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Denmark Vesey

Jesse Michael Page

Denmark Vesey and the mystery surrounding the 1822 slave insurrection in Charleston,

South Carolina have served as the pinnacle example of the resistance movements and methods

African American slaves and freemen used to fight back against their oppressors. This paper will

address why Vesey may have been an easy target for the courts, the evidence surrounding the

case, and what an innocent Vesey would have meant for the abolitionist movement and future

slave insurrections.

To fully understand the failed insurrection and the following trial we must first delve into

Charleston itself and its social, racial, and slave dynamics in 1822. South Carolina had been

founded by the second sons and explorative whites of Barbados, a sugar colony known for its

harsh conditions and near constant slave upheaval. Charleston’s founders were weary of possible

insurrections and rightfully so, the “Stono Rebellion” had taken place not even 100 years earlier

and had left as many as 20 whites and 40 slaves dead. Charleston, like Barbados, had fully

embraced racism as a form of oppression in order to keep the system of chattel slavery intact;

Denmark Vesey set out to upend this.

What was it about Denmark Vesey that lead him to be accused of such an elaborate plot

on Charleston? Archibald Grimke, Charleston native, nephew of the famous Grimke sisters and

product of a relationship between a master and slave, gives his unique perspective on Vesey:

In his underground agitation, Vesey, with an instinct akin to genius, seemed to have

excluded from his preliminary action everything like conscious combination or

organization among his disciples, and to have confined himself strictly to the immediate
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business in hand at that stage of his plot, which was the sowing of seeds of discontent, the

fomenting of hatred among the blacks, bond and free alike, toward the whites. And

steadily with that patience which Lowell calls the "passion of great hearts," he pushed

deeper and deeper into the slave lump the explosive principles of inalienable human

rights. He did not flinch from kindling in the bosoms of the slaves a hostility toward the

masters as burning as that which he felt toward them in his own breast. He had, indeed,

reached such a pitch of race enmity that, as he was often heard to declare, "he would not

like to have a white man in his presence." 1

If the black community had taken notice of Vesey in such a way, then surely the white

community must have caught wind of him as well and viewed him in an even more maniacal

light and perhaps even as a threat, James Hamilton certainly thought of him as such:

Among his colour he was always looked up to with awe and respect. His temper was

impetuous and domineering in the extreme, qualifying him for the despotick rule, of

which he was ambitious. All his passions were ungovernable and savage; and to his

numerous wives and children, he displayed the haughty and capricious cruelty of an

eastern bashaw. 2

With Vesey’s cunningness established we must now look at the evidence against him and

the crimes is which he was accused. The evidence against Vesey should be considered

circumstantial at best and hearsay at worst. How was the verdict received in Charleston? For

Grimke, the guilt of Vesey is accepted as fact and he is praised as a martyr:

1
Archibald H. Grimke, The Martyrs of 1822, (Washington, D.C., The American Negro
Academy, 1901) Pg. 9
2
James Hamilton, Negro Plot, (Boston, MA, Joseph W. Ingraham, 1822) Pg.17
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It is verily no light thing for the Negroes of the United States to have produced such a

man, such a hero and martyr. It is certainly no light heritage, the knowledge that his brave

blood flows in their veins. For history does not record, that any other of its long and

shining line of heroes and martyrs, ever met death, anywhere on this globe, in a holier

cause or a sublimer mood, than did this Spartan-like slave, more than three quarters of a

century ago.3

Guilt cannot be inherent, it must be backed by fact. It must also be kept in mind that in 1822

slaves and freemen were being hanged for much less. Human rights for slaves and freemen were

not guaranteed due to slave codes and therefor a fair trial couldn’t be either. It should be argued

that the conviction of Vesey and only some of his “co-conspirators” may be less important than

the acquittal of almost half of the 131 accused. Charleston courts caught in the hysteria

surrounding the city could not bring it upon their conscience to execute all 131 men without

sufficient evidence, but they had to calm the storm caused by this insurrection figment or not

someone had to hang. Dr. Michael Johnson, Professor of History at John Hopkins University

gives his insight on the matter:

I argue that almost all historians have failed to exercise due caution in reading the

testimony of witnesses recorded by the conspiracy court, thereby becoming unwitting co-

conspirators with the court in the making of the Vesey conspiracy; that the court, for its

own reasons, colluded with a handful of intimidated witnesses to collect testimony about

an insurrection that, in fact, was not about to happen; that Denmark Vesey and the other

men sentenced to hang or to be sold into exile were not guilty of organizing an

3
Grimke, 24
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insurrection; that, rather than revealing a portrait of thwarted insurection, witnesses'

testimony discloses glimpses of ways that reading and rumors transmuted white

orthodoxies into black heresies.4

Finally, it must be stated that Vesey’s role as a martyr did more for the abolitionist cause

than any acquittal of the man could have provided. Even if Vesey was innocent and the

insurrection was a figment of Charleston’s imagination, it cannot be denied that the hysteria

surrounding this incident set in motion the basis of not only future slave insurrections, but future

black power movements as well. Slaves and freemen alike now had a hero to look up to, a

tangible figure in which to emulate. Not to throw complex causality to the wind, but without

Vesey it would no longer be feasible to have the likes of Nat Turner and future generations of so

called “radical” black leaders like Robert F. Williams. The Vesey insurrection not only helped to

lend them credence, but it also helped to solidify the belief that arming oneself and taking action

could be as appropriate and affective a channel as a more peaceful resolution.

Denmark Vesey’s intellect and cunningness by all accounts recorded cannot be denied,

his guilt is still, as ever, up for debate. What cannot be refuted is his impact. His martyr status

was and will always be used as a catalyst for an embattled people looking to reclaim their

inalienable rights as humans. Vesey’s insurrection, though failed, stands at the pinnacle of all

resistance movements. His voice and stature within the black community made him an easy

target for a city and a court looking for a scape goat, but his death only fueled future

insurrections and ensured the success of abolitionism within the United States.

4
Michael P. Johnson, Denmark Vesey and His Co-conspirators, The William and Mary
Quarterly, Vol.58, No.4, (2001), http:// www.jstor.org/stable/2674506, Pg. 915-916
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