What is this for?
This site offers maps for educational tours of the 1822 uprising movement commonly known as the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy. The maps can be used for online or in person tours. Take a tour on your own or with any of Charleston’s trained and experienced guides. The site will be updated regularly and expand to other events and periods in the history of Black Charleston and its African, African American, and indigenous people.
Who are we?
This project is a collaboration between Dr. James Spady (Soka University) and Dr. Bernard Powers (the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston). But the project also is the work of students and Charleston community members. It is a work of love and service in a time when powerful forces are purging schools, archives, and museums of important histories. We have a small budget, but we hope this site becomes a resource for collecting community knowledge, presenting formal research, and teaching the history and cultures of Black Charleston.
What did the Vesey rebels want in 1822?
They wanted freedom. Some had known freedom in places such as Igboland (part of modern Nigeria). Others had learned from elders, friends, and neighbors. The experience of enslavement taught the need for freedom. The treatment of loved ones and friends at the hands of slavers was unpredictable. Slavers exploited and abused people at will. Slavers could kill enslaved people without facing punishment. The 1822 rebels believed they had run out of choices other than rebellion because South Carolina had tightened laws to make attaining freedom peacefully almost impossible. Some white Charlestonians publicly declared their support for restricting the lives of even the small free Black population in the city.
How do I get involved?
We are always looking for comments and suggestions. And we want to collaborate with secondary and college teachers. Email James Spady or Bernard Powers.
What were they going to do?
They organized a secret movement for an armed uprising. Groups of men would strike weapons and logistics sites in surprise, coordinated nighttime assaults. Any Black or white people who stood in their way, they swore to kill if necessary. Black Charleston would either be free or whoever could make it to the ships would flee to the free Black republic of Haiti a few hundred miles away in the Caribbean Sea.
Mapping Black Charleston 