Michael Woods on the Denmark Vesey Affair: a Documentary History

Douglas R. Egerton, Robert L. Paquette, eds.. The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017. 982 pp. $150.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8130-6282-2. Reviewed by Michael E. Woods Published on H-SC (August, 2017) Commissioned by David W. Dangerfield (University of South Carolina - Salkehatchie) Monuments are polestars of public memory. surrection scare, including private correspon‐ In 2014, the installation of a Denmark Vesey stat‐ dence and newspaper articles; the post-trial back‐ ue in Charleston, South Carolina, inspired discus‐ lash, including the passage of repressive legisla‐ sion and disagreement. Vesey, a formerly en‐ tion, the destruction of the AME Church, and the slaved carpenter, was convicted and executed solidification of proslavery political doctrines; (along with thirty-four alleged accomplices) in and the enduring conflict over commemoration. 1822 for plotting with Charleston slaves to rise up The diversity of source material enables readers and escape to Haiti. As the Reverend Joe Darby to situate the Vesey affair in a broad chronologi‐ observed, Vesey is now remembered variously as cal, geographic, and political context. The editors’ a “dangerous terrorist” and a “freedom fghter” notes, which reflect years of painstaking research, (p. 798). The same is true of fgures like Nat Turn‐ are equally insightful and will be especially in‐ er and John Brown. What makes Vesey uniquely valuable for readers who are new to the subject. contentious in academic circles is a second debate Yet this book is not simply a document read‐ over whether his plot existed at all. er; it is an intervention in a ferce historiographi‐ The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary cal controversy over the very existence of a Vesey- History, edited by Douglas R. Egerton and Robert led conspiracy. Egerton and Paquette present L. Paquette, empowers readers to evaluate the ev‐ their thesis clearly in an editorial statement: “the idence for themselves. In some eight hundred ex‐ Vesey plot was one of the most sophisticated acts haustively researched and annotated pages, of collective slave resistance in the history of the Egerton and Paquette present a panoply of docu‐ United States” (p. xv). They also contribute to the ments pertinent to the Vesey conspiracy’s origins, growing scholarship on the political importance unraveling, and aftermath. They cover back‐ of slave resistance by connecting the Vesey affair ground material on Vesey and the histories of to earlier clashes over slavery, such as the conflict slavery, resistance, and African American life in over Missouri statehood (1819-21), and to later Charleston, including the African Methodist Epis‐ milestones on South Carolina’s path to secession. copal Church; the discovery of the plot by Charles‐ “If the course of the South to secession can be en‐ ton’s white elite; multiple accounts of the trials, capsulated by the extension of South Carolina’s including published and unpublished transcripts; proslavery, states’ rights principles to the other diverse eyewitness reports written amid the in‐ slaveholding states,” the editors argue, “then the H-Net Reviews events set in motion by Vesey and his followers investigators. They highlight South Carolina legis‐ played a crucial role in shaping South Carolina’s lators’ outraged response to the governor’s at‐ political principles on the road to disunion” (p. tempts to downplay the dangers of Vesey’s con‐ xiv). spiracy. They demonstrate by example that the Among specialists, the second portion of this Vesey affair cannot be understood through trial thesis will likely be less controversial than the transcripts alone, not least because those texts first. The Vesey plot need not have been real to were redacted to suppress testimony considered nurture the growth of a prickly proslavery politi‐ unsuitable for public consumption. cal creed. The Charleston Mercury’s specious As a compilation of valuable documents, a charge that Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln’s model of meticulous editing, and a contribution to running mate, was a “mulatto” is instructive. an important historiographical controversy, Rather, it is the nature of the plot itself which has Egerton and Paquette’s volume is an impressive provoked scholarly argument. In their explanato‐ scholarly achievement. It will provide specialists ry text and footnotes, Egerton and Paquette con‐ and lay readers alike with the tools they need to tinue a debate that has fickered, and sometimes think critically about Denmark Vesey and his mi‐ blazed, for more than half a century. lieu. Hopefully, the hefty price tag will not limit Richard C. Wade touched off the controversy the book’s influence to those with access to well- in a 1964 article which argued that the alleged heeled libraries, though in an age of lean budgets plot amounted to no more than tough talk by this unfortunately may be unavoidable. We need Charleston blacks or paranoia among Charleston to promote the widest possible conversation whites.[1] This thesis gained little immediate trac‐ about Vesey and to conduct it within the frame‐ tion, but Michael P. Johnson reopened the case in work of reasoned, evidence-driven debate, not a 2001 William and Mary Quarterly article. Chal‐ least because his church was the one targeted in lenging the precision of previous scholarship and Dylan Roof’s terrorist attack a year after the Vesey critiquing historians’ eagerness to believe in the statue was unveiled. emancipatory scheme, Johnson argued that Vesey Notes and other defendants were victims, not instiga‐ [1]. Richard C. Wade, “The Vesey Plot: A Re‐ tors, of a plot--one hatched by Charleston elites consideration,” Journal of Southern History 30, bent on smashing the AME Church and advancing no. 2 (May 1964): 143-161. their own careers.[2] Johnson’s essay sparked a [2]. Michael P. Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and dispute which has smoldered ever since, begin‐ His Co-Conspirators,” William and Mary Quarter‐ ning with a WMQ forum in which Egerton and Pa‐ ly 58, no. 4 (October 2001): 915-976. quette participated with other prominent schol‐ ars.[3] The debate, which hinges on the reading of [3]. The essays, with an introduction by evidence extracted--often through torture--within Robert A. Gross and a response by Michael P. an oppressive regime, has serious implications for Johnson, are found in “Forum: The Making of a the study of history generally and the study of Slave Conspiracy, Part 2,” William and Mary slavery in particular. Quarterly 59, no. 1 (January 2002): 135-202. The Denmark Vesey Affair is an extended re‐ sponse to Johnson’s thesis. In their documents and notes, Egerton and Paquette point out that elite Charlestonians did not doubt the existence of a plot, though some questioned the methods of the 2 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-sc Citation: Michael E. Woods. Review of Egerton, Douglas R.; Paquette, Robert L.; eds. The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History. H-SC, H-Net Reviews. August, 2017. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50438 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.

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