How House Slaves Betrayed Their Own

June 19, 2023

in Black Media

Reading Time: 3 mins read

Black America Net Featured Video

A Denmark Vesey monument is seen in Hampton Park in Charleston, South Carolina on June 23, 2015. | Supply: The Washington Submit / Getty

UPDATED: 11:30 a.m., ET, June 16, 2023

The North American Slave Revolts are sometimes centered on probably the most well-known insurrection of African captives rising towards their captors: The Nat Turner-led revolt of 1831.

However the Denmark Vesey conspiracy, nonetheless, can be notable if for nothing else than the sheer variety of slaves concerned and the way a easy, cowardly confession from fearful members of the revolution foiled Vesey’s epic plot. On June 16, 1822 — 201 years in the past at this time — 1000’s of African slaves had been betrayed by their very own after the plot was revealed, leading to dozens of executions.

MORE: Slave Uprisings Had been Respectable Insurrections, Not like Jan. 6 Capitol Riots

Denmark Vesey was born a slave within the Caribbean and labored within the nation of Haiti (then often known as French Saint-Domingue). He finally moved to the town of Charleston in South Carolina as a youth. Profitable a big sum of money, Vesey would purchase his freedom and start working within the commerce of carpentry. He would assist to create a department of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, however his constructing was shuttered by white authorities.

Angered by the closing of his church and discovering inspiration within the 1791 Haitian Revolution, Vesey would start planting seeds to start out the same revolution among the many slaves in Charleston. Planning the rebellion to happen throughout Bastille Day (or French Nationwide Day) on July 14, 1822, Vesey hoped to liberate slaves and slay slave house owners. Each freed slaves and people beneath possession had been recruited for the duty, numbering into the 1000’s.

Sadly, the Vesey-led rebellion wouldn’t happen on account of a treasonous act from inside his camp.

Watch a video about Vesey’s revolt beneath.

Two slaves who stood in opposition to Vesey’s plans leaked the plot to their masters, leading to Vesey, 130 Black folks and 4 white folks being charged by Charleston authorities. Of the convicted, 37 of these concerned within the revolt plans had been hanged, together with Denmark Vesey.

Students of the Vesey Conspiracy allege that the plot, whereas presumably an actual factor, was not the broadly unfold revolution it was presupposed to be.

Though Charleston was not Vesey’s dwelling, with data implying that he was of Ghanaian descent, the Denmark Vesey home was made a Nationwide Historic Landmark in 1976.

That is America.