Denmark Vesey - Wikipedia

Denmark Vesey - Wikipedia: Manuscript transcripts of testimony at the 1822 Court proceedings in Charleston, South Carolina, and its Report after the events constitute the chief source of documentation about Denmark Vesey's life. The Court judged Vesey guilty of conspiring to launch a slave rebellion and executed him by hanging. The court reported that he was born into slavery about 1767 in St. Thomas, at the time a colony of Denmark. Captain Joseph Vesey renamed him Telemaque; historian Douglas Egerton suggests that Vesey could have been of Coromantee (an Akan-speaking people) origin.[4] Biographer David Robertson suggests that Telemaque may have been of Mande origin, but his evidence has not been accepted by historians.[5] Telemaque was purchased around the age of 14 by Joseph Vesey, a Bermudian sea captain and slave merchant. After a time, Vesey sold the youth to a planter in French Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). When the youth was found to suffer epileptic fits, Captain Vesey took him back and returned his purchase price to the former master. Biographer Egerton found no evidence of Denmark Vesey having epilepsy later in life, and he suggests that Denmark may have faked the seizures in order to esca