He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey

American Profiles

by Douglas R. Egerton

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.

Genres: History, Biography

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

A specialist in the history of late 18th and early 19th-century America, Douglas Egerton is Professor of History at Le Moyne College.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful history. The author was astute enough to call out the irony of South Carolina's fear of national authority while appealing to Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun (of all people), for a show of federal force...and less than a decade before the Nullification Crisis. Another example of the author's insight: "By characterizing Vesey's soldiers as children and defining them as things, but hanging them as men, the court revealed the irrational nature of Southern slave law."
As far as the debate raised by Michael P. Johnson in "Denmark Vesey and his Co-Conspirators," I admit I only skimmed Johnson's reasoning for why there is no reliable proof of a plot for rebellion. There's no doubt it's a dubious practice to wholly rely on courtroom testimony, but I don't believe that was Egerton's sole method, and I hardly think the pleas of "not guilty" by many of the accused are proof that there was no plot, as Johnson argues. On the other hand, I am quite sure white Charleston used it as an excuse to set an example even as to "innocent" parties.
What a colossally messed up time and place! What is worse: slaves feeling like they had to revolt and murder even "the nits" or white Charleston being so afraid and deluded to invent the conspiracy out of whole cloth and falsely accuse and hang their slaves? I am inclined to believe there was a conspiracy, because I find it hard to believe even cowed, enslaved humans won't rise up in the face of oppression and the systematic rape of their mothers, sisters, and daughters (edit: and fathers, brothers and sons, too).

[Constance Chevalier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched and documented story, down to the last detail. Denmark Vesey was the great grandfather of my partner.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1822, a plot was uncovered in which the African Americans, both slave and free, would rise up and kill their masters and.... That was as much as the white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, needed to hear to begin arrests. What they didn't know at that time, nor care about eventually, was that the plan after that was not to encourage the rest of the slave population in South Carolina or the South in general to rise and do the same, but for the members of the rebellion to capture ships in the harbor and flee to Haiti, a newly liberated black nation.

Denmark Vesey, a freeman who had been originally purchased as a slave in Haiti (which was then still St. Domingue under French rule), was the leader of this group. Under the tutelage of his owner, Denmark learned to read, write, and indeed conduct much of his master's business as a chandler in Charleston. When he won a lottery (yes, really! It can happen!) he bought his freedom, failed to buy that of his family (owned by another master) and put his money into starting a carpentry shop.

All the while, he despised the subservience of all of Charleston's African Americans, slave or free. He exhorted slaves he saw bowing to whites or stepping off sidewalks to refuse to do so and to have some pride in themselves. He was an abolitionist and read any publications that could be smuggled in. And he believed that the Old Testament, especially the story of Exodus, had more to teach the black population of Charleston than did the New. So he began a rebellion.

He was an excellent organizer and planned it out well. It was to occur on Sunday, July 14 (the timing was intentional. He knew very well that was Bastille Day). He formed small groups like guerilla bands, where followers only knew their immediate leaders and never more than that. He had trusted lieutenants that combed the farmlands of the area as well as the city and brought plantation slaves in as well. Never was it mentioned that this was planned as a general slave uprising: the intent was always to go to Haiti.

Unfortunately, as almost always seems to happen, things feel apart. But that it could have been successful, most historians today agree. Vesey's planning was meticulous, his leadership strong.

This is an interesting point of history that I hadn't known about. There isn't much documentation on Vesey; he didn't leave diaries or written plans for the uprising. But from what documentation there is, he was a formidable foe for the whites.

It's fascinating reading, especially as it gives the South Carolinian response to the discovery. New laws were enacted to "tighten the noose" around slaves' necks. Bondsmen were less likely to be able to hire out their free time or live away from their masters during a hired job. All slaves must be in their masters' houses by nightfall. Fines and taxes were added to the burden of finding employment for freemen in an attempt to drive them out of the state. African American churches were closed down and religion in general outlawed for African Americans.

For another view on black history, by all means read this book. We can never get enough information on the other side of the "peculiar institution."

[Greg Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings about this book because there are parts that I enjoy and think are important, but as a whole I think that this is very dangerous not because of the content but because of how this book was written.

For anyone who wants to understand the difference between field slaves and town slaves (there are a lot) in the 1820's in the South this is a good book. Douglas Egerton follows the life of the slave Denmark Vesey as a way to "show-off" Southern society and culture at the time and discusses issues that arose for enslaved and free blacks in Charleston.

But the main part of the book is when Egerton gets to the failed insurrection by Vesey (a plan that involved killing a large portion of white Charleston and sailing on boats to Haiti). This too he describes in great detail from the planning of the revolt to how Vesey and his conspirators were tried and hanged.

Then I read "Denmark Vesey and his Co-Conspirators" by Michael Johnson which appeared in the October 2001 issue of The William and Mary Quarterly. It is necessary that you read this in conjunction with Egerton's book. Johnson attacks the very evidence used by Egerton in his book (mainly trial documents) to claim that there wasn't a revolt at all and that Vesey and many others were killed because White Charleston "thought" there was a slave insurrection. He further argues that historians like Egerton have fabricated this entire plot and rewritten history, hence "co-conspirators."

Personally, I don't agree with Johnson that there was no revolt, but he convinced me that Egerton's evidence isn't adequate to say there was. Egerton did write a response to Johnson which pushed that there was in fact a revolt but doesn't even acknowledge that a lot of his evidence is faulty.

I got the chance to meet and discuss the issue with the author and got little besides a character assassination of Johnson. I cannot deny that his lack in recognizing his mistakes and trying to correct them has made me biased and I like his book a lot less. He sees it as a finished product, I see it as a rough draft that needs to be re-researched. But I think that this is the real issue here. Historians make mistakes, but when we are too prideful our mistakes can become what many see as the truth. I'm not saying that Denmark Vesey's slave revolt never happened, I don't know, but the attitude of historians like Egerton is dangerous because it provides the right conditions for this "rewritten history" to occur.

In Egerton's defense he did make a revised addition at the urging of his publisher (not on his own accord), but the changes are menial, the biggest he said was confirming that one town slave was a mulatto and not completely black, and he wants to later include how Vesey's wife, Beck, ended up in Liberia. To me, this was no effort to revisit any of the old evidence that is inadequate, just adding more fluff.

[Patrice · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was well read and enlightening, but what a sad chapter in our history. Hard to believe it really happened.