Essay - A Comparative Study of the Charleston Insurrection Conspiracy as Interpreted...

A Comparative Study of the Charleston Insurrection Conspiracy as Interpreted by M. Johnson, E. Pearson, D. *****gerton, and *****. Robertson

In its October 2001issue, the history journal William and ********** Quarterly featured a review essay in ***** Forum section entitled, "The Mak*****g ***** a Sl*****ve *****, Part I." This feature focused on the historical issues about black slavery in America particularly the Denmark Vesey insurrecti***** conspiracy in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822. A ***** essay penned by Michael Johnson, a professor of ***** ********** the Johns Hopkins University, which is entitled, "Denmark ***** and His Co-Conspirators," offered a new interpretation of the famous (***** foiled) uprising of the Negroes in Charleston in the early 19th century.

*****on started his essay with a brief background *****formation on some significant events that occurred before the planned uprising was discovered, and he also included a brief biography of ***** Vesey, the suspected leader of ***** black slaves, though most of the information is based on the data provided in the Official Report document, which ***** a detailed account of the events before, dur*****g, ***** after the Charlest***** insurrection was found out.

Johnson's main thesis in his essay is ***** the ***** led by Vesey, which many historians believed to be a possibility had it not been foiled, did *****, ***** reality, existed. Further, in Richard Wade's view (quoted by Johnson), "...***** conspiracy existed, or at most that it ***** a vague and unformulated plan in the m*****ds of townsmen." Johnson proved this assumption ***** making a comparative analysis of two main documents chronicling the events ***** happened in the trials ***** Vesey and his co-conspirators: the ***** Report prepared by Lionel Kennedy ***** Thomas Parker, the magistrates who presided over the proceedings, and a manuscript of ***** testimonies of witnesses and the defendants, ***** he referred to as the Evidence, or, Document B, patterned ***** Edward Pearson's two ********** presented in his book, Designs aga*****st *****on. Johnson criticized Pearson for giving an inaccurate and unreliable study of two transcripts of ***** Vesey trial presented in his *****, which ***** labeled as Document A, while the o*****r, Document B (Evidence). H e argu*****d that Document A is merely a copy of B, and is not different from B because A ***** merely a cont*****uous documentation of the ***** records and testimonies (Johnson ***** and stated in his ***** the re*****ons why ***** B existed before A, ***** is an actual documentation of the occurrences dur*****g the trial). *****lso, he mentioned that ***** author of Designs "omitted words/added words, changed the capitalization, punctuation, and *****" from ***** original text.

After the introduction ***** manuscript B, ***** enumerated some differences and irregularities between ***** Official Report and *****, which supports h***** theory that an uprising supposedly led by Vesey, was not true, *****d the court that tried Vesey and his companions made up ***** "insurrection," as well as the witnesses and their testimonies that were given and documented during the trial. (For t***** paper, ***** researcher