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Overview
On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey was hanged in Charleston, S.C., for his role in planning one of the largest slave uprisings in the United States. During his long, extraordinary life Vesey played many roles—Caribbean field hand, cabin boy, chandler's man, house servant, proud freeman, carpenter, husband, father, church leader, abolitionist, revolutionary. Yet until his execution transformed him into a symbol of liberty, Vesey made it his life's work to avoid the attention of white authorities. Because he preferred to dwell in the hidden alleys of Charleston's slave community, Vesey remains as elusive as he is today celebrated, and his legend is often mistaken for fact.
In this biography of the great rebel leader, Douglas R. Egerton employs a variety of historical sources—church records, court documents, travel accounts, and newspapers from America and Saint Domingue—to recreate the lost world of the mysterious Vesey. The revised and updated edition reflects the most recent scholarship on Vesey, and a new afterword by the author explores the current debate about the existence of the 1822 conspiracy. If Vesey's plot was unique in the annals of slave rebellions in North America, it was because he was unique; his goals, as well as the methods he chose to achieve them, were the product of a hard life's experience.
Synopsis
In this biography of the great rebel leader Denmark Vesey, Douglas R. Egerton employs a variety of historical sources—church records, court documents, travel accounts, and newspapers from America and Saint Domingue—to recreate the lost world of the mysterious Vesey. The revised edition is updated throughout, and includes a new section addressing the recent debate over the conspiracy of 1822.
New York Times Book Review - Ira Berlin
Egerton greatly enriches our understanding of Vesey's strategy and aspirations by placing him and his fellow conspirators in the context of Charleston society, and Charleston society in the context of the larger Atlantic world. An extraordinarily assiduous researcher, Egerton also expands our knowledge of Vesey.
Editorials
Reference and Research Book News
Egerton seeks Vesey in the few records that remain, ranging from newspaper stories to hastily scribbled court transcripts, in uncommon sources from the Carolinas to Haiti. He finds that Vesey was a complicated man whose freed status and eloquence in several languages did not seem to matter, whose frustration with white society, white religion, and white power led him to organize a revolt that consisted of slaves simply walking away from it all. Egerton includes very useful essays on his sources and on Vesey's treatment by historians.Ira Berlin
Egerton greatly enriches our understanding of Vesey's strategy and aspirations by placing him and his fellow conspirators in the context of Charleston society, and Charleston society in the context of the larger Atlantic world. An extraordinarily assiduous researcher, Egerton also expands our knowledge of Vesey.— New York Times Book Review