According to David Robertson, author of Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America’s Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led it, “It would have been the most violent slave revolt on American soil.” Denmark Vesey is said to have planned what could have been the largest insurrection involving enslaved persons in United States history. The magnitude and sophistication of the plan have been hidden or marginalized, however. Denmark Vesey is probably the most controversial of the known anti-enslavement leaders in the United States.

Who was Denmark Vesey?

Denmark Vesey was a wealthy free man who had purchased his freedom by winning a $1,500 lottery ticket. Vesey was a highly skilled and successful carpenter and a Methodist church leader. Vesey lived in the “middle” social position in Charleston as a free person of color and a skilled tradesman. He enjoyed as good a life as he could have as a free Black living in Charleston. Although Vesey was free, he did not relate to or associate with free Blacks and those of the Black elite class. He identified with and gave his life to free those he called “his fellow creatures” still in bondage.

Inspiration for the revolt

Denmark Vesey was inspired by secular philosophical and sacred sources. Both the American Revolution, which freed the colonies from the British, and especially the Haitian Revolution, which freed the enslaved and established the first free Black republic in the world and the second independent nation in the Americas. Most critically and controversial at his trial was Vesey’s radical interpretation of the Old Testament of the Bible relating to bondage, the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and the destruction of those who stood in the way of those seeking freedom and restoration of their humanity.

The possible emotional trigger(s)

What feelings and memories pushed Vesey over the edge to a fatigue with the savagery of enslavement and dehumanization? What made Vesey turn his back on his life to free his fellow creatures?

Did Denmark possibly feel a sense of guilt and shame because of his days as an assistant to Joseph Vesey, the slave trader, when he was only 14 years of age? He was the “pet” , known for his beauty, alertness, and intelligence. He had learned to speak French while being enslaved in Haiti. He was treated differently from those poor souls loaded onto the ship, yet he was still enslaved. He could only watch and hate his involuntary complicity. Did his memories and possible sense of shame encourage him as a free Black man to have closer ties with the enslaved than other free Blacks? Did he also harbor anger at being unable to successfully on occasions to free several family members?

Was it possible that Vesey encountered an inconsolable girl, sobbing because her mother, who had been hired out for three months, was now being sold? Enslaved children in Charleston lived with the fear and perpetual insecurity of being separated from their mothers as their mothers were rented or traded out to other masters. What sense of grief did he feel for the girl and himself as memories of being fourteen years of age and separated from his family when he was sent with 390 others from St. Thomas to Haiti? What were the feelings that came back to him of the trauma of being a child alone in the cruel world of the enslavers?

Perhaps Vesey’s spirit was filled with almost uncontrollable rage as he passed the Workhouse and heard the cries of Black people imprisoned and punished there by flogging, and forced to walk a treadmill until they collapsed from exhaustion.

A final trigger might have been the closure of his church, Emanuel AME church, by the authorities. The congregation was harassed for violating laws relating to Black literacy, large gatherings by Blacks, and in 1818, authorities raided the church, arresting members and sentencing church leaders to fines and lashes.

The plan

The revolt was planned for June 16, 1822. Vesey modeled the revolt after the 1791 revolution of the enslaved in Haiti. The mindset of the Haitian leaders and African cultural traditions were part of Vesey’s plan. The well-organized and strategic plan was to burn Charleston, secure weapons, kill white slaveholders, liberate the enslaved, and sail to Haiti. Over 9,000 enslaved people were recruited.

Conclusion

Denmark’s plan was revealed by two of the enslaved before it could be implemented. He, along with thirty-five others, was convicted, tried, and executed. It was Vesey’s use of Biblical texts as justification for the insurrection and its outcomes that was most controversial and a primary reason for not making Denmark Vesey a freedom-fighting hero for his people. Denmark Vesey used the Bible, the mechanism for brainwashing and controlling the enslaved, as the means to convince recruits of the religious rightness of every aspect of the plan, even the killing of white slaveholders and all whites.

The Charleston in which the enslaved lived was one of brutality, forced labor, cruel separations, limited freedom, social control, and the constant threat of violence. Was Denmark Vessey justified in wanting to free the enslaved from constant emotional trauma and dehumanization? Were his means the only possible way to achieve his goals?

Denmark Vesey’s story is a definite threat to the ideology of white supremacy. His story defies the myths of Black intellectual inferiority, childlike dependency, trifling, and the need for a white savior.

A monument to Denmark Vesey is in Hampton Park, Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully, the story of this fearless freedom fighter will become “told and taught” history.