Failed uprising
Due to the vast number of slaves who knew about the planned uprising, Vesey feared that word of the plot would get out. Vesey reportedly advanced the date of the insurrection to June 16.[16] Beginning in May, two slaves opposed to Vesey’s scheme, George Wilson and Joe LaRoche, gave the first specific testimony about a coming uprising to the Charleston officials, saying that there was a planned uprising to take place on July 14. George Wilson was a mixed race slave who was deeply loyal to his master. The testimonies of these two men confirmed an earlier report coming from another slave named Peter Prioleau. Though officials didn’t believe the less specific testimony of Prioleau, they did believe Wilson and LaRoche due to their unimpeachable reputation with their masters. These testimonies launched the city’s search for the conspirators in earnest.[2]
Joe LaRoche had originally planned to support the uprising and brought the slave Rolla Bennett to discuss the conspiracy with LaRoche’s close friend, George Wilson. Wilson was faced with a decision to either join the conspiracy that Bennett had just informed him of, or tell his master that there was a plot in the making. Wilson refused to join the conspiracy and urged both of these men to end their involvement in the affair. Wilson convinced LaRoche that they must tell his master to prevent this conspiracy.[2]
The Mayor James Hamilton was told, and he organized a citizens’ militia, putting the city on alert. White militias and groups of armed men patrolled the streets daily for weeks until many suspects were arrested by the end of June, including a 55 year old Denmark Vesey.[2] As suspects were arrested, they were held in the Charleston Workhouse until the newly appointed Court of Magistrates and Freeholders heard evidence against them. The Workhouse was also the place where punishment was applied to slaves for their masters, and likely where Plot suspects were abused or threatened with abuse or death before giving testimony to the Court.[12] The suspects were allowed visits by ministers; Dr. Benjamin Palmer had visited Vesey when he was sentenced to death. Vesey told the minister that he would die for a “glorious cause”.[13]
Court of Magistrates and Freeholders
As leading suspects were rounded up by the militia ordered by Intendant/Mayor James Hamilton, the Charleston City Council voted to authorize a Court of Magistrates and Freeholders to evaluate suspects and determine crimes. While tensions in the city were still at a height, some residents had doubts about the widespread fears and quick rush to judgment. Soon after the Court began its sessions, in secret and promising secrecy to all witnesses, Supreme Court Justice William Johnson published an article in the local paper recounting an incident of a feared insurrection of 1811. He noted that a slave was mistakenly executed in the case, hoping to suggest caution in the Vesey affair. He was well respected, having been appointed as Justice by President Thomas Jefferson in 1804. But his article appeared to produce a defensive reaction, with white residents defending the Court and the militancy of city forces.[17]
From June 17, the day after the purported insurrection was to begin, to June 28, the day after the court adjourned, officials arrested 31 suspects, in greater number as the month went on.[18] The Court took secret testimony about suspects in custody and accepted evidence against men not yet charged. Historians acknowledge that some witnesses testified under threat of death or torture, but Robertson believes that their affirming accounts appeared to detail a plan for rebellion.[13]
Newspapers were nearly silent while the Court conducted its proceedings. While bickering with Johnson, the Court first published its judgment on Denmark Vesey and five black slaves, and announced its sentencing them to death. The six men were executed by hanging on July 2; none of the six had confessed and all proclaimed their innocence to the end. Their deaths quieted some of the city residents’ fears, and the tumult in Charleston about the planned revolt began to die down.[3] Officials made no arrests in the next three days, as if wrapping up their business.[18]
Learning that the proceedings were conducted in secret, with defendants unable to confront their accusers or hear testimony against them, Governor Thomas Bennett, Jr. had concerns about the legality of the Court, as did his brother-in-law Justice Johnson. Bennett had served almost continuously in the state legislature since 1804, including four years as Speaker of the House.[19] He did not take any action at first, because four of his household slaves were among those accused in the first group with Vesey, and three were executed with the leader on July 2.[20]
Bennett consulted in writing with Robert Y. Hayne, Attorney General for the state, expressing his concerns about the conduct of the Court and the inability of defendants to confront accusers, yet be subject to execution. Hayne responded that slaves were not protected by the rights available to freemen of habeas corpus and the Magna Carta, under the state’s constitution.[20]
On July 1, an editorial in the Courier expressed defense of the work of the Court. After that, in July the cycle of arrests and judgments sped up, and the suspect pool was greatly expanded. As noted by historian Michael P. Johnson, most blacks were arrested and charged after the first group of hangings on July 2; this was after the actions of the Court had come under criticism by both Justice William Johnson and Governor Bennett.[21] The Court recorded that they divided the suspects into groups: those who “exhibited energy and activity”; if convicted, these were executed. Other men who seemed simply to “yield their acquiescence” to participating were deported.[3] Over the course of five weeks, the Court ultimately ordered the arrest of 131 black men, charging them with conspiracy.
In July the pace of arrests and charges more than doubled, as if to prove there had been a large insurrection that needed controlling. But, the court “found it difficult to get conclusive evidence.” It noted in its report covering the second round of court proceedings, that three men sentenced to death implicated “scores of others” when they were promised leniency in punishment.[3] In total, the courts convicted 67 men of conspiracy and hanged 35, including Vesey, in July 1822. A total of 31 men were transported, 27 reviewed and acquitted, and 38 questioned and released.[3]
The remainder of Vesey’s family was also affected by the crisis and Court proceedings. His enslaved son Sandy Vesey was arrested, judged to have been part of the conspiracy, and included among those deported from the country, probably to Cuba. Vesey’s wife Susan later emigrated to Liberia, which the American Colonization Society had established as a colony for freed American slaves. Another son, Robert Vesey, survived past the end of the American Civil War to be emancipated. He helped rebuild Charleston’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1865, and also attended the transfer of power when US officials took control again at Fort Sumter.
On October 7, 1822, Judge Elihu Bay also convicted four white men for a misdemeanor in inciting slaves to insurrection during the Denmark Vesey slave conspiracy. These four white men were William Allen, John Igneshias, Andrew S. Rhodes, and Jacob Danders and they suffered varied fines and reasonably short jail time. The current information that historians have access to suggests that none of these four men were known abolitionists and never even had contact with each other or the plotters of the rebellion. William Allen received twelve months in prison and a $1,000 fine, which was the harshest punishment that any of these four men received. When tried in court, Allen fully admitted to trying to help the slave conspiracy, but said that he did so because he was promised a large sum of money for the services he was to render. Allen may have thought that saying greed was his motive would get him off with an easier sentence, and reports from the judge prove that the court believed that his motives were based on greed rather than sympathy for the slaves.[16]
The other conspirators punishments were far more lenient than that of William Allen. The second white defendant, John Igneshias was given a one hundred dollar fine and three months in prison, which was the same sentence as the third white defendant, Jacob Danders. Igneshias was found guilty of inciting slaves to insurrection, but Danders was charged for merely saying that he “disliked everything in Charleston, but the Negroes and the sailors.” Danders made this public exclamation after the plot had been revealed which seemed suspicious to the city officials who found out about this remark. Danders was eventually found guilty because he showed sympathy to the slaves who had been caught trying to support the conspiracy. The final white defendant, Andrew S. Rhodes, received a sentence of six months and a five hundred dollar fine even though there was less evidence to convict him than any of the other defendants.[16]
The act of these four white men brought up a big concern among the people of Charleston, that there could be more whites that wished to help blacks fight against slavery. Charleston whites were already concerned about the growing abolitionist movement in the North that was being spread through their mail and further spread by antislavery mariners who came ashore, both white and black, even before these four white men and their crimes were exposed. Judge Bay used his sentencing on these four white men as a warning to any other whites who might think of supporting slave rebels, as well as a way to push lawmakers to strengthen laws against both mariners and free blacks in South Carolina in general and anyone supporting slave rebellions in particular. The decision to reinforce laws against anyone supporting a slave rebellion was mainly based on Judge Bay’s idea that these four white men were only spared from hanging because of a “statutory oversight.” The convictions of these men also allowed the white men of the pro-slavery establishment to continue their belief that their slaves were incapable of staging rebellions without the manipulation of “alien agitators or local free people of color.”[16]