Denmark Vesey

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Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) (c. 1767 – July 2, 1822) was a free Black man and community leader in Charleston, South Carolina, who was accused and convicted of planning a major slave revolt in 1822. Although the alleged plot was discovered before it could be realized, its potential scale stoked the fears of the antebellum planter class and led to increased restrictions on both enslaved and free African Americans. Likely born into slavery in St. Thomas, Vesey was enslaved by Captain Joseph Vesey in Bermuda for some time before being brought to Charleston. There, Vesey won a lottery and purchased his freedom around the age of 32. He had a good business and a family but was unable to buy his first wife, Beck, and their children out of slavery. Vesey worked as a carpenter and became active in the Second Presbyterian Church. In 1818, he helped found an independent African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregation in the city, today known as Mother Emanuel. The congregation began with the support...

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