Between June 19 and August 6, 1822, the Charleston, SC, Court of
Magistrates and Freeholders interrogated, tortured, and tried in
closed sessions over 100 African Americans as co-conspirators in a
planned slave rebellion. Almost all were slaves. The court sent 35 of
them to the gallows, two died in custody, and nearly 40 were
transported out of the United States.
The Official Story
The court's Official Report, published later that same year,
identified a local free black, Denmark Vesey, as "the author, and
original instigator of this diabolical plot…to trample on all laws,
human and divine; to riot in blood, outrage, rapine…and conflagration,
and to introduce anarchy and confusion in their most horrid forms."
Since that time, historians...have...largely framed their analysis in
the heroic terms presented earlier by Higginson.
Abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, writing in the Atlantic
Monthly nearly 40 years later, accepted the court's assertions in
terming the Vesey rebellion plot "the most elaborate insurrectionary
project ever formed by American slaves…In boldness of conception and
thoroughness of organization there has been nothing to compare it
with."
Higginson, however, would remember Vesey in a more positive light as
an example of heroic African American agency in attempting to strike a
blow for freedom: "that a conspiracy on so large a scale should have
existed…and yet have been so well managed…shows extraordinary ability
in the leaders, and a talent for concerted action on the part of
slaves generally with which they have hardly been credited."
Since that time, historians have largely accepted the account of the
planned insurrection laid out in the court's Official Report and have
as well largely framed their analysis in the heroic terms presented
earlier by Higginson.
The Report Questioned
In 1964, however, Richard Wade questioned that view and instead
suggested that the Official Report did not represent a document that
historians could trust. He further suggested that "no conspiracy in
fact existed." Scholars at the time rejected Wade's conclusions—he
long stood as a lone dissenting voice concerning the Vesey plot. In
particular, recent works by Douglas R. Egerton, David Robertson, and
Edward R. Pearson disagree with Wade and cast Vesey once again as a
doomed but heroic rebel who attempted to organize a massive rebellion.
Richard Wade questioned that view and instead suggested that the
Official Report did not represent a document that historians could
trust.
Starting in 2001, however, The William and Mary Quarterly published a
review forum centered on those three books. Michael P. Johnson's
review and evidentiary examination raised serious questions about both
the primary source materials those books were based on and the way the
historians interpreted the extant evidence. Almost all scholars have
privileged the "Official Report," that document produced by the court
after the trials and executions, without carefully considering another
very similar set of documents—the manuscript transcripts in the
Records of the General Assembly.
This scholarly debate has also highlighted the ways in which white
Americans could use the public hysteria surrounding slave conspiracy
scares to shore up political power and strengthen slavery. Thus, the
trial records surrounding the Denmark Vesey saga could in fact tell us
as much about slavery's effect on regional political, social, and
cultural development as they do about black American agency.
Johnson's work has also rekindled an older debate about African
American agency and resistance in slave society
Nonetheless, Johnson's work has also rekindled an older debate about
African American agency and resistance in slave society: Does the
relative absence in the U.S. of large-scale coordinated rebellions
against enslavement tell us that American slaves generally failed to
resist, or do we need to rethink our understanding of what heroism and
resistance to slavery might look like?
For Johnson, although the Vesey rebellion was a figment of the white
imagination, the African Americans who pled not guilty and
additionally refused to provide false testimony against other blacks—
including Denmark Vesey himself—represent the truly heroic resisters
of slave society.
Vesey in Textbooks
Textbooks, if they discuss Denmark Vesey at all (only four of 14
textbooks examined included even a mention of Vesey and/or the 1822
plot), usually ignore those debates and instead portray Vesey briefly
as a heroic rebel who met a tragic end.
Typical relevant state standards of learning expect 8th graders to be
able to:
draw conclusions about how sectionalism arose from…circumstances
of racial tension…including the Denmark Vesey Plot" (SC);
Trace the development of slavery and its effect on black Americans…
through historical documents on Denmark Vesey (DC); or
identify the strategies that were tried to both overturn and
preserve [slavery] (CA)
Judged by these student expectations, essential skills, and
performance standards, all of the textbooks under consideration fall
short of those goals as far as Vesey is concerned.
Holt's American Anthem, though consigning Vesey to the evidence
section, acknowledges that there is a scholarly debate about whether
the conspiracy was real or not.
For instance, The American Pageantt says he "led another ill-fated
rebellion in Charleston." Prentice Hall's contribution, although one
of the most detailed, uncritically repeats a series of detailed
assertions about the alleged plot, including that Vesey "was inspired
by the successful slave rebellion" that had taken place in Haiti
decades earlier and that he was "prompted into action" when
authorities shut down his church.
Holt's American Anthem, though consigning Vesey to the evidence
section, acknowledges that there is a scholarly debate about whether
the conspiracy was real or not. It also includes an excerpt from the
narrative section of the "Official Report," the document produced by
the court after the trials and executions. Unfortunately, the text
makes no mention of where the source came from, nor does it present
any additional or conflicting information.
Vesey in the Classroom
The controversy surrounding Denmark Vesey and his planned 1822
rebellion represents an intriguing case study for students in the
classroom as it raises fascinating questions about how historians (and
students) should interpret an incomplete evidentiary record, and about
how to define and understand resistance to slavery and domination, and
creates an opportunity to complicate the students' understanding of
slave and free black life in the slave South.
Ultimately, the question about whether or not Vesey planned a
rebellion may represent a distraction
Ultimately, the question about whether or not Vesey planned a
rebellion may represent a distraction. For students, the true value in
reading excerpts from the Official Report, the original manuscript
court transcripts, or even letters and newspaper reporting from 1822,
may lie in what those documents reveal about daily life in antebellum
Charleston, interactions between whites, blacks, slaves, and free
people of color, and how literacy, reading, and information spread in
a largely non-literate society.
Kirt von Daacke is Associate Professor and Department Chair of History
at Lynchburg College.
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