Viewing page 11 of 18

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

JULY, 1861.     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.     489
[[line across page]]

[[3 columns]]

[[column 1]]
shown great address in dealing with different temperaments and overcoming a variety of scruples.  One witness testified that Vesey had read to him from the Bible about the deliverance of the Children of Israel; another, that he had read to him a speech which had been delivered 'in Congress by a Mr. King' on the subject of slavery, and Vesey had said that 'this Mr. King was the black man's friend--that he, Mr. King, had declared he would continue to speak, write, and publish pamphlets against slavery the longest day he lived, until the Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves, for that slavery was a great disgrace to the country.'  But among all the reports, there are only two sentences which really reveal the secret soul of Denmark Vesey, and show his impulses and motives.  'He said he did not go with Creighton to Africa, because he had not a will; he wanted to stay and see what he could do for his fellow-creatures.'  The other takes us still nearer home.  Monday Gell stated in his confession, that Vesey, on first broaching the plan to him, said 'he was satisfied with his own condition, being free, but, as all his children were slaves, he wished to see what could be done for them.'

It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a condition of freedom, to the naive astonishment of his judges.  'It is difficult to imagine,' says the sentence finally passed on Denmark Vesey, 'what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprize so wild and visionary.  You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation.  You had, therefore, much to risk and little to gain.'  Is slavery, then, a thing so intrinsically detestable, that a man thus favored will engage in a plan thus deperate [sic] merely to rescue his children from it?  'Vesey said the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise.  I said, I was living well; he said, tho' I was, others were not, and that 't was such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and that after all things were well he would mark me.'  'His general conversation,' said another witness, a white boy, 'was about religion, which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights, blacks as well as whites, etc.;--all his religious remarks were mingled with slavery.'  And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even after the betrayal of his cherished plans.  'After the plot was discovered,' said Monday Gell, in his confession, 'Vesey said it was all over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned, by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying together.'

The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter Poyas.  Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the organizing mind.  He kept the register of 'candidates,' and decided who should or should not be enrolled.  'We can't live so,' he often reminded his confederates; 'we must break the yoke.'  'God has a hand in it; we have been meeting for four years, and are not yet betrayed.'  Peter was a ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value.  He was to be the military leader.  His plans showed some natural generalship; he arranged the night attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition were kept for sale.  He voluntarily undertook the management of the most difficult part of the enterprize--the capture of the main guard-house--and had pledged himself to advance alone and surprise the sentinel.--He was said to have a magnetism in his eye, of which his confederates stood in great awe; if he once got his eye upon a man, there was no resisting it.  A white witness has since narrated, that, after his arrest, he was chained to the floor in a cell, with another of the conspirators.  Men in authority came and sought by promises, threats, and even tortures, to ascertain the names of other accomplices.--
[[/column 1]]

[[column 2]]
His companion, wearied out with pain and suffering, and stimulated by the hope of saving his own life, at last began to yield.  Peter raised himself, leaned upon his elbow, looked at the poor fellow, saying quietly, 'Die like a man,' and instantly lay down again.  It was enough; not another word was extorted.

One of the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack--Gullah signifying Angola, the place of his origin.  A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this side the Atlantic.  For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had the reputation of being invulnerable, and of teaching invulnerability as an art, he was very good at beating up recruits for insurrection.  Over those of Angolese descent, especially, he was a perfect king, and made them join in the revolt as one man.  They met him monthly at a place called Bulkley's Farm, selected because the black overseer on that plantation was one of the initiated and because the farm was accessible by water, thus enabling them to elude the patrol.  There they prepared cartridges and pikes, and had primitive banquets, which assumed a melodramatic character under the inspiring guidance of Jack.  If a fowl was privately roasted, that mystic individual muttered incantations over it, and then they all grasped at it, exclaiming, 'Thus we pull Buckra to pieces!'  He gave them parched corn and ground-nuts to be eaten as internal safeguards on the day before the outbreak, and a consecrated cullah, or crab's claw, to be carried in the mouth by each, as an amulet.--These rather questionable means secured him power which was very unquestionable; the witnesses examined in his presence all showed dread of his conjurations, and referred to him indirectly, with a kind of awe, as 'the little man who can't be shot.'

When Gullah Jack was otherwise engaged, there seems to have been a sort of deputy seer employed in the enterprize, a blind man named Philip.  He was a preacher, was said to have been born with a caul on his head, and so claimed the gift of second-sight.--Timid adherents were brought to his house for ghostly counsel.  'Why do you look so timorous?' he said to William Garner, and then quoted Scripture, 'Let not your hearts be troubled.'  That a blind man should know how he looked was beyond the philosophy of the visitor, and this piece of rather cheap ingenuity carried the day.

Other leaders were appointed also.  Monday Gell was the scribe of the enterprize; he was a native African, who had learned to read and write.  He was by trade a harness-maker, working chiefly on his own account.  He confessed that he had written a letter to President Boyer of the new black republic; 'the letter was about the sufferings of the blacks, and to know if the people of St. Domingo would help them, if they made an effort to free themselves.'  This epistle was sent by the black cook of a Northern schooner, and the envelope was addressed to a relative of the bearer.

Tom Russell was the armorer, and made pikes 'on a very improved model,' the official report admits.  Polydore Faber fitted the weapons with handles.  Bacchus Hammett had charge of the fire-arms and ammunition, not as yet a laborious duty.  William Garner and Mingo Harth were to lead the horse-company.  Lot Forrester was the courier and had done, no one ever knew so much, in the way of enlisting country negroes, of whom Ned Bennett was to take command when enlisted.  Being the Governor's servant, Ned was probably credited with some official experience.  These were the officers: now for

THE PLAN OF ATTACK.

It was the custom then, as now, for the country negroes to flock largely into Charleston on Sunday.  More than a thousand came, on ordinary occasions, and a far larger number might at any time make their appearance without exciting any suspicion.  They gathered 
[[/column 2]]

[[column 3]]
in, especially by water, from the opposite side of Ashley and Cooper Rivers, and from the neighboring islands; and they came in a great number of canoes of various sizes--many of which could carry a hundred men--which were ordinarily employed in bringing agricultural products to the Charleston market.  To get an approximate knowledge of the number, the city government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted--and that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were rather fearful of coming into town--and it was found that, even then, there were more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday.  This fact, then, was the essential point in the plan of insurrection.  Whole plantations were found to have been enlisted among the 'candidates,' as they were termed; and it was proved that the city negroes who lived nearest the place of meeting had agreed to conceal these confederates in their houses to a large extent, on the night of the proposed outbreak.

The details of the plan, however, were not rashly committed to the mass of the confederates; they were known only to a few, and were finally to have been announced after the evening prayer-meeting on the appointed Sunday.  But each leader had his own company enlisted, and his own work marked out.  When the clock struck twelve, all were to move.--Peter Poyas was to lead a party ordered to assemble at South Bay, and to be joined by a force from James' Island; he was then to march up and seize the arsenal and guardhouse opposite St. Michael's Church, and detach a sufficient number to cut off all white citizens who should appear at the alarm posts.  A second body of negroes, from the country and the Neck, headed by Ned Bennett, was to assemble on the Neck, and seize the arsenal there.  A third was to meet at Governor Bennett's Mills, under command of Rolla, and, after putting the Governor and Intendant to death, to march through the city, or be posted at Cannon's Bridge, thus preventing the inhabitants of Cannonsborough from entering the city.  A fourth, partly from the country, and partly from the neighboring localities in the city, was to rendezvous on Gadsden's Wharf and attack the upper guardhouse.  A fifth, composed of country and Neck negroes, was to assemble at Bulkley's Farm, two miles and a half from the city, seize the upper powder-magazine and then march down; and a sixth was to assemble at Denmark Vesey's and obey his orders.  A seventh detachment, under Gullah Jack, was to assemble in Boundary Street, at the head of King Street, to capture the arms of the Neck company of militia, and to take an additional supply from Mr. Duquercron's shop.  The naval stores on Mey's Wharf were also to be attacked.  Meanwhile a horse-company, consisting of many draymen, hostlers, and butcher-boys, was to meet at Lightwood's Alley and then scour the streets to prevent the whites from assembling.  Every white man coming out of his own door was to be killed, and, if necessary, the city was to be fired in several places--slow-match for this purpose having been purloined from the public arsenal and placed in an accessible position.

Beyond this, the plan of action was either unformed or undiscovered; some slight reliance seems to have been placed on English aid--more on assistance from St. Domingo; at any rate, all the ships in the harbor were to be seized, and in these, if the worst came to the worse, those most deeply inculpated could set sail, bearing with them, perhaps, the spoils of shops and of banks.  It seems to be admitted by the official narrative, that they might have been able, at that season of the year, and with the aid of the fortifications on the Neck and around the harbor, to retain possession of the city for some time. 

So unsuspicious were the authorities, so unprepared the citizens, so open to attack lay the city, that nothing seemed necessary to the success of the insurgents except organization and arms.  Indeed, the plan of organization easily covered a supply of arms.  By their
[[/column 3]]