Vesey, Denmark (c. 1767-1822)

US African-American resistance leader who planned one of the largest slave rebellions in US history in 1822. His plot, involving as many as 9,000 African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, included killing all whites, burning the city to the ground, and freeing all African Americans. A slave informant, however, enabled the white authorities to prevent it. They captured its leaders and hanged 35 of them, including Vesey.

Probably born on the Caribbean island of St Thomas, Vesey was purchased in 1781 by Bermuda slave trader Joseph Vesey and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1783. After winning a local lottery in 1800, he bought his freedom and became a carpenter. Distressed by the condition of other African Americans, he became an outspoken and eloquent critic of the institution of slavery. Inspired by the Haitian slave revolts of the 1790s, the American Revolution, support from his African Methodist Episcopal church, and the debates in Congress over the admission of Missouri to the Union in 1819 and 1820, Vesey began to plot his rebellion in 1821.