He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey : The Lives of Denmark Vesey (American Profiles (Lanham, MD.))

FROM THE PUBLISHER

On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey was hanged in Charleston, S.C., for his role in planning one of the largest slave uprisings in the United States. During his long, extraordinary life Vesey played many roles—Caribbean field hand, cabin boy, chandler's man, house servant, proud freeman, carpenter, husband, father, church leader, abolitionist, revolutionary. Yet until his execution transformed him into a symbol of liberty, Vesey made it his life's work to avoid the attention of white authorities. Because he preferred to dwell in the hidden alleys of Charleston's slave community, Vesey remains as elusive as he is today celebrated, and his legend is often mistaken for fact. In this biography of the great rebel leader, Douglas R. Egerton employs a variety of historical sources—church records, court documents, travel accounts, and newspapers from America and Saint Domingue—to recreate the lost world of the mysterious Vesey. Although Vesey's 1822 conspiracy has attracted the attention of earlier scholars, Egerton recaptures the historical drama and significance of the failed exodus by examining the turbulent life that led up to it. If Vesey's plot was unique in the annals of slave rebellions in North America, it was because "he" was unique; his goals, as well as the methods he chose to achieve them, were the product of a hard life's experience. Writers too often construct generic slave rebels, whose plans and personalities vary little from one plot or revolt to another. Egerton, a leading authority of slave resistance, demonstrates that Vesey's hope of leading his disciples out of the United States set him apart from earlier black insurgents. Whereas most of those who rose fortheir freedom during the 1790s, such as Toussaint Louverture in Haiti or Gabriel in Virginia, fought to join political society on equal terms, Vesey simply sought to escape it. Unlike Nat Turner's chaotic revolt, Vesey's plan was hardly doomed to failure; his precise design, months if not years in conception, struck his contemporaries as eminently feasible. Vesey's remarkable fifty-five year journey to the gallows is the subject of this book.

Author Biography: Douglas R. Egerton" is the author of the critically acclaimed "Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802" and "Charles Fenton Mercer and the Trial of National Conservatism". He is professor of history at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

FROM THE CRITICS

Ira Berlin - New York Times Book Review

Egerton greatly enriches our understanding of Vesey's strategy and aspirations by placing him and his fellow conspirators in the context of Charleston society, and Charleston society in the context of the larger Atlantic world. An extraordinarily assiduous researcher, Egerton also expands our knowledge of Vesey.

Booknews

Egerton (history, Le Moyne College) presents a biography of Denmark Vesey, most famous for his doomed 1822 slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina. The work goes beyond the planning of the rebellion to look at the entire life of Vesey and, by extension, the social world that shaped him. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Douglas Egerton uses archival evidence and the rich shelf of modern scholarship to build an informed and compelling portrait of a Herculean figure in Southern history. In He Shall Go Out Free Egerton combines careful sleuthing and a biographer's intuition to bring a key American life out of the shadows and place it in a complicated Atlantic setting. — (Peter H. Wood, author of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion)

David Roediger

This riveting story of Denmark Vesey and his comrades allows Egerton to explore expertly both the brutality and the limits of white planters rule. This study is a rich reminder of the centrality of movement and revolt in the history of the emancipation of U.S. slaves. — (David Roediger, author of The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History)

It is an extraordinary work, the product of probing research and fluent writing. Despite the sparse written record, Vesey's "lives" as emigrant, slave, and free man are sketched with vitality and understanding. The twenty-first century needs this readable reminder of an inspiring man and a significant event. — (Leslie H. Fishel, Jr., author of Black America: A Documentary History)