Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) (ca. 1767 – July 2, 1822) A skilled carpenter and leader among African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina.
Accused and convicted of being the ringleader of “the rising,” a potential slave revolt planned for the city in June 1822; he was executed.
Likely born into slavery in St. Thomas, he served a master in Bermuda for some time before being brought to Charleston, where he gained his freedom.
Vesey won a lottery and purchased his freedom around the age of 32. He had a good business and a family, but was unable to buy his first wife Beck and their children out of slavery. Vesey became active in the Second Presbyterian Church; in 1818 he was among the founders of an independent African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in the city,[3] which had the support of white clergy. It rapidly attracted 1,848 members, making this the second-largest AME congregation in the nation after Mother Bethel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
