks, planned to slay their owners and sail to Haiti to escape retaliation . The plan was betrayed by two slaves who disagreed with Vesey's ideas and charged 131 people with conspiracy . 67 men were sentenced, 35 of whom were hanged. Denmark Vesey was one of those sentenced to death.

One of his sons, Sandy Vesey, was probably brought to Cuba ; his last wife, Susan, later emigrated to Liberia . Another son, Robert, survived and rebuilt the African American Church in the city in 1865.

White hysteria?

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Historian Michael Johnson recently confirmed Richard Wade's 1964 theory that the Vesey plot was nothing more than "bad talk". Johnson claims that Mayor James Hamilton Jr. created the plot to use against Governor Thomas Bennett Jr. , who owned four of the accused slaves. While Hamilton, influenced by military thinking, advocated draconian measures against slaves, Bennett was more of an advocate of patriarchal , almost friendly, slaves.

In 1822, however, nobody doubted the existence of this conspiracy. Although Governor Bennett, unlike Mayor Hamilton, found the size of this plot to be exaggerated, he condemned it with the words "a ferocious, diabolical design" ( a cruel, diabolical plan ). Most experts believe, however, that some African-Americans close to Vesey were still talking about his plan years later. The free black carpenter Thomas Brown should be mentioned here in particular.

Johnson also argues that there is no evidence other than dubious court records to confirm Vesey's plot.

In 2004, the historian and biographer of Hamilton stated that he had not found any documents relating to the alleged plot, other than one stating that James Hamilton believed there was a Vesey plot.