ABSTRACT

HUMANITIES

LITTLETON, LA’NEICE M. B. A. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, 2009

M.A. CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY, 2011

GREAT INFLUENCE ON MY OWN MIND: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERACY

AND SLAVE REBELLION IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

Committee Chair: Daniel Black, Ph. D.

Dissertation dated July 2020

The most far-reaching and well-known slave rebellions in America were the result

of educated enslaved men named Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner. These men

used their literacy and access to information to rise to leadership in their enslaved

communities. The purpose of this dissertation is to illustrate the impact of literacy on the

efficacy of three insurrections (slave rebellions): Gabriel’s in 1800, Denmark Vesey’s in

1822, and Nat Turner’s in 1831. This research argues that literacy played a pivotal role in

the construction of ideals of freedom not only for the rebellion leaders themselves but for

their enslaved kin as well.

GREAT INFLUENCE ON MY OWN MIND: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERACY AND SLAVE REBELLION IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

BY

LA’NEICE MARIE LITTLETON

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

JULY 2020

© 2020

LA’NEICE MARIE LITTLETON

All Rights Reserved

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the Creator and the ancestors for working miracles in my life

daily. I would like to thank my committee members: Dr. Daniel Black, Dr. Charmayne

Patterson, and Dr. Reiland Rabaka. Their wisdom, mentorship, and guidance are

invaluable to me. Words cannot express my gratitude and love for them. I would like to

thank my family: my mother, Joan Littleton, my sister, Pamela Littleton, my

grandmother, Annie Redmond, my aunts, and my cousins. I am thankful for their

unconditional love and unwavering support and encouragement. Thanks go to my cohort,

Dr. Joyce White, Dr. Kyle Fox, and soon to be Dr. Courtney Terry. We have traveled on

this journey together and I never could have made it without them. Thanks go to my

mentors: Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans, Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, and Dr. Rico Chapman

for everything they have ever done for me. Thanks go to the National Council for Black

Studies, particularly Dr. Georgene Bess-Montgomery, for years of nurturing and support.

I am truly honored to call NCBS my home organization and family. Thanks go to my

extended family and village, my sisters and brothers in scholarship, my close friends, and

the Montbello community for their love, support, and positive affirmations during this

process. Lastly, I want to thank the ancestors: General Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat

Turner for helping me find a way or make one.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 Purpose of the Study ....................................................................................... 22

Statement of the Problem ................................................................................ 22

Methodology………………………………………………………………... 25

Method……………………………………………………………………….27

Research Questions…………………………………………………………..27

Outline of Chapters…………………………………………………………..28

II. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 29

III. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT ............ 50

IV. GENERAL GABRIEL.................................................................................... 86

V. DENMARK VESEY .................................................................................... 116

VI. NAT TURNER ............................................................................................. 150

VII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 180

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………..190

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Commonly held myths of American chattel slavery favor a narrative of enslaved

Africans as illiterate and ignorant. This position lends itself to the foregone conclusion of

African gullibility and servitude. The notion that “slaves couldn’t read” reinforces the

mythology that enslaved Africans had no knowledge of the complexity of written

language forms and their social utility. Unfortunately, much of what has been taught

about the enslavement of African people suggests that the entire enslaved population

arrived with no literary history. This historical fallacy is the result of the misuse of

history as propaganda to support a narrative that enslaved Africans—and thus their

descendants (African Americans)—were incapable of cognitive processes.

Contrary to this false narrative is the truth that many of the enslaved used literacy

as a tool to secure not only their freedom, but the freedom of others as well—particularly

through enslaved insurrections, more commonly known as slave rebellions. On many

occasions, individuals who led insurrections were the literate leadership in enslaved

communities. The point that these individuals were literate is often made in passing while

focus of insurrections is usually placed on other factors such as bitterness, acts of

violence, and revenge plots that influenced conspiracies to rebel against chattel slavery.

The purpose of this research project is to illustrate the impact of literacy on the efficacy

2

of three insurrections (slave rebellions): Gabriel’s in 1800, Denmark Vesey’s in 1822,

and Nat Turner’s in 1831. This researcher argues that literacy played a pivotal role in the

construction of ideals of freedom not only for the rebellion leaders themselves but for

their enslaved kin as well.

In 1800, Gabriel, an enslaved African American man enslaved by Thomas H.

Prosser, plotted to secure his own freedom, as well as the others enslaved in the

surrounding community of Richmond, Virginia. In 1822, in Charleston, South Carolina a

free and literate African American man named Denmark Vesey rallied the enslaved and

free community to seize their freedom. Nearly a decade later, in 1831, Nat Turner, an

enslaved African American, attempted to secure the freedom of his enslaved community

in Southampton County, Virginia. These men have many similarities. One of them is

their ability to read. This skill helped them to conceptualize ideas of freedom—not only

for themselves, but for all enslaved.

Enslaved Africans and African Americans who learned to read defied and

disrupted the established plantation order. Heather Williams states that, “Once literate,

many used this hard-won skill to disturb power relations between master and slave, as

they fused their desire for literacy with their desire for freedom.”1 The ability to read the

written word encouraged free thinking and therefore disrupted the idea of the enslaved

population as intellectually inferior and deserving of their oppressed status. Enslavers

believed that slave literacy would totally undermine the system of chattel slavery which

1. Heather Williams, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel

Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 7.

3

was intended to dehumanize people of African descent and exploit them for free labor.

This exploitation included centuries of death and despair. Physical, emotional, and

intellectual assault were daily occurrences for the enslaved. However, literacy allowed

many to conceptualize ideas of freedom that they otherwise may not have. Furthermore,

enslavers feared that should the enslaved masses become educated they would surely

seek revenge for the centuries of pain, death, and trauma they had experienced.

Literacy allowed some enslaved persons the ability to maneuver through society

differently from those unable to read and write. Literate slaves, in most instances,

became, by default, leaders in enslaved communities—especially preachers. The ability

to read was not only empowering to the individual, but also empowering to the collective

and allowed them access to information they would otherwise never have. Occasionally,

personal acts of resistance through literacy became collective acts of resistance. Once an

enslaved person became literate, they often took up the responsibility of teaching those

around them. This education often fed not only the intellectual needs of the enslaved

community, but the spiritual needs as well. Literacy on the part of the enslaved most

often conjured a longing for liberty. Literacy allowed several of the enslaved to free

themselves from mental bondage and imagine lives as people free from the tortures of

bondage. Enslavers were in constant fear of potential insurrections. According to Brian

Gabrial, these constant suspicions put a psychological stranglehold on enslavers that,

ironically, psychologically enslaved them with fears of rebellion.2 Enslavers’ fear of

2. Brian Gabrial, The Press and Slavery in America, 1791-1859: The Melancholy Effect of

Popular Excitement (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2016), 1-2.

4

slave literacy was undergirded by their fear of the enslaved undergoing the intellectual

process of self-actualization regarding their humanity. Intellectual awakening of this

magnitude had the potential to stir a desire and insistence on liberty by any means

necessary, particularly freedom by physical force.

Enslavers’ fear of the correlation between literacy and insurrection was legitimate

going as far back as September 1739 when twenty enslaved Africans from the kingdom

of Kongo (present day Angola) took up arms against English colonists along the Stono

River in what was then the British colony of South Carolina. These rebels were led by an

African man named Jemmy (spelled with an “e” in the only existing firsthand account of

the rebellion) who was said to have been literate and influenced not only by mistreatment

on the part of their enslavers but also Spanish literature which offered freedom and

property in Saint Augustine, Florida to the enslaved.3 Saint Augustine became a desired

location for enslaved Africans during the mid-eighteenth century because the Spanish had

established Fort Mose there. Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free African town

in what is now the United States. Rebels were said to be headed to Fort Mose and

intended to take the enslaved population of the English colony with them.

Scholars, such as Brigit Brander Rasmussen, argue that as a result of their

frequent conflicts with the English, the Spanish began to circulate literature encouraging

3. Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts: On Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and others

(New York: International Publishers, 1993), 187.

5

insurrection among the enslaved population.4 It is not unlikely that the rebel leader,

Jemmy, would have known how to read Spanish propaganda. According to John K

Thornton the Kingdom of Kongo was “a Christian country and had a fairly extensive

system of schools and churches in addition to a high degree of literacy.”5 Furthermore,

members of the Kongo Kingdom, as a result of Portuguese colonization and interactions,

were fluent in their native languages as well as Portuguese. The Portuguese language is

similar enough to Spanish that arguably one who could read and speak Portuguese could

decipher information delivered in Spanish. Thornton also argues that African culture had

a tremendous impact on the rebellion. The warrior tradition was strong among members

of the Kongo Kingdom. Many of the great warriors and heroes among their people were

captured and scattered throughout the Atlantic world—particularly South Carolina.

Jemmy and his twenty rebels seized a general store, secured firearms and

ammunition, beheaded the employees, and proceeded on route to freedom. Two

drummers lead the way, beating life into the band of rebels and calling all enslaved

Africans in the surrounding community. The number of rebels tripled as the drums beat.

Armed and dangerous, these African men and women marched toward freedom ready to

strike down any Englishman in their path. However, they were soon met and

overpowered by an armed militia. Twenty-five colonists and nearly fifty Africans lost

4. Birgit Brander Rasmussen, “Attended with Great Inconveniences’: Slave Literacy and the 1740

South Carolina Negro Act,” PMLA, 125, No. 1 (Jan. 2010), 201. 5. John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” The American Historical

Review, 96, No. 4 (Oct. 1991), 110.

6

their lives in the rebellion. Many of those captured were beheaded and their heads placed

atop posts to serve as a warning and to discourage any of the remaining enslaved

population from even the thought of rebellion. The Stono Rebellion was the largest

enslaved insurrection the British colonies had ever seen. It was surely terrifying to

English settlers. The thought of their chattel rebelling was the worst kind of nightmare

coming to life.

Rather than free all enslaved Africans and halt the process of dehumanization and

exploitation, the British colonists turned to legislation to prevent any further uprising

from their chattel. In 1740, the first anti-literacy law was passed in South Carolina,

barring enslaved Africans from learning to read or write. The law states:

Whereas, the having of Slaves taught to write or suffering them to be employed in writing may be attended with great inconveniences Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid That all and every Person and Persons whatsoever who shall hereafter teach or cause any Slave or Slaves to be taught to write or shall employ any Slave as a Scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever hereafter taught to write Every such Person and Persons shall for every such Offense forfeit the Sume of One hundred pounds, Current money.6

Now, an enslaved person’s attempt to read was justifiable legal grounds for reprimand

and penalty. It was obvious that enslavers had no intention of granting freedom to the

enslaved, but rather insisted on enslaving them not only physically, but mentally. The

“great inconveniences” that could result from the slaves’ ability to understand their

humanity and liberty via the written word was a guaranteed armed attack, which was too

great of a risk for colonists and enslavers to take. Through prohibiting the enslaved from

6. South Carolina Legislature, 1740 South Carolina Slave Code and Acts of the South Carolina

General Assembly, # 670 (Columbia, 1740).

7

learning to read or write, enslavers were guaranteeing themselves centuries of wealth

built on the backs of the enslaved. They knew the power of slave literacy; and they

dreaded it. They were sure that if the enslaved learned to read and write, then they would

surely and violently resist bondage. Furthermore, enslavers knew that the violence they

had inflicted upon the enslaved would come back against them tenfold, just as it had

during the Stono Rebellion.

Enslaved Africans had a long-standing tradition of literacy that stemmed back

across the Atlantic Ocean to the continent of Africa. Heretofore, it was believed and

maintained that Africans had no literacy tradition that accompanied them to the new

world. It is as if African minds were blank slates until Europeans introduced thinking and

language, which ushered them into enlightenment. This is erroneous, of course. African

communities possessed various forms of language and literature thousands of years

before Europeans invaded the continent. This is critical to establish because it buttresses

the point that many enslaved Africans and their descendants—African Americans—knew

the power of language and understood its social utility.

Africans arrived on American shores unable to speak English (for the most part),

but with the capacity to learn and master it, since for centuries they had practiced the use

of symbols that represented spoken discourse. The capability of the African to

conceptualize and understand language and signs and symbols that represent language is

apparent. John W. Blassingame states,

Historically, West African peoples have been adept at borrowing cultural elements from their conquerors and victims and fusing them with their own. Similarly, Africans have traditionally been among the world’s leading linguists,

8

learning a staggering number of dialects and languages of other peoples with whom they traded, fought or interacted. Though European languages lacked the symmetry of African ones, in the eighteenth century the slaves began mastering their essentials and in the nineteenth gave an African tint to them.7

In other words, Blassingame contends that enslaved Africans’ capacity for language

acquisition was well established before their enslavement, particularly those from West

Africa, where most of the enslaved population in the United States arrived from. This,

then, means that the enslaved had to have understood the role of literacy in the

construction of ideas of humanity and freedom.

Indeed, contemporary research bears out that those enslaved Africans who learned

to read English may have already known other languages, and, thus, learned English

quickly and precisely because their minds already understood the relationship between

signs, symbols, and meaning and how that meaning translated into their ability construct

human identity and ideals of freedom. Through language, Africans were not only able to

preserve their lineage and cultural traditions, but also to access knowledge of God and

other esoteric ideals. The capability of many enslaved Africans to conceptualize and

understand language through signs and symbols disrupts stereotypical notions of enslaved

Africans and their descendants as unintelligent and incapable of complex reasoning.

Centuries before interaction with Europeans, Africans conceptualized the use of

signs and symbols in the makings of a more privileged existence than those who never

participated in advanced thought processes. Barry B. Powell addresses the power of

7. John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1979), 98.

9

writing in relationship to social conduct. He states that, “Writing is magical, mysterious,

aggressive, dangerous, and not to be trifled with…. Human groups who possess writing

triumph over those who do not, without exception and swiftly.”8 Powell’s sentiments are

applicable to the United States in the nineteenth century. In the decades following the

Stono Rebellion, enslavers sought to assure that they could triumph intellectually over

Africans and the burgeoning population of African Americans, and thus continued to

create anti-literacy laws and slave codes to attempt to concretize the mental bondage and

inferiority of African descendants into perpetuity.

In lieu of the law and the established social order, enslaved Africans and their

descendants throughout the diaspora, operating in a centuries long tradition of literacy,

were able to access and read certain writings which helped them to navigate oppressed

life and imagine a future outside of bondage. Such is the case with Gabriel’s rebellion in

Richmond, Virginia in 1800. Gabriel was a skilled blacksmith who was frequently hired

out by his enslaver Thomas H. Prosser. There are no documents that attest to Gabriel

being known as Gabriel Prosser—as he is commonly and incorrectly known. All existing

records suggests that though Gabriel was enslaved by Thomas Prosser he was never

given the surname Prosser.9 Gabriel was said to have an impressive physical presence,

standing over six feet tall, and was highly intelligent—having learned to read and write at

8. Barry B. Powell, Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization (West Sussex:

Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 11. 9. Douglas R. Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 7.

10

a young age. It is unknown exactly how Gabriel became literate, but Douglas Egerton

argues that he was most likely taught by Thomas Prosser’s wife or young son who was

the same age as Gabriel.10 Furthermore, Gabriel was described by plantation owners in

Henrico County as having “courage and intellect above his rank in life.”11

Gabriel and his brothers Martin and Solomon, also his co-conspirators in the

rebellion, were inspired by the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s which was led by

Toussaint L’Overture—a literate man who was formerly enslaved on the island of Saint

Domingue. The rebellion resulted in the creation of the first free African nation in the

Atlantic world in 1804. Gabriel’s plan was to inspire uprising among the enslaved by

securing arms, attacking Richmond, and taking the governor hostage. Gabriel’s brother,

Martin was a preacher, and supported Gabriel’s ideas of freedom with excerpts from the

book of Exodus of the Bible. As a hired-out blacksmith Gabriel was able to build a

substantial rebel force in the surrounding Richmond area. However, the plot was

eventually thwarted after enslavers caught wind of the rebellion plan as a result of two

slaves who became fearful and reported the plan for uprising to their enslavers. However,

the role of literacy in relation to the potential success of the Gabriel’s rebellion in

understudied. A fugitive slave advertisement from September 12, 1800, published in the

Norfolk Herald, offers a three-hundred-dollar reward for Gabriel. The ad states,

The public mind has been much involved in dangerous apprehensions, concerning an insurrection of the negroes in several parts of the adjacent counties...Such a

10. Ibid., 30.

11. Vincent Harding, There is a River: The Struggle for Black Freedom in America (New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), 55.

11

thing has been in agitation among the blacks, principally instigated by an ambitious and insidious fellow, a slave, by the name of GABRIEL, the property of Mr. Thomas Prosser, of the county of Henrico. This villain, assuming to himself the appellation of General, through his artfulness, has caused some disturbance, having induced many poor, ignorant, and unfortunate creatures to share in his nefarious and horrid design. This plot which has been so deeply planned, and long matured, is, we hope, entirely exploded…. GABRIEL is a negro of a brown complexion, about 6 feet 3 or 4 inches, a bony face, well made, and very active, has two or three scars on his head, his hair very short, and has lost two front teeth. He can read and write, and perhaps will forge himself a pass, or certificate of his freedom, he is 24 or 25 years of age, but appears to be about 30.12

Gabriel’s plan for rebellion in Henrico County, Virginia was enslavers’ worst nightmare

come to life. The use of the term “artful” as well as the statement that “he can read and

write, and perhaps will forge himself a pass” reveals the enslavers’ perception of the

danger attached to Gabriel’s intellectual abilities and his desired freedom. Gabriel’s

rebellion confirmed enslavers’ fears of the consequences of enslaved literacy and

intellectual development. This fear influenced stricter anti-literacy legislation with much

harsher punishments that would come to pass as a result of widespread terror at the turn

of the nineteenth century. Gabriel’s rebellion ushered in a new era of white supremacist

domination through the re-defining of the social hierarchy in the antebellum south.

Denmark Vesey was said to be fluent in multiple languages including English,

French, Spanish, and possibly Portuguese. Vesey was a skilled carpenter who was

formerly enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina. Vesey was also a minister and co-

founder of the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. After its

founding, several church meetings were broken up and many members jailed because of

12. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Norfolk Herald, September 16, 1800.

12

enslavers’ suspicion of illegal evening reading classes being held in the church.13 Vesey

was not arrested, however, the church’s co-founder, Morris Brown, was.14 Though not

suspected to be a part of the evening reading courses, Vesey held weekly Bible studies in

his home where he would emphasize that freedom belonged to the enslaved and that all

they had to do was seize freedom for themselves.

Long before Vesey became a minister and co-founder of Mother Emmanuel

Church and rebellion enthusiast, he was a young boy named Telemaque who was owned

by slave ship captain Joseph Vesey. It was aboard Captain Vesey’s vessel that Telemaque

witnessed the horrors of the Middle Passage firsthand and had several interactions with

Africans directly from West Africa. Telemaque’s experience was particularly

traumatizing because most Africans experienced the treachery of the Middle Passage

only one time. Young Telemaque was given a front row seat to the spectacle of African

dehumanization on his multiple trips across the Atlantic—he re-lived the Middle Passage

several times. These tragic memories surely embittered him and rumbled in his mind for

the rest of his life.

It was aboard Captain Vesey’s ship that Vesey taught young Telemaque to read

and speak English, since the child had spoken French up until his purchase from the

Danish sugar island of St. Thomas. Because of Vesey’s involvement in the bartering of

African bodies, which was an international affair, Telemaque was also taught to speak,

13. David Robertson, Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and

the Man Who Led It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), xix.

14. Ibid.

13

read, and write Spanish and possibly Portuguese. As a young boy, Telemaque was

regarded by Charleston slaveholders as a person of “superior power of mind and the more

dangerous for it.”15 Having access to local newspapers, Telemaque was fascinated by the

reports on the slave revolution in Saint Domingue. As was also true for Gabriel,

Toussaint L’Ouverture served as a model for Vesey’s leadership.

In his adult life, Vesey served in a leadership role in the AME church that he co-

founded with Morris Brown. It was through Bible studies in his own home that Vesey

would organize the enslaved community in the surrounding Charleston area to revolt and

seize their freedom. Vesey would preach and read from the Old Testament, particularly

Exodus in which the Israelites, enslaved in Egypt, rebel against their enslavers and leave

imposed servitude in search of the Promised Land. Vesey’s ability to read and interpret

the Bible for himself allowed him to gather members from the surrounding community

into the church and Bible studies which he held in his living room. It was at these Bible

study meetings that Vesey was able to convince his flock to commit themselves to

securing their freedom from bondage.

Vesey’s connection to the story of Exodus is an example of the ways in which

literacy was not only a social endeavor, but a spiritual one also. Through his

interpretation of the Bible, Vesey drew a direct comparison between the enslaved in

Egypt and those in America, just as Gabriel and his brothers had before him. Through

this interpretation he saw himself as a Moses-like figure, saddled with the responsibility

15. Ibid., 21.

14

of securing freedom for his people as ordained by God. Twenty years prior to his plan for

rebellion, Vesey had won the local lottery, purchased his freedom, and was living as a

free man in the Charleston area. He was deeply heartbroken when his enslaver informed

him that he could not purchase his wife and children. Vesey could have lived a free life as

a carpenter, but his literacy allowed him to interpret the newspapers, abolitionist

literature, and the Bible. His literacy, in conjunction with his love for his wife and

children, stirred his ideals for rebellion. Although Vesey’s plan for rebellion, mass

exodus, and freedom in Haiti did not come to fruition, his plan to rebel is indicative of a

mind that understood the human right to freedom that was owed to all beings.

Unfortunately, the impact of Vesey’s ability to read and understand several languages in

relationship to his ability to conceive of a plan of action is often overlooked.

In 1829, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in

particular, and very expressly to those of the United States of America sent fear rippling

throughout the south and cemented enslavers’ fear of insurrection.16 Walker, a free

African American man born to an enslaved father and free mother in North Carolina,

settled in Boston. While there, Walker authored the Appeal which called for a rebellion

and declared that enslavers were the natural enemies of the enslaved. Furthermore,

Walker, obviously literate, argued that literacy would play a fundamental role in enslaved

insurrection. He explicitly linked the liberation of enslaved masses worldwide—but

particularly in the United States—to literacy when he stated,

16. Williams, 14.

15

For coloured people to acquire learning in this country, make tyrants quake and tremble on their sandy foundation…. Why they know that their infernal deeds of cruelty will be made known to the world. Do you suppose one man of good sense and learning would submit himself, his father, mother, wife, and children, to be slaves to a wretched man like himself, who instead of compensating him for his labours, chains, handcuffs, and beats him and family almost to death, leaving life enough in them, however, to work for, and call him master? No! no! He would cut his devilish throat from ear to ear, and well do slaveholders know it. The bare name of educating the coloured people, scares our cruel oppressors almost to death.17

Walker’s outward suggestion that literacy posed a direct threat to enslaver’s lives.

According to Walker, literacy would eventually breed violent ideas of freedom, rebellion,

and revenge in the minds of the enslaved. Enslavers feared that the slaves’ intellectual

rebellion would manifest actual rebellion and cause injury not only to the state and the

economy, but to the future of white sovereignty and supremacy. Therefore, enslavers

enacted anti-literacy legislation as a means of self-preservation thus beginning a tradition

of state-sanctioned assaults on and criminalization of African American intellectualism

that continues into the present day.

Enslavers throughout the South were terrified that Walker’s Appeal would stir the

enslaved to rebel and legislation was passed that further prohibited the enslaved from

learning to read. As a result of sixty copies of Walker’s Appeal being seized in Savannah,

Georgia in December 1829 the Georgia legislature passed legislation which explicitly

stated that African Americans, enslaved and free, could and would be punished for the

circulation of “any printed or written pamphlet, paper, or circular, for the purposes of

17. David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very

expressly to those of the United States of America (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1993), 52.

16

exciting to insurrection, conspiracy, or resistance among the slaves, negroes, or free

persons of color.”18 In 1830, North Carolina passed anti-literacy legislation that explicitly

coupled slave literacy with eventual insurrection. The legislation states,

Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write, has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion, to manifest the injury of the citizens of the state:

[I] Therefore be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in the State having jurisdiction thereof, and upon conviction shall at the discretion of the court if a white man or woman be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or imprisoned and if a free person of colour shall be whipped at the discretion of the court not exceeding thirty nine lashes nor less than twenty lashes.

[II] Be it further enacted that if any slave shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any other slave to read or write the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried before any justice of the peace and on conviction thereof shall be sentenced to receive thirty nine lashes on his or her bare back.19

Enslavers feared that literacy would enable the enslaved population to fully realize their

humanity and in turn not only seek their collective freedom and the collective death of

those who had brutalized them for generations. Therefore, enslavers put harsh penalties in

place such as severe whippings in order to discourage the enslaved from intellectual

elevation.

Though state legislation and slave codes strictly forbade the enslaved from

learning to read and write, several persisted to defy the established order and continued to

18. Williams, 14.

19. North Carolina Legislature, North Carolina Legislative Papers, 1830–31 Session of the

General Assembly (Raleigh, 1831).

17

seek freedom through literacy. Of his intellectual awakening during the nineteenth

century, Elijah Marrs states,

Very early in life I took up the idea that I wanted to learn to read and write. I was convinced that there would be something for me to do in the future that I could not accomplish by remaining in ignorance. I had heard so much about freedom, and of the colored people running off and going to Canada, that my mind was busy with this subject even in my young days.20

These remarks reveal that Marrs was convinced that the only way out of bondage was

through literacy. Marrs envisioned his freedom as directly tied to his ability to read the

written word. Realizations like this are crucial to understanding the ways in which several

slaved achieved self-actualization which thus stir ideas of freedom.

In a more popular account from the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass

reveals that, as a young boy, he defied the law and was determined to learn to read as he

understood literacy to be the key to his liberty. According to Douglass, in a fit of rage, his

enslaver scolded his wife for teaching young Frederick to read, stating that “if you teach

that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would

forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value

to his master.”21 After witnessing his enslaver’s reaction, young Frederick knew that

learning to read and write would one day liberate him. He states,

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife

20. Elijah Marrs, The Life and History of Elijah P Marrs (Louisville: The Bradley & Gilbert

Company, 1840), 11-12. 21. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (New

York, NY: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003), 33.

18

with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read.22

This quote reveals not only Douglass’s mental processing of the significance of knowing

how to read and write in relationship to his freedom, but it also embodies the fear that

many enslavers felt in relationship to the intellectual elevation of the enslaved. It would

make them “unmanageable” and “unfit” for enslavement. The idea that if they could read

the enslaved would become “unmanageable” illumines enslavers’ reliance on the

intellectual inferiority of their chattel to keep the prevailing white supremacist power

structure intact. It reveals the importance of managing the enslaved both physically and

mentally to the enslaver. Like Marrs, Douglass’s determination would eventually result in

his self-emancipation from enslavement.

Some of the enslaved desire to read demonstrates their knowledge of language

structures that afford one access to power. Their desire to learn to read demonstrates their

understanding of literacy not simply as a cognitive process, but as a social and spiritual

one as well. Slave literacy can also be understood as a spiritual endeavor and is often

linked to some of their perceived relationship to God. Harryette Mullen argues that,

A reading of 19th century African-American spiritual narratives suggests that, like music, the act of reading or writing, or the process of acquiring literacy itself may be a means for the visionary writer to attract a powerful presence to inhabit a spiritually focused imagination or a blank sheet of paper.23

22. Ibid., 34. 23. Harryette Mullen, “African Signs and Spiritual Writing,” Callaloo 19, No. 3 (Summer, 1996),

672.

19

Literacy allowed rebellion leaders access to power in both the physical and spiritual

realms. They had a spiritual awakening that made them restless in bondage and moved

them to conceptualize their humanity and their natural right to freedom. Therefore, it is

no coincidence that insurrection leaders had strong relationships to the bible and served

as church leadership as well. The Stono leaders as well as Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and

Nat Turner were able to harness power through their ability to read the written word and

inspire others to join in the quest for freedom. Their unique skillset saddled them with

great power and responsibility simultaneously.

In the case of Nat Turner, literacy had some unmistakable and deeply spiritual

attributes—possibly one of the reasons his rebellion was successful. Successful meaning

that it went beyond the realm of conspiracy to rebel, like it was in the cases of Gabriel

and Vesey, and many enslavers and their families were violently killed.

According to Turner, his literacy was a result of a subconscious spiritual

connection to a higher power. He states,

The manner in which I learned to read and write, not only had great influence on my own mind, as I acquired it with the most perfect ease, so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet--but to the astonishment of the family, one day, when a book was shewn me to keep me from crying, I began spelling the names of different objects.24

Turner’s recollection about his mystical ability to read is remarkable in that it suggests

that his connection to a higher spiritual power endowed him with a gift that most of the

24. Thomas Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Leader of the Late Insurrection in

Southhampton, VA, as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray (Baltimore, Lucas & Deaver, 1831), 8.

20

enslaved were denied or attempted to obtain using clandestine methods. Surrounding

enslavers and the enslaved community were in awe of little Nat Turner’s reading skills.

In his confession, Turner recalls how he went about developing his reading skills. He

states,

When I got large enough to go to work, while employed, I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination, and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before.25

Because of his unique ability to read as well as his ability to re-tell events that happened

before he was born, Turner would soon rise to a leadership position in the enslaved

community. He was said to be a prophet destined for some great purpose. Turner’s

enslaver was so impressed with the intellectual capability of the little boy that he gifted a

Bible to young Nat and gave him entry into church services held in the big house. As an

adult, Turner functioned in the role of a preacher, but he grew discontented with his

enslaved status. He recalled that as a child his enslaver as well as other plantation owners

in the community remarked that he was in fact unfit for a life of bondage and servitude.

He states,

My master, who belonged to the church, and other religious persons who visited the house, and whom I often saw at prayers, noticing the singularity of my manners, I suppose, and my uncommon intelligence for a child, remarked I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any service to any one as a slave.26

25. Ibid., 8. 26. Ibid.

21

This realization along with being forced to work under a cruel overseer, resulted in

Turner running away. To the amazement of the enslaved community, after a period of

roughly thirty days, Turner returned. He believed that God spoke to him and told him to

return because he had not yet fulfilled his purpose.

Shortly after his return, Turner began to have visions of black and white spirits

engaged in battle. Moreover, he revealed that he saw not only the spirits engaged in

warfare, but also hieroglyphic symbols. He states, “I then found on the leaves in the

woods hieroglyphic characters, and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes,

portrayed in blood.”27 It is unclear how Turner would have been able to decipher the

ancient African script.

However, taking Harryette Mullen’s previously stated point that learning to read

allowed the enslaved to “attract a powerful presence to inhabit a spiritually focused

imagination” in concert with Turner’s spirituality and almost divine presence into

account it seems that he was somehow able to access an ancestral realm and the

thousands of years old hieroglyphs with relative ease. Turner’s ancestral memory had to

have been at play in this instance. Obviously, Turner was of high intellectual capability,

but many scholars fail to ask how he could have understood what hieroglyphic characters

looked like, but also what they meant. Turner’s ability to understand the hieroglyphs

speaks directly to the notion that literacy was a spiritual endeavor on the part of the

enslaved African, but also the idea that his viewing of the symbols was essentially Turner

27. Ibid., 10.

22

operating in the lineage of African literacy traditions. In August of 1831, Nat Turner’s

insurrection claimed the lives of nearly sixty enslavers and sent shockwaves throughout

the southern region of the United States. The impact of literacy on Turner’s rebellion

cannot be underestimated or understated. However, the impact of Turner’s literacy is

often overlooked in relationship to how he arrived at his idea of freedom for the enslaved.

Purpose of the Study

This research serves to correct the notion that the entire enslaved population was

not only physically but also mentally resigned to bondage. Literacy enabled the enslaved

to think for themselves and conceptualize their freedom on their own terms. Analysis of

American African literacy as it relates to enslaved insurrection during the nineteenth

century demonstrates the power of being able to read the written word and in turn carry a

message of liberation forward to the masses. Analysis of this sort contributes to the

contemporary discourse on American chattel slavery. This research offers a different

perspective on a topic that is often overlooked because of the prevailing historical

propaganda which suggests that the entire enslaved population was illiterate, and that

enslaved insurrection was misguided and unintentional.

Statement of the Problem

Most scholarly works about enslaved Africans and their descendants who were

able to read tend to focus on individuals like Elijah Marrs and Frederick Douglass. They

were able to use literacy as a tool to catapult them to leadership in their enslaved

23

communities. Marrs joined the Union Army and fought to secure the freedom of the

enslaved kin he left behind when he walked off the plantation and later founded both a

school and a church. Douglass became a leading abolitionist and writer. Douglass

authored three different texts about his life, the horrors of enslavement, and his great

escape. Most agree that Douglass is the outstanding example of an enslaved person who

learned to read. The problem is that he is often presented as “exceptional,” as if he is one

of few persons ever to use literacy as a tool of rebellion against the state. Truth is that

Douglass’s behavior simply exposes a trend among the enslaved in the nineteenth

century, many of whom risked their lives to learn to read that they might manipulate their

liberty in the same system that had once denied it. Scholars also tend to focus on

Douglass because he communicated his message of freedom to the masses via non-

violent literary protests. Douglass’s writing was poignant, and his ability to capture a

crowd with eloquent speech was remarkable. He advocated for the freedom of the

enslaved, but not for the enslaved to take up the burden of freeing themselves and

outwardly rebelling and dismantling the oppressive forces that kept them in bondage.

Frederick Douglass is rarely juxtaposed with figures like Gabriel, Denmark

Vesey, or Nat Turner. It is as if a historical hierarchy has been created which privileges

Douglass’s methodology over that of his co-laborers whose literacy provoked them to

take up arms. Frederick Douglass is lauded for his ability to peacefully convey a message

about liberty to the masses, but there seems to be some reservation about applauding

those for whom literacy led to insurrection. It is understandable that conservative readers

might favor a narrative which celebrates non-violent acts of resistance on the part of the

24

enslaved such as running away or authoring a text to be disseminated to the masses.

However, those who love freedom by any means also know the value of literacy in the

execution of slave rebellions. This is the aim of this effort to demonstrate how learning to

read freed some enslaved persons to fight for their natural right to liberty, even if it meant

the death of their enslavers.

Enslaved insurrection is not glamourous. Loss of life of any kind is tragic. It is the

tremendous loss of African life that makes the centuries of chattel slavery particularly

heart wrenching. Discourse about the real impact of slave rebellions is often swept under

the rug because few want to engage in dialogue about the potential for enslavers’ death at

the hands of African Americans. Retelling stories of the whippings, beatings, and rape of

enslaved is often favored over discourse about the potential for enslavers’ abuse and

death. The stories of violence visited upon African and African American bodies most

often trump stories of African American violence against their enslavers.

Furthermore, assumptions about slave rebellions are often made without

considering what the true motives of the enslaved who rebelled were. For many the

appeal of armed resistance was the idea of the formation of an African American, and

culturally African nation—like Haiti—free of the enslavers’ influence and perpetual

abuse. Armed resistance was more appealing to some enslaved Africans because it wiped

the slate totally clean. It would allow for them to rebuild an African centered society on

their own terms. In a way, armed resistance can be considered early Black nationalist

sentiments on the part of the enslaved. Essentially, the literate leadership of enslaved

insurrection were putting forth a philosophy of self-determination. They were sure that

25

their humanity was dependent upon their ability to be able to create a safe and

comfortable living situation for the masses—which could be considered the ultimate form

of freedom.

Methodology

As an African American Studies scholar, this researcher utilizes the Afrocentric

paradigm to approach this research. According to Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity in theory

and praxis means that African people, experiences, and ideals are placed at the center of

any analysis of African phenomenon.28 The Afrocentric approach is critical to

understanding the enslaved experience in the United States. Too often works that focus

on the enslavement of Africans and their descendants—African Americans—utilize

Eurocentric frameworks that privilege the perspective of the enslavers rather than the

enslaved. According to Katherine Olukemi Bankole, “Mythology associated with

enslaved Africans and the system of slavery as a whole, has re-created an idyllic picture

for Whites, while rendering the African experience invisible.”29 Eurocentric works

minimize, if not totally diminish, the African and African American experience in the

context of enslavement and offer a distorted analysis of enslaved life and culture. Terry

Kershaw argues that Afrocentricity “emphasizes an analysis rooted in historical reality of

28. Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (Chicago: African American

Images, 2003). 29. Katherine Olukemi Bankole, “Researching the Lives of the Enslaved: The State of the

Scholarship,” In Handbook of Black Studies, edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Maulana Karenga (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications 2005), 89.

26

Black people” and that there are “distinctive cultural and historical experiences of

African people.”30 According to Kershaw, “the historical experiences of all people of

African descent can be used to learn about human issues.”31 For a historical study such as

this one using the Afrocentric lens is critical in that it helps to provide a greater

understanding of the lived experiences of enslaved African Americans and how those

experiences influence present day social and cultural norms. Furthermore, Bankole

argues that the Afrocentric lens is critical to researching the enslaved. She states:

The Afrocentric approach requires the capacity for critical thinking about the agency of African people. This involves important queries about the lives and abilities of enslaved persons within their social, historical, and cultural contexts. Thus, researching the lives of enslaved Africans requires theoretical assessments that do no assume a priori that those subjected to a violent migration and system of enslavement possessed no substantial involvement in their own liberation and the transformation of any give society.32

As an Afrocentric scholar, the goal of this research is to critically study the agency of

enslaved African Americas who learned to read and write and the influence that those

abilities had on enslaved insurrection. The Afrocentric lens allows this researcher to

position literate enslaved Africans and African Americans as their own emancipators and

agents of transformation in early American society.

30. Terry Kershaw, “Towards a Black Studies Paradigm: An Assessment and Some Directions,”

Journal of Black Studies, 22, no. 4 (June 1992), 477. 31. Ibid. 32. Bankole, 91.

27

Method

According to Serie McDougal III, content analysis allows a researcher to

systematically analyze the hidden and visible content in messages. He states, “Content

analysis allows the researcher to identify aspects of texts and communications that are

difficult to see or may go unnoticed through ordinary reading, viewing, or hearing.33 This

research is content analysis of primary sources, specifically: slave narratives, newspaper

articles, fugitive slave advertisements, correspondence, and local and state court records

and legislation. The goal is to create a historiography of literate African Americans who

were enslaved and who worked to secure their own freedom and the freedom of others

through armed resistance as a result of their ability to read and write. Through content

analysis of primary sources this work intends to reveal that as a result of their literacy

Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner held a mantle of leadership in enslaved

communities that helped them to foster ideas or rebellion and freedom among their

enslaved communities. This research argues that slave literacy was as a social practice

that subverted the prevailing power structure, propelled the enslaved to freedom, and

saddled the literate with the enormous responsibility of securing freedom for themselves

and sometimes the masses.

Research Questions

The research questions that drive this dissertation are: 1) By what means did some enslaved Africans and African Americans

become literate prior to 1831?

33. Serie McDougal III, Research Methods in Africana (New York: Peter Lang, 2014), 164.

28

2) What impact did literacy have on plots for enslaved insurrections in 1800,1822, and 1831?

Outline of Chapters

This dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter one is the introduction which

outlines the significance of this research project. Chapter two is a chronological review of

literature pertaining to the literacy of enslaved Africans and African Americans. Chapter

three is the theoretical framework and historical context which provide the context for the

discourse on slave literacy and its influence on enslaved insurrections in the nineteenth

century. Chapter four is an analysis of the impact of literacy on Gabriel’s rebellion in

1800. Chapter five is an analysis of the influence of literacy on Denmark Vesey’s

rebellion in 1822. Chapter six is an analysis of the influence of literacy on Nat Tuner’s

rebellion in 1831. Chapter seven is the conclusion which will include an explanation of

additional themes that emerged while undertaking the study.

29

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Several scholars have endeavored to study the literacy of enslaved African

Americans in colonial America and the antebellum south. These works elucidate the

specificities of the trauma and horror which characterized New World plantation life.

Several of these books, articles, and dissertations address the limitations and punishment

enslaved people who sought any level of education endured. Several of them make the

connection between slave literacy, legislation, runaways, and enslaved insurrections. This

literature review provides a chronological review of the major works which influence the

study of education in the antebellum south and serve as the foundation upon which this

research is built.

In 1919, Carter G. Woodson was the first to initiate the discourse on enslaved

education. Woodson’s The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the

Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to

the Civil War is an exhaustive study of enslaved education. Prior to Woodson’s work, it

was generally believed that the whole of the enslaved population—with a few exceptions

such as Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick Douglass—was illiterate

throughout the duration of their enslavement in the North America. However, Woodson

30

challenged that perception and thoroughly explicated the trials and triumphs enslaved

Africans and African Americans faced during the formation of the United States in the

seventeenth century, the eighteenth century and the American Revolution, America’s rise

as a world power at the turn of the nineteenth century as a result of the cotton gin, and the

decades leading up to the Civil War. Woodson argues that it is difficult to know the exact

number of literate people among the enslaved population, but he posits that “ten percent

of the adult Negroes had the rudiments of education in 1860, but the proportion was

much less than it was near the close of the era of better beginnings about 1825.”1

Woodson attributes the decline in literacy among the enslaved to strict slave codes and

anti-literacy legislation that were passed after the publication of David Walker’s Appeal

to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of

the United States of America—which called for the enslaved to take up arms against their

enslavers—in 1829 and Nat Turner’s rebellion which resulted in the death of several

slave owning families in 1831.

In 1935, W. E. B. Du Bois published Black Reconstruction in American 1860-1880.

Overall, Black Reconstruction is an extensive historiography which focuses on the

nation’s efforts to rebuild in decades following the Civil War. However, it is important

regarding enslaved literacy in that Du Bois challenges Woodson’s point that ten percent

of the enslaved were literate and argues that the percentage is a much smaller five percent

1. Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York: A&B Books, 1919),

228.

31

of the enslaved population.2 Du Bois’s calculations are based on the records from the

Freedman’s Bureau as well as northern missionary organizations who build schools for

the formerly enslaved during the Reconstruction construction era. Several decades later,

in 1967, Henry Allen Bullock’s A History of Negro Education in the South: From 1619-

Present was published. The title of the work is misleading in that Bullocks commentary

on the education during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century is scant and spans

just over fourteen pages. Bullock’s work lacks in depth analysis of the trials and triumphs

experienced by those enslaved who attempted to learn to read and write. Bullock does not

provide any statistical evidence regarding the percentage of the enslaved population was

literate. He acknowledges that there were many who were literate because not provide in

depth explanation or analysis of education during the antebellum era. Like Du Bois,

Bullock devotes considerable attention to the educational efforts of the formerly enslaved

following the Civil War.

John Blassingame’s The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South

was a ground-breaking work released in 1972. Blassingame was the first historian to

provide an exhaustive investigation of the enslaved experience from the perspective of

the enslaved. In Slave Community, Blassingame directly addresses members of the

enslaved population who took up the arduous task of becoming literate. He states,

“Education elevated the slave’s sense of personal worth in the midst of his afflictions….

2. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (New York: The Free Press,

1998), 638.

32

Since whites put so many restrictions upon slaves obtaining an education, the slaves

themselves invested it with almost magical qualities.”3

Eugene Genovese’s book Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made was

published in 1974. Genovese investigates the intricacies of the slave system of the

American South and positions the enslaved in the role of rebels against the rigid system

of enslavement. Genovese supports Du Bois’s estimation of the literate population. He

argues that the five percent is “entirely plausible” but offers some pushback and suggest

that the number “may even be too low.”4 Genovese furthermore argues that “literate

slaves appeared everywhere, no matter how unfavorable the atmosphere” and that most

plantations had one or more literate slaves regardless of the location.5

Thomas Webber’s Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Community

1831-1865 was published in 1978. Webber’s approach to education is broad in that he

suggests that learning in the context of the slave quarters was more a result of the

everyday lived experience rather than a formalized educational experience. Webber

argues that education in the slave quarters was “the knowledge, attitudes, values, skills,

and sensibilities which an individual, or group, consciously or unconsciously, has

internalized. It is the content of what is learned. Teaching in this context becomes the

3. John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1979), 312. 4. Eugene Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books,

1974), 563. 5. Ibid.

33

deliberate effort, successful or not to educate.”6 Webber’s text begins during the latter

portion of the first period of education that Woodson identifies and continues through

during the second period. Webber suggests that during the last three decades of the

antebellum era education in the slave quarters was largely social and cultural and less

formal. His main argument is that education in the context of the slave community there

were things that white owners wanted them to learn and know, such as how to be an

efficient laborer, that God ordained for the slave to be obedient to his master, and that

Africans were inferior in every sense of the word to white people and things that the

enslaved wanted and were able to learn for themselves such as how to conduct

themselves around whites—particularly in regard to language (code switching)—, and

how to create, maintain, and sustain their own culture in their living spaces where whites

were not present. Unfortunately, while Webber’s text is thorough in its approach to the

broad idea of education, he devotes a mere seven-page chapter to the discussion about

literacy among the enslaved population. Webber’s argument in this chapter is that though

many in the enslaved community wanted to learn to read and write the majority lacked

access to educational spaces and therefore remained intellectually underdeveloped.

In her 1983 article “We Slipped and Learned to Read: Slave Accounts of the

Literacy Process, 1830-1865,” Janet Cornelius offers a thorough analysis of the literacy

process of the enslaved. Cornelius uses the slave narratives from the Federal Writer’s

Project conducted by the Works Progress Administration as the crux of her work. She

6. Thomas Webber, Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Community 1831-1865 (New

York: Norton, 1978), xi.

34

posits that out of approximately 3,428 interviews conducted, there were “just over 5 percent

who mentioned having learned to read and write as slaves.”7 Cornelius’s article focuses on

the decades following the Nat Turner rebellion and reveals several of the horrors associated

with trying to become literate in that historical moment. She includes several narratives of

formerly enslaved African Americans who were children at the time of emancipation.

These slave narratives reveal the great danger associated with learning to read and write

and provide several anecdotes that reveal physical abuse, often in the form or amputation

of a finger or other appendage, for being caught reading or with reading materials.

However, Cornelius’s work states that there were several enslaved African Americans who

persisted and learned to read and write no matter the consequences.

In his 1990 article, “African American Educators and Community Leadership,

1795-1954,” V. P. Franklin argues that as a result of their acquired education American

African educators rose to occupy leadership roles in the community as early as the late

eighteenth century. He states, “African Americans who acquired literacy or advanced

training often recognized an obligation to pass that knowledge on to others within their

family, community and cultural group.”8 Franklin argues that religious education was

important as it related to leadership on the plantation. He argues that during the

antebellum era African American “minister educators” opened schools for the instruction

7. Janet Cornelius, “We Slipped and Learned to Read: Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process,

1830-1865,” Phylon, 44, no. 3 (3rd Quarter, 1983), 171. 8. V. P. Franklin, “African American Educators and Community Leadership, 1795-1954,” Journal

of Education, 172, no. 3 (October 1990), 36.

35

of the enslaved as early as 1795. Franklin suggests that the African Methodist Episcopal

church, founded by Richard Allen in 1794 in Philadelphia was pivotal to the success of

enslaved education during the early nineteenth century. Franklin does not provide in

depth information in regard to what instruction looked like in these schools or what the

impact of religious instruction was on the enslaved community. He speaks at length about

minister educators and their roles in the abolitionist movement, but the work lacks

detailed analysis of minister educators like Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner.

In 1991 her book, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and

Religion in the Antebellum South, Janet Cornelius returned with an exhaustive text and

explores the connection between literacy, religion, and the slave community. Her main

argument is that a dialogue about religious study is pertinent to understanding literacy in

the context of the enslaved community. She argues that many slave owners believed that

should the enslaved learn to read, even the bible, they would develop “new ideas, a sense

of their rights and of their power to obtain them.”9 Cornelius argues that the enslaved

very well understood the critical nature of literacy and states that “Africans, and then

African-Americans, quickly perceived the extent to which whites used literacy as a

separation between themselves and Africans and used the lack of reading and writing as a

justification for considering Africans lesser human beings or scarcely human at all.”10

9. Janet Cornelius, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the

Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991), 16.

10. Ibid.

36

Furthermore, Cornelius argues that literate slaves, particularly in the eighteenth century

used literacy as a political act.

Though she does not devote considerable attention to the impact of literacy on

armed enslaved insurrection, Cornelius suggests that slave owners knew the dangers of

both literacy and religion independently and that together they were a force to be

reckoned with. She argues that distinctive aspect of the southern reaction to literacy from

1824 to 1834 was the stress on religion and literacy as a major cause for slave revolts.11

She mentions Gabriel’s rebellion in 1800 as an early catalyst for white apprehension

about literacy and religious education. Furthermore, Cornelius cites figures such as

Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and Sam Sharpe (the Jamaican Christmas Day Rebellion)—

all literate preachers—as the catalysts for a cloak of white fear that fell over the South.

Lastly, Cornelius makes a compelling argument about the number of enslaved Africans

that were able to read at the beginning of the Civil War. She argues that the traditional

five percent that historians suggest is a gross underestimate. Cornelius states that she is

more inclined to align herself with Woodson, whom she identifies as the first to ever take

up the task of studying enslaved education and suggests that at the very least the literate

enslaved population was ten percent leading up to the war.12 Furthermore, she argues that

an analysis of runaway advertisements reveals that potentially twenty percent of the

enslaved population was literate before the start of the Civil War. Most of the scholarship

11. Ibid., 33. 12. Ibid., 9.

37

pertaining the antebellum education refer to Woodson’s The Education of the Negro

alongside Cornelius’s work as the two most thorough and important works on antebellum

education. Most scholars situate their work somewhere between Woodson and Cornelius.

Together serve as a sounding board of sorts in the discourse on enslaved literacy.

In her 1992 article, “African American Conceptions of Literacy: A Historical

Perspective,” Violet J. Harris examines the different conceptions of literacy held by

African Americans. In her work Harris offers a history of African American education

leading up to the 1990s. Harris takes a sociological approach to the study of African

American education. Her main argument is that education had been a part of African

Americans political and social agenda at all points in history. Harris’s work offers a

sweeping and limited explanation of the efforts of the enslaved who learned to read.

However, she does argue that there were two factors during the nineteenth century that

caused considerable opposition toward literacy for the enslaved: the technical

advancement of the cotton gin which made the southern economy totally dependent on

slave labor signaled a decline in enslaved literacy and the emergence of African

American publishers and pamphlets, particularly David Walker’s Appeal. Furthermore,

Harris argues that following the Nat Turner rebellion educational access for African

Americans was all but eliminated in the South apart from clandestine schools operated by

literate members of plantation communities.

In her 1998 article entitled “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free:

Reflections on Liberty and Literacy” E. Jennifer Monaghan argues that literacy was an

empowering tool for the enslaved because it was the foundation of knowledge and a

38

prerequisite to personal and political freedom. Monaghan argues that there were four

major factors that lead to many southern states passing anti-literacy legislation: fear of

illegal assembly, the rise of abolitionism, the writings of free African Americans, and the

consequences of revolts leady by literate Christian slaves. Monaghan directly links that

act of literacy to the act of insurrection and argues that because of white fear of rebellion

literacy was strictly forbidden in the three decades between the Nat Turner rebellion and

the beginning of the Civil War.

In her 1999 dissertation, “The Development of African American Literacy

Traditions: A Family and Community Effort in the Nineteenth Century,” Phyllis M. Belt-

Beyan examines the influence of family, community, and other African American social

and cultural institutions on the development of literacy traditions during the nineteenth

century. Her work is an investigation of the underlying motivations that gave shape to

literacy efforts and the ways in which family and community helped to nurture the

development of reading and writing traditions that were passed from one generation to

the next. She argues that African Americans have had a long and significant literacy

history and that contemporary questions about African American education can be

answered by looking to family and community literacy practices during the nineteenth

century. Belt-Beyan argues that too much attention has been paid to the efforts of single

slaveholders and missionary groups in aiding the enslaved in learning to read and write.

Furthermore, she argues that too much attention has been focused on individual

achievements and that academics have failed to investigate the critical role of family and

community in the literacy process of African Americans in slavery and freedom. Her

39

argument is that individual achievements “cannot fully account for how and why literacy

traditions are developed and passed on to succeeding generation.”13

In his 1999 article, “African American Schooling the South Prior to 1861,” David

Freedman, argues that the historiography of African-American schools run by American

Africans in the South prior to 1861 is limited. He argues that since Carter G. Woodson

pioneered the study of enslaved education very few scholars have taken up the task of

investigating the role the American Africans played in educating themselves. He argues

that most scholarship that focuses on enslaved education focuses on the efforts of white

missionaries and the role they played as “friends of the Negro”. Freedman argues that

schools created and operated by American Africans in the south are due significant

attention as their founding “rival the creation of churches and benevolent societies in both

scope of community commitment.”14 Freedman argues that knowledge about American

African schools prior to 1861 provides readers with the critical and necessary insight

needed to understand the values and belief systems of American Africans prior to the

Civil War. He states, “The struggle for schooling by both free and enslaved African-

Americans demonstrated both the capacity of numerous African-American communities

to build and sustain institutions and the pervasive value placed on learning, even in the

face of extraordinary threats and punishment.”15 Freedman’s overall point is that

13. Phyllis M. Belt-Beyan, “The Development of African American Literacy Traditions: A Family

and Community Effort in the Nineteenth Century,” (PhD diss., Kent State University, 1999), 14, accessed March 1, 2019, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

14. David Freedman, “African-American Schooling the South Prior to 1861,” Journal of Negro

History, 84, no. 1 (Winter, 1999), 3.

40

enslaved Africans demonstrated a spirit of self-determination in the fight for education in

the midst of the most trying social circumstances.

In her 2005 book, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and

Freedom, Heather Andrea Williams argues that enslaved African Americans played a

fundamental role in their education in the context of the American plantation. Williams

argues that enslaved African Americans exhibited a determination to become literate and

were not the passive recipients of education provided via “friends of the negro” such as

missionaries and abolitionists as historians have continued to suggest for generations.

Williams’s work is critical to understanding the intellectual potential of enslaved

Africans during enslavement as well as the ways in which their intellect and ingenuity

propelled them into rapid social progress in the generations following the Civil War.

Williams places the reactive legislation that was passed following armed insurrections in

direct conversation with the words of the enslaved. This reveals a back and forth between

the oppressed and their oppressor in the struggle for power and freedom. Williams

suggests that enslaved Africans were aware of the dire consequences of learning to read

and write in a system which forbade it, yet they chose intellectual elevation as an act of

open defiance to the system of enslavement. She states, “Reading indicated to the world

that this so-called property had a mind, and writing foretold the ability to construct an

alternative narrative about bondage itself.”16 Williams argues that the act of becoming

15. Ibid., 16. Heather Andrea Williams, Self-Taught: African Americans Education in Slavery and Freedom

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005), 7.

41

literate in a system that forbade allowed enslaved Africans to directly subvert the power

structure and to assert their humanity. Furthermore, Williams argues that “Understanding

how enslaved people learned not only illuminates the importance of literacy as an

instrument of resistance and liberation, but also brings into view the clandestine tactics

and strategies that enslaved people employed to gain some control over their own lives.17

Williams argues that intellectual development for Africans was on the rise toward the

beginning and during the Civil War.

In their 2005 article, “The Quest for Book Learning: African American Education

in Slavery and in Freedom,” Christopher M. Span and James D. Anderson trace the

educational history of African Americans back to the colonial era in early America. They

argue that education has always been a core value in the African American community.

By tracing this intellectual history Span and Anderson highlight how the law and societal

conditions shaped early education opportunities for African Americans. Their central

argument is that education has consistently been equated with freedom and empowerment

for African Americans and that literacy has been used to “combat discrimination,

exclusion, slavery, segregation, and other systematic forms of oppression.”18

Furthermore, Span and Anderson argue that the first anti-literacy legislation that was

passed in 1740 was passed because of an increase in the teaching of slaves by Christian

17. Ibid. 18. Christopher M. Span and James D. Anderson, “The Quest for Book Learning: African

American Education in Slavery and in Freedom,” In A Companion to African American History, edited by Alton Hornsby Jr. (Malden: Blackwell Publishing 2005), 295.

42

ministers. Most scholars believe the legislation to have been passed as a result of the

Stono Rebellion which involved several literate slaves. However, Span and Anderson

make no mention of the rebellion. However, the authors align with most other scholars

and cites the Nat Turner rebellion as a major catalyst for harsh anti-literacy legislation

after 1831.

In his 2006 dissertation, “Breaking with Tradition: Slave literacy in Early

Virginia,” Antonio T. Bly provides an analysis of slave literacy in Virginia during the

colonial period. Bly’s work is an investigation of early slave culture and literacy. Bly’s

overall argument is that Africans who were transplanted in colonial America via the slave

trade were bound by literacy in that “print and literacy seemed to envelope their all

aspects of life” in colonial Virginia and they were bound by the law and therefore

understood the significance of the written word in relationship to their freedom.19 Bly

uses fugitive slave advertisements, probate records, and other colonial sources that

demonstrate that literacy allowed enslaved Africans and African Americans to “gain

mental and possibly real liberation.”20 Furthermore, Bly argues that scholars have failed

to properly investigate the role of religion and literacy in the eighteenth century. He

argues that with the Great Awakening the enslaved had an intellectual awakening that

accompanied their conversion to Christianity.

19. Antonio T. Bly, “Breaking with Tradition: Slave Literacy in Early Virginia, 1680–1780,”

(PhD diss., The College of William and Mary, 2006), vii, accessed November 1, 2014. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

20. Ibid., xi.

43

In her 2007 article, “Hidden Education Among African Americans,” Grey

Gundaker examines three interrelated aspects of schooling in the antebellum South from

a historical and anthropological perspective. The three areas are “invisible or seemingly

extraneous aspects of schooling and efforts to orchestrate school like activities, hidden

and not so hidden literacy acquisition, and expressive practices with educational

dimensions for participants that remained largely invisible to outsiders.”21 Gundaker

argues that an investigation of slave literacy reveals that there were “massive hegemonic

structures operating at all levels” that made education difficult for the enslaved. She

suggests that their oppression was triple-tiered and manifested itself psychologically

through intellectual oppression, on the macro (broader society) level through legislation,

and on the micro level through day-to-day interactions. Gundaker uses the WPA

narratives to construct the narrative of enslaved education. Gundaker’s overall point is

that educational opportunities varied during enslavement and that these opportunities

were “more diverse, flexible, and contingent than the rubric of schooling could ever

encompass even more so because regimes of slavery varied across the Diaspora and

within North America.”22 Furthermore, she argues for the importance of recognizing that

continental Africans brought their own educational practices and systems with them

21. Grey Gundaker, “Hidden Education Among African Americans,” Teachers College Record, 109, no. 7 (July 2007), 1591.

22. Ibid., 1594.

44

across the Atlantic stating that “African Americans made education fit their

circumstances.”23

In her 2007 dissertation, “Black Initiative in Black Education Prior to and During

the Civil War,” Ying Ye focuses on African American theories and practices of education

prior to and during the Civil war. Ye argues that in order to understand the formation of

schools during the Reconstruction era it is necessary to do an investigation of the efforts

of the enslaved to educate themselves though it was strictly forbidden in the South in the

three decades leading up to the Civil War. Ye argues that emphasis must be placed on

“the distinctiveness of African American concepts of education and on the active role

black people played in black education.”24 She argues that far too much historical

attention has been paid to northern organizations who came South after the war to open

schools for the formerly enslaved. Her research demonstrates that prior to white northern

interference enslaved African Americans were educating themselves and this education

gave way for the formation of schools as lead by those who were educated on the

plantation in the years leading up to the Civil War. Ye relies on slave narratives, Black

autobiographies, newspapers, and journalists’ and tourists’ accounts of the South to

construct the narrative about enslaved education during the antebellum era.

In his 2008 article, “Learning Their Letters: Critical Literacy, Epistolary Culture,

and Slavery in the Antebellum South,” Ben Schiller investigates antebellum literacy

23. Ibid., 1595. 24. Ying Ye, “Black Initiative in Black Education Prior to and During the Civil War,” (PhD diss.,

Saint Louis University, 2007), 6, accessed March 2, 2019. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

45

through an analysis of letter writing culture. Schiller uses correspondence written by

enslaved African Americans to their enslavers to make a point about how it is necessary

to view enslaved literacy beyond the popular slave narratives. One of Schiller’s most

important arguments is that attitudes toward educating the enslaved differed throughout

the south and that white anti-literacy legislation provides a “barometer of white fears of

black literacy, it does little to inform us about the actual relationships that existed

between literate slave and their masters.”25 Schiller’s argument here is that while there

was anti-literacy legislation in place there were still several enslavers who taught the

enslaved to read and write for their own self-serving needs—particularly letter writing.

Perhaps the most important part of Schiller’s work is the explanation that he provides for

the difference between practical literacy and critical literacy. Borrowing from Paulo

Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Schiller defines practical literacy as the ability to read or

write the word and critical literacy as “the subordinates ability to read, critique, and even

partially reshape the world the dominant seek to create for them.”26 Schiller argues that

critical literacy disrupts the established plantation social structure in a way that practical

literacy does not. Schiller’s argument is that the act of being able to read on its own

cannot be considered an act of resistance in the antebellum South. He states, “It is

25. Ben Schiller, “Learning Their Letters: Critical Literacy, Epistolary Culture and Slavery in the

Antebellum South,” Southern Quarterly, 43, no. 3 (Spring 2008), 13.

26. Ibid., 14.

46

primarily critical literacy rather than their letter writing which should be understood in

terms of resistance.”27

In his 2008 article, “Self-Emancipation and Slavery: An Examination of the

African American Quest for Literacy and Freedom,” Anthony B. Mitchell provides a

thorough explication of the relationship between slavery and the law. More specifically

he investigates the connection between slave literacy and anti-literacy legislation. Like

many before him, Mitchell makes the point that the most severe anti-literacy legislation

was passed after the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831. Mitchell furthermore argues that many

are familiar with slave rebellions as an act of resistance however most are unfamiliar with

the common everyday acts of rebellion. Mitchell relies on the WPA narratives from the

1930s to make his point about enslaved African Americans who defied the established

laws and learned to read. Mitchell also states that in some ways enslavers also defied the

law and taught the enslaved to learn to read for self-serving purposes such as letter

writing and bookkeeping.

In her 2013 dissertation, “Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers,

Self-Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry,” Marianne Mullia Holohan

investigates literacy of enslaved African Americans and the white working class in the

antebellum South. She argues that too much scholarly focus has been placed on enslaved

individuals who could read and write rather than those who could only read. She calls

27. Ibid.

47

these people “forgotten readers.”28 She argues that these forgotten readers have been

historically invisible in the discourse about slave literacy. She states, “Scholarly

narratives of nineteenth-century literary history have privileged writers over readers and

published writings over archived manuscripts, and therefore have erased groups of reader

for whom writing and publication were less accessible”29 Holohan argues that

widespread stories and assumptions of Black illiteracy have dominated historical

discourse and that thorough documentation of Black literacy remains relatively hidden.30

She argues that it is critical to investigate the access that enslaved African Americans

may have had to reading materials. She argues that enslaved African Americans and

white working-class who learned to read were able to participate in an act that has been

historically reserved for the privileged. She argues that their “underground” participation

has much to do with print culture and the unmonitored circulation of print materials such

as newspapers.31

In his 2015 book, Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing, Christopher

Hager focuses on enslaved African Americans who he terms “the marginally literate”.

Hager’s point is that most work that focuses on African American literacy focuses on

those individuals, such as Frederick Douglass, who were highly literate and therefore

28. Marianne Mullia Holohan, “Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers, Self-

Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry,” (PhD diss., Duquesne University, 2013), xiii.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., xvii.

48

catapulted to the abolitionist mainstage. He also makes the point that the marginally

literate had more of a day-to-day investment in becoming literate than a long term one.

He states, “acts of writing by enslaved and newly freed southern blacks during the era of

emancipation—a neglected episode in the history of African American writing and of

American culture more broadly as well as a crucial dimension of the history of slavery

and emancipation.”32 He suggests that for many becoming literate was an act of what

every day resistance. Hager’s argument is that the act of literacy was one that provided

ideological freedom for the enslaved more than it did physical. Literacy allowed the

enslaved to voice their discontent with being enslaved, however Hager is essentially

arguing that literacy allowed the enslaved to do things that were more important to them

such as author letters to their loved ones who made it to freedom across Union lines.

The scholarly discourse on enslaved literacy has been ongoing for a century. Several

of the works discussed above consistently overlap thematically in some areas. For

instance, several of the works directly link the act of literacy to rebellion. Many consider

the act of becoming literate an act of defiance toward the oppressive system of

enslavement. Scholars contend that because the education of the enslaved was largely

prohibited both enslaved Africans and American Americans and their enslavers openly

defied the law and proceeded with instruction. However, scholars have failed to conduct

exhaustive research on the correlation between literacy and enslaved insurrection. Many

argue that Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831 was the catalyst of harsh anti-literacy

32. Christopher Hager, Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 2015), 2.

49

legislation in the three decades leading up to the Civil War, yet and still scholars and

historians have failed to thoroughly explicate the significance of literacy in Turner’s

rebellion and the two great rebellions that proceeded him, Gabriel in 1800 and Denmark

Vesey in 1822.

50

CHAPTER III

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Literacy is a powerful tool. It is multidimensional and complex. Literacy is, most

importantly, a human cognitive endeavor. Simply put, literacy is the ability to understand

the written form of language. Literacy is an advanced skill used for human cosmological

and ontological discovery. It allows a human being to conceptualize their relationship to

the universe and to ponder the meaning of life. Therefore, literacy is key to the

intellectual development of humankind.

Scholars, like Melanie Wallendorf, define literacy as a continuous

multidimensional indicator or proficiency in using written language, with its higher levels

reflecting an ability to draw logical inferences and think critically. Brian V. Street

confirms Wallendorf’s definition of literacy and extends the dialogue to include literacy

as a social practice. Street argues that literacy is the act of knowing the symbols that

represent spoken language, but that the act of becoming literate does not exist in isolation

and is not simply a set of technological skills. He argues that the process of reading and

writing can never be separated from the social, political, economic, and cultural context

in which it is embedded. According to Street, literacy becomes a social practice in which

power structures are deeply embedded.

51

Furthermore, when literacy is considered a social practice it can be used to

impede as well as facilitate upward mobility in society. Literacy allows an individual

entry into a philosophical conversation about what it means to be human. Therefore, a

person’s humanity is inextricably tied to their ability to conceptualize where they fit in

the universe as well as—and perhaps more simply—what their role or function is in a

culture driven society. Street and Wallendorf offer that a sociological conceptualization

of literacy suggests that at its core the act of becoming literate it is an interaction between

culture and the mind.1 As a result of this interaction between culture and the mind,

literacy allows a person to perform the exclusively human vocation of conceptualizing

and thus communicating their thoughts and understanding of how to go about creating an

ideal society. For this reason, literacy has been crucial to the building and maintenance of

societies throughout human history.

Taking Street’s approach to understanding literacy as a social practice with

inherent socio-cultural and political advantages and consequences into consideration, it is

apparent that literacy is a cognitive endeavor and an instrument for self-discovery in the

context of societal power struggles. Historically, literacy has been a social activity used

to create and sustain power dynamics. Just as the ability to read and write is a distinctly

human function, unfortunately, so are the constructs of social hierarchy and domination

as tied to one’s ability to read the written word. The ability to read and write becomes a

1. Melanie Wallendorf, “Literally Literacy,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27, no. 4 (March

2001), 505; Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

52

means by which class differentiations are sustained.2 The first class, the literate, always

maintain the status of most powerful in a society. The second class consists of the

aliterate and the illiterate. The “aliterate,” as Wallendorf terms them, are those who are

functionally literate meaning that they have a basic understanding of the written word,

but do not function at the higher levels of literacy because of social machinations

designed to guard their limitations. Wallendorf states that aliterate populations “Learn

more readily by watching a specific, concrete, visual demonstration than through direct

instruction about generalized and decontextualized principles.”3 The aliterate can read,

but often do not for multiple reasons, some of which are societal and others personal. The

illiterate body possess little to no concept of the basics that constitute written language

often because of their lack of access to education and resources. The aliterate and

illiterate often exist in the same social class because their communal wealth is most often

determined by the literate—those who create and govern ideas and social structures.

The literate set the terms by which people in their society can and should conduct

themselves. The literate body establish guidelines of a society and put them in writing to

be distributed to the masses—most of whom are often aliterate and illiterate. Ultimately,

the literate population decides the terms by which people are valued in a society. Because

of their high status, the literate power structure uses their access to the written word as a

means of domination and control over society. Because of human cultural development

2. Ibid. 3. Wallendorf, 506.

53

and the inevitable social stratification that comes with it, literacy became a behavior that

all human beings are capable of, but an activity too often reserved for the elite or

privileged class.

Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo present literacy as neither being neutral nor

objective and inherently political in nature. They argue that literacy in the context of

social development has a dual layering. The first layer is practical literacy which refers to

the mechanical skill of becoming literate. Practical literacy means that a person can

understand the written form of language well enough to function in society—individuals

who are practically literate are what Wallendorf would call aliterate. The second layer is

critical literacy which suggests that literacy in an exercise in agency and power dynamics.

Critical literacy promotes social transformation whereas, practical literacy often creates

an aliterate population which can serve to maintain the functions of the ruling class. A

person’s ability to read does not necessarily suggests that they will participate in social

transformation. However, as Freire and Macedo suggests one’s ability to think for

themselves as a result of their practical literacy is what creates social change. Macedo

and Freire suggests that analysis of literacy must go beyond the rigid confines of practical

literacy and employ a broader lens to include literacy as a transformative social practice

that is used to maintain and disrupt the social order.4

In the context of some pre-colonial African societies, literacy was a long-standing

practice. In ancient Egypt writing was of great importance. Writing was everywhere. It

4. Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World (Westport:

Bergin and Garvey, 1987).

54

was on the walls, sarcophagi, papyri, monuments, and even jewelry. The ability to read

the hieroglyphs was reserved for members of the elite class known as scribes. The scribes

chose exactly what was carved into eternity on the walls of the ancient tombs and written

on papyrus scrolls. According to Asa Hilliard, the profession of the scribe was an

honored position because the ancient Egyptian civilization was dependent on writing.5

The scribe was critical to the transition from oral culture to written culture which took

place as early as 3000 BCE. During the scribes educational training, they were not only

taught the grammatical and structural techniques of writing they were also introduced to

“deep thought.”6 This introduction to deep thought would position the scribe in the space

between the celestial realm and the mortal world. It gave them access to esoteric concepts

of how to create a society in which all could carry out the principles of truth, justice, and

righteousness.7 According to Anthony T. Browder, in ancient Egypt “The degree to

which one understood the abstract or practical aspects of symbolic thought was

determined by the extent of one’s education.”8

Hilliard maintains that the correlation between the spirit realm and education was

also a tradition that extended to later civilizations in West Africa.9 The transition from

5. Asa G. Hilliard III, SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind (Gainesville: Makare

Publishing, 1997), 87. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., 2. 8. Anthony T. Browder, Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization (Washington, D. C., The

Institute of Karmic Guidance, 1992) 82. 9. Hilliard, 88.

55

ancient Egypt to West African civilizations demonstrates a longstanding tradition of

literacy and education on the continent of Africa before any interaction with Europeans.

The ability of Africans to conceive of and conceptualize language should be of no

surprise. Ancient scripts from Ethiopia include Amharic, Sebean, and Ge’ez. Ge’ez,

combined with Cushitic and Semetic linguistic elements, forms the modern language

Amharic—the dominant language of the region. Scripts found in North Africa include the

Berber and Carthaginian. There also existed the Arabic script of northeastern and western

Africa. On the east, there was the Swahili Perso-Arabic script. Other ancient African

scripts include the Mende of Mali, the Toma and Vai of Liberia, and the Mum in

Cameroon as well as the Nsibidi script in Nigeria.10 Many of these ancient scripts are still

used in present day Africa including Ge’ez and Nsibidi Language and its accompanying

script were the crux of many traditional African societies. Through language, Africans

were not only able to preserve their lineage and cultural traditions, but also able to access

God and the spiritual realm. Literacy allowed Africans the ability to conceptualize human

experience in relationship to the divine and provided a space for one to understand

themselves in relationship to the innerworkings of the universe.

Grey Gundaker echoes Hilliard and argues that throughout African societies in

West and Central Africa initiation and divination systems provided instruction that

resembled formal education in Western schooling (1598). Gundaker argues that various

10. Maulana Karenga, Introduction to Black Studies, 4th ed. (University of Sankore Press: Los Angeles, 2010), 70.

56

African societies provided education for select men and women through secret rites of

passage rituals and ceremonies. The Nsibidi script provides a good example of the

relationship between the written language and the spiritual connection with the higher

power in the setting of the secret society. The Nsibidi script was practiced by the Ibo

people in an eastern province of southern Nigeria and was said to belong to the sacred

and secret Nsibidi society. Only some of the characters were known to the broader

community whereas those inducted into the sacred society were familiar with the script it

in its entirety. To those uninitiated into the sacred society, the symbols of Nsibidi were

known to contain magical powers and the ability to cause harm. In the context of Ibo

culture, only those who were able to understand the sacred script could understand the

relationship of man to the rest of the world because they could commune with the higher

power.11

Gundaker argues that Africans brought a knowledge that was “layered from

surface to deep knowledge according to indigenous theories regarding the degree of

intellectual, spiritual, and ethical preparedness appropriate for participation” across the

Atlantic to the “new world.”12 She states, “Africans also arrived on these [American]

shores well schooled to orchestrate hidden education on their own foundations, for their

own ends.”13 It’s clear then that several African societies had developed writing

11. JK Macgregor, “Notes on NsIbid., i,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of

Great Britain and Ireland, 39 (Jan-Jun 1909).

12. Grey Gundaker, “Hidden Education Among African Americans During Slavery,” Teachers College Record, 109, no. 7 (July 2007), 1599.

13. Ibid., 1598.

57

systems—such as the Nsibidi—that would have been clear to them but a mystery to

Europeans. Just as English was a mystery to many enslaved Africans, traditional African

writing was also a mystery to English enslavers. As a result of these writing systems

being secretive and shrouded in mystery Europeans believed that Africans were

intellectually underdeveloped, and incapable of the necessary complex thought and

reasoning to create and sustain writing practices—especially in the New World. In

Western culture, literacy signifies reason and civilization, characteristics Africans were

not believed to have had. This white supremacist ideology that saw African cultures as

primitive and uncivilized helped to undergird the ideology that Africans were deserving

of enslavement.

However, there were instances in which several Africans not only read and

understood their native language, but also the languages of European colonizers who

soon had a stronghold on portions of West and Central Africa. For example, the

Portuguese had a presence in the region of Angola as early as 1575 when they began to

establish colonies along the coast of West Africa and soon began participating in the

bartering of African bodies. By the eighteenth century the Portuguese had a strong

foothold in Angola and a substantial cultural influence on the Kingdom of Kongo.

Therefore, the Kongo Kingdom became a Christian and Catholic nation and adopted

Portuguese as its second language and one of the primary languages used in trade. In

58

addition, the Kongolese had an extensive system of schools and churches in addition to a

high degree of literacy, especially among the elite class.14

In 1619, twenty captive Africans from the region of Angola, and presumably the

Kongo Kingdom, arrived aboard a Dutch vessel called the White Lion in the British

colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Enslavement in the context of seventeenth century British

America was akin to the European system of indentured servitude. Therefore, these

twenty enslaved Africans worked alongside European indentured servants on small

tobacco plantations owned by British colonists. Within decades of their arrival, the

tobacco industry began to flourish in the British colonies and transformed the institution

of slavery from a less stringent system where Africans worked alongside colonists and

their indentured servants to a system where the racial boundaries were stringent and very

clearly demarcated.

Driven by colonists’ greed and the rapid influx of income from the tobacco

industry resulting from the exploitation of free African labor the system of chattel slavery

evolved seemingly overnight. The role of enslaved Africans was concretized. The system

of slavery was designed to make colonists rich at the expense of the enslaved. Moreover,

the acquisition of African bodies was directly linked to the idea of creating and sustaining

wealth in the New World. An increase in human property served as its own stream of

income and the products that these bodies could produce—mainly tobacco—through

backbreaking labor another stream. As a result, the enslaved population grew rapidly as

14. John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” The American Historical

Review, 96, no. 4, (Oct 1991), 1103.

59

the need for bodies and labor increased. The constant removal and forced migration of

Africans from the continent to the New World during seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries fueled the British American economy.

With the enslaved population rapidly increasing, plantation owners soon became

fearful of not being able to control the burgeoning enslaved population. This fear drove

enslavers to create a system of local laws to govern the behavior of the enslaved. These

laws were referred to as slave codes. Slave codes governed the everyday experiences of

the enslaved class. The slave codes were local laws that regulated almost every aspect of

enslaved life. In general, most colonies established codes that forbade the enslaved from

assembling without the permission or presence of a white man, carrying of weapons of

firearms, participating in economic activity—growing, trading, buying, or selling of crops

or goods—without the permission or presence of a white man, and leaving the plantation

without permission in the form of a written pass.15 Slave codes and colonial legislation

were constantly adapted to accommodate the developing society. In fact, many laws were

created or amended following acts of enslaved African insurrections. In 1669 a Virginia

law made it legal for an enslaver or overseer to kill an enslaved person as a result of

“correction.”16 In 1672, Virginia passed another law rewarding the hunting down and

killing of maroons and fugitive slaves.17 In 1690, both Maryland and South Carolina

15. Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts: On Nat Turner (New York, 1993), 71. 16. Ibid., 13.

17. Ibid., 71.

60

passed legislation issuing severe punishment for the instigation or participation in

conspiracy or rebellion.18

Slave codes and other colonial legislation were used as a form of legal machinery

to control the enslaved.19 Through legislative practices the colonists were able to develop

a dual-sided and complex systems of control in both the physical and psychological

realms. Slave codes, relative to their respective states and counties, became a means by

which plantation owners could dehumanize the enslaved and assert their supremacy in the

hierarchy of society—plantations became microcosms of the larger society in which they

existed. The result of violating slave codes and colonial legislation was almost always

corporal punishment and consisted of public floggings, bodily mutilation, and sometimes

death. Slave codes and other colonial legislation were meant to re-enforce the inferior and

subservient status of the African in the creation of a new and perfect British society in the

New World.

Enslaved Africans brought to colonial Virginia knew the importance of reading

and writing in the colony because they were bound by it.20 The enslaved were bound by

the English slave codes even though they could not read them. They were required to

follow the laws that bound them without understanding the English language let alone the

laws. Antonio Bly states, “Writing stood for the planter’s power and the slave’s

18. Ibid., 72. 19. Ibid., 53. 20. Antonio T. Bly, “Breaking with Tradition: Slave Literacy in Early Virginia, 1680–1780,”

(PhD diss., The College of William and Mary, 2006), vii, accessed November 1, 2014. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

61

confinement; the absence of writing carried heavy burdens.”21 Like Gundaker, Bly

maintains that though Africans did not arrive in the New World knowing how to speak,

read, and write English, several Africans did arrive with their own educational customs

and traditions—many of which were secret.

However, a reading of slave narratives from the eighteenth century reveals that

not only was the English language foreign to enslaved the act of reading books was also

mysterious. Oladuah Equiano, who was kidnapped from Isseke (present day southern

Nigeria) as a child, reveals his astonishment at watching his enslaver read books. He

recalls,

I had often seen my master and Dick employed in reading; and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did; and so to learn how all things had a beginning: for that purpose I have often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me; and I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent.22

In his narrative, James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, who was stolen as a child from

Bornu (present day eastern Nigeria), recalls his fascination with watching his enslaver

read from the Bible when he states,

He used to read prayers in public to the ship's crew every Sabbath day; and when first I saw him read, I was never so surprised in my whole life as when I saw the book talk to my master; for I thought it did, as I observed him to look upon it, and move his lips.--I wished it would do so to me.--As soon as my master had done reading I follow'd him to the place where he put the book, being mightily delighted with it, and when nobody saw me, I open'd it and put my ear down close

21. Ibid. 22. Oladuah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus

Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (London, 1789), 106.

62

upon it, in great hope that it wou'd say something to me; but was very sorry and greatly disappointed when I found it would not speak, this thought immediately presented itself to me, that every body and every thing despis'd me because I was black.23

Print was obviously a mystery to Equiano and Gronniosaw and likely many other

Africans—many of whom were children—who arrived enslaved in the British American

colonies. Because of their young age it is unlikely that many of them were initiated

through traditional rites of passage ceremonies and thus had not yet been exposed to

African spiritual writing like the Nsibidi.

However, despite the difficulty of learning the English language there were

several enslaved Africans who learned to read and master it. This was largely the result of

enslavers who chose to teach the enslaved to read for multiple reasons. Colonists were

not in agreement about whether it was proper to educate their captives or not. Some

religious sects, particularly the Quakers and Methodists, considered it the proper

Christian thing to do. They believed that, as Christians, it was their duty to save souls and

spread the word of God to all who could receive it. Several colonists considered

themselves God-fearing men who believed with conviction that enslaved Africans were

wretched and inferior to them in the physical realm, but that they did have souls that

could be saved.

Many believed that all mankind, regardless of their station in life, were entitled to

the right to know God. In Four Sermons upon the Great and Indispensable Duty of All

23. James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the

Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself, (Kidderminster: W. GYE, 1772), 10.

63

Christian Masters and Mistresses to Bring up Their Negro Slaves in the Knowledge and

Fear of God, enslaver and reverend Thomas Bacon of Maryland states, “The Negro’s

being of human species, have souls as well as us, and are equally capable of salvation.—

Christian charity therefore would require us to endeavor their conversion, and labour for

the good of their souls, though they did not belong to us.”24 Thus, Bacon and many others

allowed their human property to learn excerpts of the Bible and to recite catechisms. In

his 1751 Six Sermons on the Several Duties of Masters, Mistresses, and Slaves, Bacon

states that “Such pious and well disposed persons are inclined to join with me in the

necessary work of bringing up their slaves in the knowledge of God by giving them

private instruction, as well as sending them to be taught at church….”25. He continues

“We ought to make this reading, and studying the holy scriptures, and the reading and

explaining them, to our children and slaves, and the catechizing or instructing them in the

principles of the Christian religion, stated duty.”26 This religious instruction was

important because it became the primary means by which several enslaved Africans

became functionally literate in the English language during the first half of eighteenth

century.

Bacon continues, “I have found many of these poor people well inclined to

goodness, and very desirous of instruction:--most of them, have good natural parts too

24. Thomas Bacon, Four Sermons upon the Great and Indispensable Duty of All Christian

Masters and Mistresses to Bring up Their Negro Slaves in the Knowledge and Fear of God (London: J. Oliver, 1751), xvi.

25. Ibid., iv. 26. Ibid., 116.

64

and quick apprehensions, and very few, even the new negros, could speak tolerable

English and understand what was said to them.—some of them I have seen stubborn and

sullen, as we meet with some of the same sort among ourselves.”27 Others such as

Reverend Samuel Thomas echoed Bacon’s beliefs and, like Bacon, took an interest in the

education of the enslaved Africans for religious purposes. According to Carter G.

Woodson, Rev. Samuel Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in South Carolina began the work

of Christianizing the enslaved in the area. He stated that he had twenty African pupils

who were “well understanding of the English tongue” and could read and write and that

there were many more who were anxious to be converted to Christianity.28 He states,

I have presumed to give an account of one thousand slaves so far as they know of it and are desirous of Christian knowledge and seem willing to prepare themselves for it, in learning to read, for which they redeem the time from their labor. Many of them can read the Bible distinctly, and great numbers of them were learning when I left the province.29

An analysis of Equiano’s and Gronniosaw’s experience juxtaposed with Bacon’s and

Thomas’s suggest that perhaps rather than being “desirous of Christian knowledge”

enslaved Africans were desirous to understand the “talking books” that bound them to

enslavement. This is particularly true when we consider that Gronniosaw states, “[I] was

very sorry and greatly disappointed when I found it would not speak, this thought

immediately presented itself to me, that every body and every thing despis'd me because I

27. Ibid., v. 28. Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York: A&B Books,

1919), 26. 29. Ibid.,

65

was black.30 Gronniosaw’s inability to read the book signaled to him his social status as it

was linked to his African heritage. Presumably, this was the case for several other

Africans who were introduced to the British colonies via the slave trade. Gronniosaw

recounts his experience with his Christian conversion after being purchased by a minister.

He states,

He took me home with him, and made me kneel down, and put my two hands together, and pray'd for me, and every night and morning he did the same.--I could not make out what it was for, nor the meaning of it, nor what they spoke to when they talk'd--I thought it comical, but I lik'd it very well.--After I had been a little while with my new master I grew more familiar, and ask'd him the meaning of prayer: (I could hardly speak english to be understood) he took great pains with me, and made me understand that he pray'd to God, who liv'd in Heaven; that He was my Father and BEST Friend.--I told him that this must be a mistake; that my father liv'd at BOURNOU, and I wanted very much to see him, and likewise my dear mother, and sister, and I wish'd he would be so good as to send me home to them; and I added, all I could think of to induce him to convey me back. I appeared in great trouble, and my good master was so much affected that the tears ran down his face. He told me that God was a GREAT and GOOD SPIRIT, that He created all the world, and every person and thing in it, in Ethiopia, Africa, and America, and every where. I was delighted when I heard this: There, says I, I always thought so when I liv'd at home! Now if I had wings like an Eagle I would fly to tell my dear mother that God is greater than the sun, moon, and stars; and that they were made by Him.31

At first the idea of Christianity is comical to Gronniosaw because he had no cultural

context for prayer in this fashion. Furthermore, perhaps the enslaved seemed eager to

learn English so that they could express their wishes to be returned to their families in

Africa just as Gronniosaw did. However, as much as these enslaved Africans were able to

30. Gronniosaw, 10. 31. Ibid., 12.

66

gain access to the English language in order to express their concern, like Gronniosaw,

these Africans would remain in bondage detached from their families and homeland, but

slowly becoming attached to their captors’ language and religion that bound them to

servitude.

Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley are popular examples of enslaved Africans

who were taught to read and write during the eighteenth century. Jupiter Hammon was

born enslaved in the colony of New York on the Lloyd estate sometime between 1711

and 1716. Hammon was educated in both formal and religious settings with the Lloyd

children and allowed access to the family’s extensive library.32 Hammon became a

preacher and poet. His poem entitled An Evening’s Thought: Salvation by Christ, with

Penitential Cries was published in 1760, making him the first American African

published in what would become the United States. Phillis Wheatley was captured in

West Africa at the age of seven or eight and brought to America where she was

purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston in 1761. Young Phillis, named after the ship

that carried her to colonies, was educated by the Wheatley children who were a few years

older than her. Phillis is said to have been so intellectually advanced that she learned to

speak English fluently in only sixteen months. She was also proficient in Latin.33 Like

Hammon, Wheatley became a renowned poet and was heralded by both the colonists and

the English. Colonists and Englishmen were astonished at the intellectual capability of

32. Marion Wilson Starling, The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History (Washington

D.C.: Howard University Press, 1988), 55. 33. Woodson, 89.

67

Africans like Hammon and Wheatley. Carter. G. Woodson argues, that during the latter

part of the eighteenth -century enslaved Africans enjoyed a period of tremendous

intellectual development that would not come again until the Reconstruction Era.34

Perhaps the most contradictory and perplexing figure in the debate for the

education of the enslaved was Minister George Whitefield. Whitefield campaigned

extensively between 1748 and 1750 for the colony of Georgia to become a slave holding

state. Georgia had banned the practice of chattel slavery in 1735—the only British

American colony to ever do so.35 British colonists had originally intended for Georgia to

be a colony free from the practice of slavery. The colony was originally designed for the

production and exporting of wine and silk which would eliminate problems with trade

with the French and the Spanish and would not require slave labor to be lucrative. British

settlers in Georgia thought the process of creating wine and silk above the intelligence of

Africans and therefore hoped to make Georgia a place where the “common [white] man”

could be successful and thrive without the introduction of cash crops.36 Whitefield

opened an orphanage in Savannah, Georgia but insisted that the colony legalize slavery

because, to him, it was necessary in order to manage the land the orphanage sat on

without putting the orphans to work. Whitefield had much success with his plantation in

34. Ibid., 93. 35. Watson W. Jennison, Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia, 1750-1860

(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2012), 15. 36. Ibid., 14.

68

South Carolina and therefore urged lawmakers in Georgia to expand the system to the

newly formed colony.

Whitefield was heralded as the progenitor of the theological defense for chattel

slavery. He spread his message of white superiority through his traveling sermons

directed at both enslavers and the enslaved during the Great Awakening. However,

Whitefield is often considered the “first friend of the Negro.”37 Whitefield advocated for

humane treatment of the enslaved and urged other enslavers not to use physical abuse as

a means of punishment. He also advocated for the education of the enslaved. Although he

believed that simply learning to read and write did not a convert make. Whitefield

believed that “civilizing” the enslaved through the practice of education was not enough

in doing that job of converting them which created the necessity for frequent religious

instruction in a formalized setting.38 Bacon, Thomas, and Whitefield all represent white

Christians perpetual moral dilemma. Though they believed themselves to have a staunch

devotion to God, they consistently failed to act against the societal injustice of

dehumanization through chattel slavery.

On some occasions there were enslavers who endeavored to teach the enslaved to

read for practical and self-serving purposes, mainly business efficiency. Thomas

Jefferson is a perfect example of one such enslaver. Ben Schiller argues that an

investigation of letters written by the enslaved to their enslavers reveals not only the

37. Stephen J. Stein, “George Whitefield on Slavery: Some New Evidence,” Church History, 4,

no. 2 (June 1973), 243. 38. Ibid.

69

power dynamics of the enslaver and enslaved relationship, but also the utility of teaching

the enslaved to read and write for plantation operation purposes.39 Correspondence

between Thomas Jefferson and an enslaved woman named Hannah, a housekeeper on

Jefferson’s Poplar Forest estate, reveal that Jefferson was not only aware that she could

read and write, but also that he used her as a means of surveillance while he was away.40

A letter from Hannah to Jefferson states,

I write you a few lines to let you know that your home and furniture are all safe as I expect you will be glad to know[.] I heard that you did not expect to come up this fall[.] I was sorry to hear that you are so unwell you could not come[,] it grieve me many time[,] but I hope as you have been so blessed in this that you considered it was God that done it and no other one[:] we all ought to serve and obey his commandments that you may set to win the prize and after glory run.41

This report on the estate is revealing in that it demonstrates the utility of practical literacy

and teaching the enslaved to write for operational purposes. Hannah’s practical literacy

allowed Jefferson the ability to monitor the property from a distance. Her literacy served

to keep the established plantation order intact by serving as a benefit to her and Jefferson.

Hannah’s literacy was a benefit to herself, and possibly the entire enslaved community,

because it allowed her access to information that the majority of the those enslaved by

Jefferson did not have. She knew of his whereabouts and health from a distance. This is

information she would have been able to relay to the rest of the enslaved community at

39. Ben Schiller, “Learning Their Letters: Critical Literacy, Epistolary Culture and Slavery in the

Antebellum South,” Southern Quarterly, 43, no. 3 (Spring 2008), 11-29.

40. Ibid., 15.

41. Ibid.

70

Popular Forest. Hannah’s literacy was of benefit to Jefferson for no more obvious reason

than it allowed him to monitor his retreat home and his enslaved property from his

permanent residence.

On the other side of the enslaved literacy debate were colonists who thought it not

only ridiculous, but extremely dangerous to teach the enslaved to read and thought it out

of the question to teach them to write. These enslavers were convinced that teaching the

enslaved to read would have disastrous consequences. There were some who saw the

enslaved as mere work horses without human qualities and souls to save so they thought

religious instruction to be lost on the enslaved heathen. Others feared that educating the

enslaved would give them a false sense of equality with the colonists making it much

more difficult to maintain the exploitative system of labor. These sentiments are perhaps

most evident in the language of anti-literacy legislation that was passed in the colonies.

The very first anti-literacy legislation ever passed was the 1740 Slave Code of South

Carolina which forbade the enslaved from growing their own crops, convening without

white supervision, and from being taught to read or write. It explicitly states,

Whereas the having of slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attended with great inconveniences, Be it enacted, That all and every person and persons whatsoever who shall hereafter teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use or employ and slave as a scribe in any manner of writing hereafter taught to write, every such person or persons shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money.42

42. 1740 South Carolina Slave Code. Acts of the South Carolina General Assembly, 1740 # 670.

South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.

71

The 1740 Slave Code demonstrated the colonists’ fears as they were related to the “great

inconvenience” of African rebellion driven by literacy. This was a legitimate fear

considering that the legislation was passed as a response to the Stono Rebellion which

had occurred in September of 1739 and involved several literate African men.

On September 9, 1739, while most colonists were preparing for Sunday church

service and afternoon tea, a literate Kongolese man named Jemmy, also called Cato, and

twenty some other Africans gathered along the Stono River, about ten miles from

Charleston, and took up arms in the name of their freedom.43 Jemmy and his rebels

seized a storefront which contained firearms and marched south toward Florida

accompanied by two drummers and flying banners. They stopped and drummed, sang,

and danced calling for other Africans to come and join them in the revolution.44 The band

of twenty soon grew to be nearly ninety and they marched on killing any colonists they

encountered along the way. The rebels were eventually thwarted by a militia, but not

before engaging in a guerilla style combat which resulted in the death of twenty-five

colonists and between thirty to fifty Africans.45 Several of the rebels were able to escape

the skirmish but wound up in another battle with the militia days later that resulted in

most of their deaths and the sale of the rest to the West Indies to labor on grueling sugar

plantations.

43. Aptheker, 187-189. 44. Aptheker, 188; Thornton, 1102.

45. Aptheker, 189.

72

British colonists speculated that the rebellion was the result of Spanish meddling.

The Spanish were at odds with England and were suspected of stirring ideas of freedom

among the enslaved by offering them to live free in a settlement called Fort Mose, in St.

Augustine, Florida. Colonists believed the Spanish to have circulated literature containing

information about freedom in Fort. Mose among the enslaved.46 The cruelty and

mistreatment by the colonists, the Spanish promises of freedom and land, and the African

cultural background of the rebels contributed to their motivation to rebel.47

To understand the Stono Rebellion it is necessary to have a specific understanding

of the Kingdom of Kongo. Throughout the eighteenth century several civil wars broke

out in the region and the capture and sale of captive Africans—many of whom were

warriors who held elite positions in society—took place.48 Colonists speculated that

Jemmy and his Kongolese brethren were able to read the Spanish literature—having been

exposed to Portuguese in Africa as a result of the slave trade, and the languages are

similar— and communicate its message of freedom and land to the surrounding enslaved

community.49 The rebels’ literacy in conjunction with their elite warrior status and

training proved to be a terrifying and disastrous experience for the colonists.

46. Birgit Brander Rasmussen, “‘Attended with Great Inconveniences’: Slave Literacy and the

1740 South Carolina Negro Act,” PMLA, 125, no 1 (January 2010), 202.

47. Thornton, 1103. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid.

73

The Stono Rebellion was the largest and deadliest enslaved insurrection in the

British colonies. The social disruption caused by these literate Africans sent shockwaves

of terror throughout the colonies. Rather than totally abandon the system of

dehumanization and become self-sustaining farmers and businessmen the money hungry

colonists concluded that something had to be done in order to restore the social order of

European supremacy and African inferiority. Therefore, many of the rebels, including

Jemmy, were captured and hanged. Furthermore, several of their heads were severed and

placed upon stakes along the road they had previously marched down to terrify and

discourage the remaining enslaved population from rebellion and to re-enforce the

penalty for social disruption.

The Stono Rebellion revealed to the colonists that a literate enslaved population

was dangerous and had the potential to infringe up the established order of European

domination and African exploitation so much so that they resorted to legislation to re-

define and re-establish the parameters of their society and the place of Africans in it.

Intent on restoring order following the Stono Rebellion British colonists in South

Carolina passed the Slave Code of 1740. Georgia followed South Carolina’s example and

in 1755 and passed their own nearly identical legislation restricting the behavior of the

enslaved.50 Teaching the enslaved to write or employing them as scribes was also

outlawed in this slave code. Teaching slaves to read was not actually outlawed until 1770

50. Rasmussen, 202.

74

when the slave code was revised. Additional capital crimes included in the Slave Act of

1770 included insurrection or an attempt to incite insurrection.

These anti-literacy laws were the progeny of an already extensive system of slave

codes that had developed with the system of chattel slavery. Intellectual rebellion could

lead the enslaved to self-actualization that could in turn lead them to desire their freedom

through the colonists’ bloodshed. The creation of anti-literacy legislation intended to halt

the enslaved population’s intellectual development and social mobility and concretized

the maintenance of white supremacy as it was tied to the written word. This legislation

established European superiority as the law of the land—a pattern that would continue for

generations. An analysis of anti-literacy legislation is particularly important because

these laws reveal the ultimate official position of the white majority.51 Regardless of if

enslavers disobeyed the law for their own self-serving purposes or for religious

instruction the official law of the land reveals that the colonists were aware and fearful of

the potential for slave rebellion resulting from mental elevation.

Enslavers were furthermore concerned that the enslaved would become literate

and enter the philosophical conversation about what it meant to be a human being. This

was dangerous because it could potentially lead to the enslaved authoring their own

narratives about their experiences with the inhumanity of chattel slavery and in turn

distributing this message to the masses. It could furthermore allow the enslaved to

articulate their grievances in political arenas. Many colonists feared that should the

51. Jennison, 6.

75

enslaved be able to read and write, they would become fully aware of the human rights

violations done against them and seek violent revenge.

The fear of the correlation between enslaved literacy and slave rebellion in the

colonies existed as early as 1708.52 A missionary school in New York operated by a

white man named Elias Neau boasted an attendance of nearly two hundred enslaved and

free Africans.53 The school had been founded two years earlier as a result of the efforts of

religious leaders to provide enslaved Africans with religious instruction. Several Africans

who had organized themselves and planned to kill their captors were suspected of being

students of Neau. The school was immediately closed but reopened soon after an

investigation revealed that only one of the conspirators was a pupil of Neau’s.54

George Whitefield, the “first friend of the Negro,” was also fearful of slave

insurrection.55 Though Whitefield was a chief proponent of slavery in Georgia he was

consistently fearful of slave insurrection. Therefore, he advocated for the “fair and

humane” treatment of the enslaved. Part of this fair and human treatment was allowing

the enslaved to be educated so that they would not rebel. Whitefield has been described

as a “distracting compound of good and evil principles.”56 Whitefield’s fear of rebellion

52. Aptheker, 169. 53. Woodson, 27. 54. Ibid. 55. Stein, 243. 56. Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Reverend George Whitefield, B.A. (New York:

Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1877).

76

is evident in his entries from his journals. Thus, Whitefield sought to provide the

enslaved with kind treatment in order to stymie insurrection. In a journal entry from 1740

Whitefield writes of an encounter he had with an isolated enslaved community in South

Carolina which distressed him. He and some companions got lost on the road headed

from South Carolina to Georgia. He states,

The moon being totally eclipsed, we missed the path that turned out of the road…. We had not gone far when we saw a light. Two of my friends went up to it and found a hut full of negroes; they enquired after the gentleman’s house whither we had been directed, but the negroes seemed surprised, and said they knew no such man, and that they were new comers. From these circumstances, once of my friends inferred, that these negroes might be some of those who lately had made an insurrection in the province, and had run away from their masters. When he returned, we were all of his mind, and therefore, thought it best to mend our pace.57

Whitefield and his colleagues had a legitimate fear as this event took place only a few

months after the Stono Rebellion had devastated the colony. Whitefield continues,

Soon after, we saw another great fire near the roadside, and imagining there was another nest of such negroes, we made a circuit into the woods, and one of my friends at a distance observed them dancing round the fire. The moon shining brightly, we soon found our way to the road again; and after we had gone a dozen miles (expecting to see negroes in every place), we came to a great plantation, the master of which gave us lodging, and our beasts provender.58

To close the entry Whitefield explains his survival from the encounters with the potential

runaways as an “escape from great peril.”59

57. Stein, 246. 58. Ibid., 247. 59. Ibid.

77

Whitefield’s fear of what he thought were runaways is compelling for multiple

reasons. First, Whitefield considered himself a “friend of the Negro” therefore it’s strange

that he was flabbergasted by the number of enslaved people who appeared to be

unsupervised and surely in violation of multiple slave codes. Second, an analysis of

fugitive slave ads from the same era reveal the importance of the enslaved to the

maintenance of the plantation community and the necessity of having them returned by

any financial means necessary. Therefore, the idea of several enslaved people lurking in

the woods at night evading white capture was terrifying because it suggested an outward

defiance to the slave system. Third, the fear of enslaved insurrection was so great that it

nearly drove Whitefield to madness. Arguably, Whitefield is representative of most

enslavers during this era. Though many enslavers considered themselves kind to their

slaves, a deep-seated fear of resistance always floated through their consciousness and

was almost always a possible reality.

To expand on the significance of runaways during this time it is necessary to

engage fugitive slave advertisements that were posted in local newspapers. Fugitive slave

advertisements from the eighteenth century are key to understanding literacy in the

context of eighteenth-century plantation culture. The following ads from Virginia provide

insight into the intellectual capability and development of enslaved Africans during the

second half of the eighteenth century. Fugitive slave ads provide the colonists’

unconscious revelation of the intellectual progress of the enslaved.60 These

60. Woodson, 82.

78

advertisements provide critical information including thorough physical descriptions of

the fugitives. These descriptions include vital information about literate fugitives who

were seen, in many cases, as more threatening and less likely to be caught because they

carried forged papers and were more likely to pass for free people. For example, an

advertisement offers a reward for the capture of a fugitive by the name of Bob. The ad

contains a thorough physical description stating that Bob is “about 5 feet 7 inches high,

about 26 years of age, was burnt when young, by which he has a scar on the wrist of his

right hand, the thumb of his left hand burnt off, and the hand turns in; had on a double

breasted dark coloured frieze jacket and yellow cotton breeches.”61 The ad further states

that Bob had previously run away for eight years and passed as a free man in Charleston,

South Carolina and Hartford County, North Carolina before he was captured and returned

before running away again. The most revealing portion of the ad is the commentary on

Bob’s intellectual capacity. It states, “He can read and write; and, as he is a very artful

fellow, will probably forge a pass.”62 This ad is the first of many which refer to the

intelligence, or artfulness, of the enslaved as a result of their ability to read and write.

Other advertisements reveal the attachment the enslaved had to their intellectual

abilities and development and mention certain fugitives taking books and other writing

materials with them on their great escape. For example, an ad states that a runaway by the

name of Adam “Carried with him a light coloured suit of cloth cloaths, and other things

61. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, April 16, 1767. 62. Ibid.

79

unknown, and some books; as he can read and write an indifferent hand, he purposed,

when he went off, to forge himself a pass to go to Carolina, to pass as a freeman”.63 A

reward of forty shillings was offered for Adam’s return. Another advertisement speak of

a runaway named Gabriel who was “fond of reading” and was understood to have forged

a pass and would attempt to pass as a free man.64 Another ad references a runaway

named Dick that “he is a very artful cunning fellow, and I expect he will change his name

and pass for a freeman, he can read a little, and commonly carried a book with him”.65 A

one-hundred-dollar reward was offered for Dick’s apprehension. Another advertises for a

runaway known as Ned. The ad states that that Ned took with him “a white coat, jacket

and breeches, a ruffled shirt, a gray great coat, and baggage consisting of books, writing-

paper, and sundry old clothes. ---He can read and write, and may attempt to forge a

pass”.66 These ads demonstrate that even though anti-literacy legislation and slave codes

that prohibited reading and writing and had been in place for nearly four decades there

was a considerable number of enslaved people who defied the law and learned to read

and write and were this able to secure their freedom both intellectually and physically.

Many of the ads speak of the “artfulness” of fugitives. This artfulness is always

used in reference to these fugitive’s ability to pass forge free people as a result of their

63. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, February 22, 1770.

64. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, December 1, 1774. 65. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, July 31, 1779. 66. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Journal, August 18, 1785.

80

ability to read and write conjoined with adroit critical literacy. These fugitives were able

to use their literacy to disrupt power structure and take control of their own social

transformation. For example, an advertisement for a woman named Molly states, “As she

can read, and is handy at her needle, it is probable she will endeavour to pass as free

woman; she is very artful, and capable of inventing a falsehood.”67 An ad for fugitive

slave named Peter states that he was “an artful smooth talkative Fellow, can read and

write, and may probably have a forged Pass.”68 Another ad calls for the return of a

fugitive named Christmas. It states, “he can read, is very fluent of Speech, speaks with

great Propriety, and is so artful that he can invent a plausible Tale at a Moment's

Warning, which makes me suspect that he will now pass unmolested, under some

Pretence [sic] or other, as a Freeman, which I presume will be most desirable to him.”69

These fugitive slave ads help to dismantle the false notion held by colonists that the

enslaved were intellectually inferior to them.

The advertisements prove that several colonists were outsmarted by the enslaved

on multiple occasions and it cost them financially. Ultimately, the ads are a display of the

potential for enslaved resistance in the form of a mass exodus from plantations. The ads

illumine the power and importance of the intellectual development of the enslaved as it is

linked to disrupting the system of enslavement. To runaway humanized the enslaved as it

67. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, April 26, 1783.

68. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, February 21, 1771. 69. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Virginia Gazette, March 19, 1772.

81

allowed them to act on the realization of their human rights and the fact that no human

being is supposed to be kept in captivity and worked to death. Running away also

disrupted the financial stability of the colonies because African bodies served as a stream

of revenue outside of the labor said bodies could produce. The fugitives in the ads above

represent the potential of the enslaved to be self-determining in their lived experience and

their protentional to take flight if equipped with the intellectual tools for freedom.

Ultimately, what colonial anti-literacy legislation and fugitive slave

advertisements reveal is the underlying fear of African resistance driven by intellectual

freedom. Colonists were afraid of what being able to read and write could do for enslaved

Africans both intellectually and socially. Literacy would allow the enslaved to seize their

autonomy and navigate the human experience on their own terms. The ability to read and

write would allow them to enter the ongoing conversation about their human rights which

would ultimately lead to a conversation about their civil rights and equal participation in

the society that they were building on their backs.

Despite the majority of the colonists’ feelings that literacy had potential danger

attached to it, the enslaved continued to intellectually elevate and more and more became

practically literate. They were educated in a way that allowed them access to the basics of

literacy. Though colonial legislation and slave codes which prohibited the enslaved from

learning to read and write were created and updated in the decades between the Stono

Rebellion and the American Revolution many of the colonists chose to look the other

way and in defiance of the existing laws and allowed the instruction of the enslaved in

82

different ways. This explains the large number of fugitive slaves listed as literate in the

newspaper ads.

As the colonists were exerting their humanity and demanding freedom from the

oppression of the British during the American Revolutionary War era, which spanned

1775-1783, the enslaved were simultaneously grappling with the concept of freedom as

they watched the years long war play out between the colonists and the British. The

fundamental lesson the enslaved learned from the war was that the fight for freedom was

to be fought on multiple fronts. There were actual fisticuffs battles that were to be fought,

but there was also fundamental literature and legislation that accompanied the founding

of the new nation. The Declaration of Independence as authored by Virginia colonist and

enslaver Thomas Jefferson states,

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.70

70.Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence,” 1776.

83

It seems implausible and illogical that Thomas Jefferson and the founders of the United

States could exercise the language of freedom from oppression and human rights and at

the same time participate in the daily human rights violations of slavery. However,

Thomas Jefferson is representative of the hypocrisy of white supremacy in the United

States of America. Jefferson’s constant contradictions are representative of most

enslavers and American citizens at the time. They had a vested interest in their own

freedom from oppression, but in the same vein were oppressors themselves. It’s ironic

and despicable at the same time. Whether the founders of the United States of America

intended to inspire the enslaved with their declaration of freedom or not the American

rhetoric of freedom rang in the ears of the enslaved as well.

On the heels of the American Revolution, the small Caribbean island of Saint-

Dominque (St. Domingo) was rocked by the spirit of rebellion. Led by a literate and

formerly enslaved man named Toussaint L’Overture, the free and enslaved African

population, which was nearly ten times that of the French colonists, waged war for their

freedom from bondage against the French in 1781. News of the revolution traveled

throughout the slave-holding world and caused widespread alarm as far as the United

States. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 when the rebels defeated the last of the

European forces occupying the island and declared themselves the free nation of Haiti.

Haiti became the first free African colony in the Atlantic World.

The Haitian Revolution is the only armed enslaved insurrection that resulted in

the formation of an independent nation. The revolution undermined the prevailing white

supremacist notion that the enslaved were intellectually inferior to their enslavers. The

84

revolution and succeeding independence signified the intellectual and physical capability

of Africans and their descendants. In turn, this terrified slave owners in the United States

who feared that if given the opportunity the enslaved class would rise and claim the lives

and land of the slave holding class in the name of establishing their own independent

colony in the newly minted United States. The rebellion that lingered in the British

American colonies was clear and present in the United States. At this point, it was

inevitable that spirit of freedom and violent resistance would stir the enslaved in

America. It was only a matter of when.

A fugitive slave ad from September 12, 1800 published in the Norfolk Herald

offers a three-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of a fugitive by the name of Gabriel.

The ad states,

The public mind has been much involved in dangerous apprehensions, concerning an insurrection of the negroes in several parts of the adjacent counties...Such a thing has been in agitation among the blacks, principally instigated by an ambitious and insidious fellow, a slave, by the name of GABRIEL, the property of Mr. Thomas Prosser, of the county of Henrico. This villain, assuming to himself the appellation of General, through his artfulness, has caused some disturbance, having induced many poor, ignorant, and unfortunate creatures to share in his nefarious and horrid design. This plot which has been so deeply planned, and long matured, is, we hope, entirely exploded…. GABRIEL is a negro of a brown complexion, about 6 feet 3 or 4 inches, a bony face, well made, and very active, has two or three scars on his head, his hair very short, and has lost two front teeth. He can read and write, and perhaps will forge himself a pass, or certificate of his freedom, he is 24 or 25 years of age, but appears to be about 30.71

71. Fugitive Slave Advertisement, Norfolk Herald, September 16, 1800.

85

Gabriel’s plan for rebellion in Henrico County, Virginia was enslaver’s worst nightmare

come to life. Gabriel’s rebellion confirmed white fears of the consequences of slave

literacy and intellectual development. This fear influenced stricter slave codes and

legislation with much harsher punishments that would come to pass as a result of

widespread terror at the turn of the nineteenth century. Gabriel’s rebellion ushered in a

new era of white supremacist domination through the re-defining of the social hierarchy

in the antebellum south.

86

CHAPTER IV

GENERAL GABRIEL

In 1776, the United States of America became its own nation, independent of

British rule. Talk of liberty swirled in the air among gun and cannon smoke. The labor of

the American Revolution successfully birthed a new nation. By this time, Virginia had

long established itself as a tobacco colony, and the practice of chattel slavery had

considerably matured since the crop had first been successfully cultivated well over a

century before. Tobacco plantation owners ruled over the commonwealth, which had

become a leading exporter of tobacco. These planters continued the social order

established generations before them. This social order placed enslavers at the top of the

social pyramid—reaping all the benefits of the exploitation of enslaved labor—and

enslaved and free Africans at the bottom in what would become the black desperate class.

However, in the post-revolutionary moment, the economy of Virginia was declining

because of the land being worn out from the overproduction of tobacco and the decline in

tobacco prices because of the saturated market.

Prior to cotton taking hold as a major cash crop because of the invention of the

cotton gin, many enslavers in Virginia were uncertain about the future of chattel slavery

in post-revolution America. Emancipation of the enslaved seemed to be looming over the

87

heads of tobacco plantation owners and the descendants of Africa whom they enslaved.

Just as a free nation was being birthed, so too was a baby boy named Gabriel on Thomas

Henry Prosser’s Brookfield tobacco plantation. Thomas Prosser was a wealthy Virginia

enslaver in Henrico County claiming forty-eight enslaved men, women, and eleven

children as taxable property in 1783 and 17841 Prosser had one of the largest plantations

in the county and operated a local tavern. Prosser was a fixture in the city of Richmond.

Gabriel and his brothers, Martin and Solomon, grew up laboring on the Prosser

plantation. Like most enslaved children, their early years, between ages two and five,

consisted of playing and roaming on the plantation. As they grew to be about six or seven

enslaved children were often given light chores, such as picking leaves and collecting and

carrying wood. Some children were required to work in the enslavers’ home as house

servants. It is possible that Gabriel was initially assigned to work in the big house.

Gabriel was about the same age as Prosser’s son who was also named Thomas. Being that

the boys were the same age it is also likely that Gabriel was young Thomas’s slave and

was tasked with serving the boy. As often happened, it is likely that the two developed a

friendship—unaware at their young age that a friendship like theirs was impossible to

maintain. Historians Douglas Egerton and Michael Nicholls have argued that Gabriel was

most likely taught to read by young Thomas Prosser. This would have most likely taken

place in the confines of the Prosser home or the surrounding plantation. The WPA

narratives reveal that these types of relationships happened frequently. The narrative of a

1. Charles Schwarz, Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History (Charlottesville: University of

Virginia Press, 2012), 1.

88

formerly enslaved man from Virginia named Duncan reveals the experience of children

on the plantation and the relationships they formed with white children. The interviewer

states,

Most of the time of the slave children was sent in playing ball and wrestling and foraging the woods for berries and fruits and playing games as other children. They were often joined in their play by the master’s children, who taught them to read and write and fired Duncan with the ambition to be free, so that he could ‘wear a frill on his collar and own a pair of shoes that did not have brass caps on the toes’ and require the application of the fat to make them shine.2

This example is analogues to the relationship the young Prosser and Gabriel likely had

during the late eighteenth century.

Perhaps Gabriel learned to read in between racing Thomas through the tobacco

fields and conducting his assigned chores. Seemingly, the older Prosser was aware that

young Gabriel could read and thought him a precocious child of elevated intellect for a

slave. In fact, there were several enslaved men and women who learned to read,

particularly in Virginia, in the post American Revolution era. Violet J. Harris argues that

between 1700 and 1799 an emergent tradition of African American literacy was taking

shape. She argues that during this era, the “seeds for literacy” were sown with “a focus on

basic acquisition and the use of literacy in the struggle for emancipation and equality.”3

According to Harris, by the year 1800, fifteen to twenty percent of African Americans

2. Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, 3, Florida, Anderson-Wilson with combined interviews of others. (1936), 134.

3. Violet J. Harris, “African American Conceptions of Literacy: A Historical Perspective,” Theory into Practice. 31, no. 4 (August 2010), 279.

89

could read.4 Gabriel. his brothers, and several others were among the fifteen to twenty

percent of literate enslaved persons approaching the turn of the nineteenth century.

Prosser must have known the value of the enslaved boy knowing how to read and

write and how he could use Gabriel’s intellect in service of his plantation. Thus,

sometime around 1789 and 1790 when Gabriel was thirteen- or fourteen-years old the

elder Prosser took the tall and muscular teenager, about thirteen or fourteen years old, and

made him a blacksmith’s apprentice. Blacksmithing was a trade that required intellect,

patience, and skill. According to James E. Newton, in “Slave Artisans and Craftsmen:

The Roots of Afro-American Art,” “The favorite slave-type to be trained as artisans and

craftsmen were ‘country born,’ healthy, alert black males in their early teens. They

usually possessed more than average intelligence and were frequently referred to as being

‘artful,’ ‘sensible,’ and ‘ingenious’.”5 Per Newton’s suggestion, Gabriel was the

prototype for the perfect blacksmith. Blacksmithing was a labor reserved for a few

enslaved males and was often passed down from generation to generation. It required

extensive training and apprenticeship. Because both Gabriel and Solomon became

blacksmiths, historians, such as Michael L. Nicholls, argue that their father or eldest

brother Martin could also have been a blacksmith.6 Were that the case, it is possible that

Martin apprenticed his younger brothers in the trade.

4. Ibid., 5. James E. Newton, “Slave Artisans and Craftsmen: The Roots of Afro-American Art,” The Black

Scholar, 9, No. 3, Plastic Arts and Crafts (November 1977), 37. 6. Michael L. Nicholls, Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating Gabriel’s Conspiracy (Charlottesville:

University of Virginia Press, 2012), 26.

90

In most instances, enslaved teenagers were assigned to work under an older slave

who would teach them a skillset. Enslavers hoped that through apprenticeship, should

anything happen to the older slave, they would have an automatic replacement and would

no time or money would be lost. As a blacksmith’s apprentice, Gabriel was forced to

work in the sweltering plantation foundry where the fire was constantly burning. He

learned to heat wrought iron in the fire and forge it through constant hammering against

an anvil. Blacksmiths were responsible for making essential items such as pots and pans,

plates and bowls, flatware, stoves, horseshoes, wrought iron gates, railings, andirons, and

various tools and work instruments like hoes, axes, and hammers. Among these items,

Newton states, many blacksmiths were responsible for “forging chains, irons, shackles,

and slave bells used to harness other slaves.”7 Entry into a life a labor was often difficult

for enslaved adolescents because it introduced them to the master/slave

dominant/subordinate relationship.

In Stolen Childhood, Wilma King states that “Regardless of the ages and levels of

maturity, the extent to which they adjusted to authority and their attitudes about work

were linked to the conditions under which they toiled and the treatment they received.

Entrance into the world of work was a lifer altering experience for many boys and girls.”8

Like other enslaved children, Gabriel’s transition to blacksmith labor and the fashioning

7. Newton, 39. 8. Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 2011), 72.

91

of chains and shackles was most likely jarring to him. It likely forced him to realize how

truly different he was from young Thomas Prosser. He was forced to toil in the sweltering

blacksmith’s cabin while Thomas enjoyed the opulence and amenities that came with

being a wealthy enslaver’s son. The transition to labor was likely an experience that made

Gabriel question the logic of slavery and thrust him into deep thought forcing him to

question anything and everything that he had ever known and the rhetoric of liberty that

he grew up hearing about as he stood sweating over the fire.

According to Daina Ramey Berry in The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The

Value of the Enslaved, from the Womb to the Grave, In the Building of a Nation, the

adolescent years were terrifying for multiple reasons.9 As teenagers, the enslaved could

be bought and sold away from their family at any time. Furthermore, as their bodies

matured their chances of being able to reproduce and bring forth the next generation of

laborers was on the horizon, which meant that they would soon be in their reproductive

prime and could exploited for not only their labor, but their reproductive capabilities.

Berry argues that for enslaved children “The first decade of their lives oscillated between

innocence and adolescent joy to the stark reality of their status as chattel—or human

property.”10 By adolescence, the labor lines were clearly defined, and enslaved children

were assigned to what would be their lifelong work. Many were sent to the fields to do

9. Daina Ramey Berry, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from the

Womb to the Grave, In the Building of a Nation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2017), 61. 10. Ibid., 35.

92

the laborious work of planting and harvesting, others worked in the house and were

trained how to be silent ornaments swiftly yet quietly moving about tending to the

enslavers’ every want, and others like Gabriel, became the apprentices of skilled artisans

like blacksmiths and carpenters.

Wilma King states, “A decision that boys would acquire skills associate with

smithing channeled them into a trade which created opportunities to travel, hire their own

time, earn money, and purchase necessities, trinkets, or freedom.”11 Blacksmithing was

an aspect of the plantation economy that came with mobility denied most of the enslaved

community. An important aspect of blacksmithing was the travel associated with the job.

Blacksmiths were often leased to other plantations as contract laborers. They would load

up their horse and wagon and travel between counties, from plantation to plantation,

negotiating contracts, rendering services, and collecting payment—some of which they

were allowed to keep for themselves the rest they would give over to their enslaver. With

his apprenticeship, Gabriel entered a circle of enslaved men who were skilled artisans and

craftsmen in the city of Richmond. Contrary to simplistic notions of enslavement as

plantation work, is the truth that slavery provided the economic basis upon which all

southern cities operated. In Richmond, there were several enslaved Africans and—by

now—African Americans who worked on plantations cultivating wheat, corn, and

tobacco. Others built bridges and dug ditches while others worked on boats along the

James River and labored in rope factories, tanneries, forges, and mines. On larger

11. King, 74.

93

plantations in Virginia, enslaved individuals worked as sawyers, carpenters, blacksmiths,

and coopers.12 Furthermore, several of these workers were literate and accustomed to

traveling throughout the city alone, negotiating work contracts, and receiving payments

for their labor. Midori Takagi, author of Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction:

Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782-1865, argues that the industrialization of Richmond

created highly skilled workers and that the slave community in Richmond was unlike

many other southern cities in terms of its “diversity of experience, collective ability,

individual skills, and knowledge.”13

This was Gabriel’s life. As an adolescent blacksmith he was introduced to the

world outside of the Prosser plantation. Under the tutelage of the older blacksmith,

Gabriel traveled between counties learning the trade but also observing the vastness of

Richmond. He also encountered other skilled artisans and their apprentices on their

travels. Their mentors would stop to chat, and the teenage boys would observe their

surroundings having never been this far off their plantations before. Gabriel marveled at

the James River, but he also noticed the slave ships rolling into dock and the African

men, women, and children who were offloaded shackled at the neck, wrists, and feet and

marched nearly two miles from the dock to the auction block in Shockoe Bottom in the

heart of Richmond. He noticed all the men, women, and children who looked like him

12. Robert McColley, “Slavery in Jefferson’s Virginia,” Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley

American Studies Association, 1, No.1 (Spring 1960), 25. 13. Midori Takagi, Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782-

1865, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999), 5.

94

and his family and labored in the tobacco fields that looked like they went on forever as

he rode by on the wagon back to Prosser’s Brookfield plantation.

As his mentor drove along the dusty bumpy Richmond roads, Gabriel sat at his

side and read from the Bible. As he read, he likely thought about the ideals of freedom

and salvation and if it were possible that he might ever have either. On his travels

throughout the city Gabriel began to hear rumors about the rebellion that was taking

shape on the island of San Domingo. There, the enslaved were waging war against the

French for their freedom. It is likely that the teenage Gabriel encountered newspapers that

revealed what was happening on the island. The newspapers were a major source of

information for both enslaved and free African Americans. Historian Jeffrey Pasley

argues that newspaper content was widely circulated, because the papers were often read

to large groups of people in taverns, coffee houses, oyster bars, dance clubs, and hotels.14

Newspapers were also used in daily activities such as cleaning and wall papering which

left print media in the near access of the enslaved daily.

The Haitian Revolution was a popular topic in American newspapers during

Gabriel’s era. The ongoing revolution that raged on the island served as an example of

self-determination that enslaved African Americans in the United States were able to

draw from. The Haitian revolution was not only a testament to the collective strength of

the descendants of Africa but also their intellectual capability and fortitude. Haiti’s

success would determine if the descendants of Africa who had been enslaved throughout

14. Jeffrey L. Pasley, The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American

Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003).

95

the diaspora would defy their intended dehumanization and rise to form their own nation.

This was undoubtedly inspiring information to members of the enslaved community in

Richmond, especially Gabriel.

As the years passed, Gabriel mastered the craft of blacksmithing. As his

knowledge developed so too did his height and strength. He grew to be six three or foot

four inches tall and was extremely muscular because of the constant lifting and

hammering of iron. Young adult Gabriel, a seasoned blacksmith by this time, now

traveled alone throughout Richmond waving to the enslaved communities who had come

to know him from his frequent trips past their plantations. An avid reader, Gabriel spent

his trips between plantations and Prosser’s tavern reading his favorite Bible passages and

the newspapers.

The papers reported that the rebellion in San Domingo had been ongoing for years

without a near end in sight. Gabriel mediated on what it would take to bring about a

rebellion. He thought it might be possible but would ultimately be a death trap. He also

meditated on the scriptures in the Bible and how his eldest brother Martin, the plantation

preacher, who would preach, “I read in my bible, where God says, if we will worship

him, we should have peace in all our land; five of you shall conquer an hundred & a

hundred thousand of our enemies.”15 Martin was excitable and full of wisdom and

Gabriel adored him for that. Solomon grew just as Gabriel did and became a talented

blacksmith in his own right. Solomon was also literate and undoubtedly underwent the

15. Schwarz, 76.

96

same apprenticing process as his brother. It is likely that Solomon also read the Bible and

the newspaper and discussed freedom with his brother as they worked over the fire

fashioned plantation necessities. Thomas Prosser had one of the largest plantations in

Richmond so having two blacksmiths would not have been out of the ordinary in that it

was an opportunity to make money outside of the production of tobacco. Two

blacksmiths meant steady income.

As a young adult, Gabriel married a young enslaved woman named Nanny who

was also enslaved on the Prosser plantation. According to John Blassingame in Slave

Community,

Slaveholders sometimes encouraged monogamous mating arrangement because of their religious views, they generally did so to make it easier to discipline their slaves. A black man, they reasoned, who loved his wife and his children was less likely to be rebellious or to run away that would a “single” slave. The simple threat of being separated from his family was generally sufficient to subdue the most rebellious “married” slave.16

Gabriel’s marriage to Nanny had to have been the next major event in his life after

becoming a blacksmith. Blassingame states that “After marriage, the slave faced almost

insurmountable odds in his efforts to build a strong stable family.”17 Gabriel’s marriage

to Nanny signaled his transition into manhood and saddled him with the responsibility of

her safety and well-being—a task nearly impossible for an enslaved man. It is unclear

whether Nanny was a field hand, house servant, or some sort of skill craftswoman, such

16. John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1979), 151.

17. Ibid., 172.

97

as a seamstress, but she likely spent all her time on Prosser’s Brookfield plantation.

Women were rarely afforded the same type of mobility as skilled artisans who were

almost always men. According to Deborah Gray White, author of Aren’t I a Woman:

Female Slaves in the Plantation South, “More male than female slaves were artisans and

craftsman, and this made it more difficult to hire out a female slave than a male slave.”18

Enslaved women were almost always relegated to plantation work either in the fields or

in the big house. Gray White continues: “The division of labor on most plantations

conferred greater mobility on the male than on female slaves. Few chores performed by

bondwomen took them off the plantation.”19 Enslaved women’s daily tasks situated them

before their enslaver’s eyes. With marriage Gabriel and Nanny entered a contract that

would have been beneficial to Prosser and most likely yield the next generation of

blacksmiths that would labor on the Prosser plantation, a reality that likely troubled

Gabriel.

In the fall of 1799, twenty-four- or five-year old Gabriel, now in his adult prime,

had a physical altercation with a neighboring enslaver named Absalom Johnson. The

court records state that Gabriel was charged with maiming Johnson by “biting off a

considerable part of his left ear.”20 This event is suspected to have stemmed from another

incident with another enslaved man named Jupiter who had been charged with stealing a

18. Deborah Gray White, Aren’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York:

W. W. Norton & Company), 76.

19. Ibid., 75. 20. Schwarz, 5.

98

hog. Solomon also had some sort of altercation with Johnson during which Solomon

threatened to “destroy him [Johnson] or his property by fire or other ways.”21 Historians

argue that these three events were connected in some way.22 Jupiter was sentenced to

thirty-nine lashes on his bare back to take place at the public whipping post.23 Solomon’s

case was dismissed, and he was released.

Gabriel was tried and found guilty. However, he was able to plead “benefit of

clergy”. Benefit of clergy was a long-established criminal law procedure which had long

existed in England and throughout the British colonies (Sawyer, 49). In its origin benefit

of clergy was a one-time privilege which served for the educated and for clergy as a

means for avoiding capital punishment. This privilege was extended to enslaved

defendants of some capital crimes during the early eighteenth century.24 As early as

1723, it was extended to Virginia slaves, and remained in place in some areas until

1848.25 In its origin, benefit of clergy was reserved for those who could read specific

passages from the Bible. However, it was accompanied by the physical punishment of

branding on the left hand. While indeed a painful punishment, it surely outweighed death.

21. Ibid., 5.

22. Douglas Egerton, Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802

(Durham: University of North Carolina, 2000).; Charles Schwarz, Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012); Michael L. Nicholls, Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating Gabriel’s Conspiracy (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 26.

23. Schwarz, 4. 24. Nicholls, 26. 25. Schwarz, 5.

99

Gabriel’s ability to plead benefit of clergy is shocking given the severity of his

crime—especially when taking into consideration that the Virginia slave codes allowed

for death as a result of lifting a hand to a white man. However, according to historian

Jeffrey K. Sawyer, Virginia law allowed first time felony offenders, including the

enslaved, who were to be hanged for their crime to plead benefit of clergy except in the

case of manslaughter.26 Gabriel’s literacy and familiarity with the Bible served him in

this very important moment. It is not clear whether Gabriel had to read or recite a

passage—because at one point the benefit of clergy was extended to the illiterate and the

literacy test was taken away—but it is clear that without him being literate and being able

to recite the passage it is unlikely that he would have been granted benefit of clergy and

could have faced a severe public flogging like Jupiter or perhaps worse.

Benefit of clergy required one to have a necessary command of the English

language. Gabriel’s articulation of the Bible passage had to have been not only masterful,

but most likely astounding to white court officials. Gabriel was familiar with the Bible.

He likely had passages that he remembered from his close reads on his trips around town.

Possibly, he committed the scriptures to memory resulting from the number of times he

encountered them. Reading was likely a daily occurrence for Gabriel. Furthermore,

Martin being the plantation preacher had certainly had an impact on him most of his life.

He admired Martin and his ability to deliver the word in a way that people could

understand. Thus, Gabriel, who by this point in his life was missing his two front teeth,

26. Jeffrey K. Sawyer, “"Benefit of Clergy" in Maryland and Virginia,” The American Journal of

Legal History, 34, No. 1 (Jan. 1990), 63.

100

delivered a captivating and charismatic performance of the scripture—which he knew

like the back of his large and calloused hand. He was so convincing that the magistrate

spared his life but branded his left hand. Gabriel probably winced at the pain of the iron

but knew his pain threshold could withstand it having been burned by hot irons from the

fire for years. Little did the magistrates know, Gabriel’s benefit of clergy performance

was a public hoax. Following his release, Gabriel began to harass Absalom Johnson

threatening to “injure him or his property.”27 Nearly a month after Gabriel’s branding, the

court ordered Thomas Prosser to post a thousand dollar bond and “find security for the

good behavior of the said Gabriel and his keeping peace towards all the good people of

the Commonwealth for the space of twelve months from this time…”28 Prosser and the

white citizens of Richmond would soon find out that Gabriel had no investment in

maintaining peace in Henrico County.

For a decade, Gabriel had been traveling throughout Richmond conducting his

blacksmith duties. Through this trade he encountered several other artisans whom he

befriended. These men would stop in the road to chat or gather at the local tavern and

converse and complain about enslaved life and labor. One of these artisans was an

enslaved man named Sam Byrd. It is likely that, like Gabriel, Sam had the same access to

the Bible and newspapers and the rhetoric of freedom and that he had constructed his

own ideologies of freedom. Thus, Sam Byrd began to recruit enslaved men to join a plan

27. Schwarz, 6.

28. Ibid.

101

for “meditated war” against the white enslaving citizens of Richmond.29 Along the way

another enslaved man named Jack Bowler joined the conspiracy. Jack, also known as

Jack Ditcher—because of his line of work digging ditches—was enormous and was said

to be about six foot four or five. He was described by his enslaver as being “as strong as

any man in the state.”30 Jack conceptualized his own ideals of freedom that drove his

participation in the rebellion. He remarked that “We have as much right to fight for our

liberty as any Men.”31 After Gabriel’s repeated quarrels with Absalom Johnson and

beating the judicial system, he was approached by Jack to join the plan for rebellion. The

moment he had been waiting for a decade had finally presented itself. Gabriel was

empowered to know that other men wanted the same thing that he wanted out of life: life:

liberty or death. By the time Gabriel was recruited, possibly eighty others had already

committed themselves to the fight for freedom.32

Soon after joining the rebellion Gabriel went about the business of recruiting

additional participants. First, he recruited his brother Solomon. Using his relationships he

had been fostering for years and riding the wave of his court victory Gabriel was able to

rally the enslaved community to join in the rebellion as he drove from plantation to

plantation continuing his duties as normal. Gabriel claimed to have recruited “Nearly

10,000 Men—He had 1000 in Richmond, about 600 in Caroline, and nearly 500 at the

29. Ibid., 75. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 182. 32. Ibid., 75.

102

Coal pits, besides others at different places, and that he expected that poor White people

would join him all the, and that 2 frenchmen had actually joined.”33 A naturally

charismatic person, Gabriel was able to deliver a message about freedom that had likely

been kindling inside him for a decade, Gabriel’s articulation of a message of liberty was

well thought out and convincing. He was able to sway members of the enslaved to join

the rebellion because they trusted him and because he harmed a white man and lived to

tell the tale. To them, he was fearless.

For at least two months, and perhaps even a year, a plan for freedom had been

hatched during several secret meetings. Gabriel, Jack, Sam, Solomon and two other

enslaved and literate artisans named George and Gilbert continued to recruit people to

join in the rebellion. Sam alleged to have a list of five hundred names of men willing to

participate.34 Solomon and Gabriel also kept lists of the men they recruited. The men

went all over Richmond recruiting from different counties. They recruited at barbeques,

fish fries, after church, on different plantations in the slave quarters, and in blacksmith

forges and the local tavern.35 Once recruited the new enlistees were invited to secret

meetings that took place in the still of the night.

Though recruiting was taking place it was clear that an identifiable leader had not

yet emerged and that it would be impossible to effectively carry out a rebellion without a

33. Ibid., 152. 34. Ibid., 500. 35. Nicholls, 52.

103

general. The general would have to be the total package. He would have to have intellect

and strength. People would have to believe in his vision for freedom as well as his ability

to protect them. He would also have to have an element of charisma and a way with

words that would draw people to him. That man was Gabriel. At one of their secret

assemblies, a vote among the rebels was conducted and Gabriel emerged as the leader.

Jack Ditcher, who contended with Gabriel for leadership, was appointed second in

command.36 Gabriel was not only the right choice. He was the only choice. Gabriel was

elected general because of his ability to communicate a message that the masses believed

in and were willing to fight and therefore recruit more men than anyone else. Moreover,

Gabriel was able to deliver a message that transcended racial boundaries and resonated

with poor whites. He was a charismatic character and a local legend because of his

constant successful antagonizing of Absalom Johnson.

Gabriel was the perfect general. He stood tall—between six foot three or four—

and was surely physically intimidating. He had the physical and intellectual fortitude that

made the enslaved community believe that he was brilliant and fearless, and freedom was

a real possibility under his leadership. He was able to provide identifiable leadership and

a sustainable ideology. The fact that a decision of leadership came down to a vote also

signifies the enslaved community’s understanding of democracy in the formation of

nationhood. The fairest thing to do was let the people decide who they would follow. It

36. Ibid., 181.

104

appears that the enslaved community of Richmond had a greater and perhaps more

sophisticated understanding of democracy than their enslavers.

Gabriel’s plan was to attack and take Richmond in order to end slavery. He

devised a three-pronged attack on the city. Some of the men would go to the lower part of

town and set fire to the wood structures to draw the white male residents out to fight the

blaze. The center column of men would attack the firefighters and take over the

penitentiary, the powder magazine, and state arms depot at the capital. The rebels

intended to then seize Governor James Monroe and kill him. Once fully armed and in

control, they would stamp out slavery by killing the rest of Richmond’s white citizens—

sparing the Quakers, Methodists, and Frenchmen—and take the city for themselves.37

Gabriel and Solomon’s skillset as blacksmiths was critical to the execution of the

plan. Together, they created most of the weapons that would be used in the rebellion.

They refashioned several scythe blades into swords, created spears by attaching the

bayonets from guns to the ends of poles, collected bullets, and repaired firearms.

Solomon carried out multiple tasks at his brother’s request. He was appointed treasurer

and was tasked with collecting money to purchase liquor for recruiting and gun powder.

Martin’s wisdom was also invaluable to Gabriel. He thought his older brother too old to

participate in the rebellion but used Martin to bring a word from the scripture to begin the

secret planning sessions. Martin’s readings helped to set the tone for these meetings and

offered a legitimate ground for freedom as ordained by God. Martin also made bullets

37. Ibid., 152.

105

alongside Gabriel.38 Gabriel valued Martin’s intellect and input even if he would not be

on the battlefield with them. Other men, like Jack, gathered several pounds of gun

powder and musket balls. Several of the men already possessed firearms they stole from

their enslavers and they planned to steal more. Gilbert and Gabriel agreed to purchase a

piece of silk in order to make a flag on which they would write “death or liberty”—the

same motto as the rebels in Haiti as well as the patriots who enslaved them during the

American Revolution.39 They were prepared to seize their freedom. The rebellion was set

for the evening August 2, 1800. It was expected that nearly one thousand enslaved and

free men from surrounding counties would participate in the plan to take Richmond and

wage war against the white people

On the night of August 30, 1800, torrential rain fell in Richmond and washed out

the major thruways. This rainfall signaled the many tears that were to be shed in the

coming months in Henrico County. Gabriel, Nanny, Martin, Solomon, Jack, Gilbert,

Sam, George and others made it to the assigned rendezvous point but because of the

storm several committed parties did not show, and the insurrection was postponed to the

following evening. Two slaves, regretting their decision to partake in insurrection,

revealed the plan to their enslavers. A militia was expeditiously organized by Governor

James Monroe to quell the rebellion and capture its conspirators. Gabriel and Jack fled

and remained at large while others were quickly rounded up, jailed, tried, and hanged for

38. Nicholls, 47.

39. Schwarz, 152.

106

their violations against the safety of the Richmond community. Solomon was tried first

for advising, consulting, conspiring and plotting to rebel and make insurrection against

the laws and government of the commonwealth on September 11, 1800.40 He was found

guilty and hanged September 12. That same day, Martin was tried for the same crimes as

his little brother and found guilty. He likely squeezed his eyes shut tight and prayed for

his other brother as he was hanged three days later. Gabriel remained at large.

The fugitive slave advertisement that ran in the paper after Gabriel fled stated:

The public mind has been much involved in dangerous apprehensions, concerning an insurrection of the negroes in several parts of the adjacent counties...Such a thing has been in agitation among the blacks, principally instigated by an ambitious and insidious fellow, a slave, by the name of GABRIEL, the property of Mr. Thomas Prosser, of the county of Henrico. This villain, assuming to himself the appellation of General, through his artfulness, has caused some disturbance, having induced many poor, ignorant, and unfortunate creatures to share in his nefarious and horrid design. This plot which has been so deeply planned, and long matured, is, we hope, entirely exploded….GABRIEL is a negro of a brown complexion, about 6 feet 3 or 4 inches, a bony face, well made, and very active, has two or three scars on his head, his hair very short, and has lost two front teeth. He can read and write, and perhaps will forge himself a pass, or certificate of his freedom, he is 24 or 25 years of age, but appears to be about 30.41

The language used in this advertisement to describe Gabriel is in stark contrast to other

advertisements. Unlike other fugitive slave advertisements, several adjectives are used

here to describe Gabriel intellectually and physically. The advertisement reveals that

physical appearance was just as important as his intellectual capabilities. The language in

40. Richmond Court of Oyer and Terminer v Gabriel, Property of Thomas H. Prosser (October 6,

1800). 41. Norfolk Herald, September 16, 1800.

107

the advertisement reveals white citizens perception of the effects of literacy and Gabriel’s

intellect. They refer to him as “ambitious” and “artful”. These are not physical

characteristics as much as they speak to Gabriel’s intellectual ability to carry out a

premeditated plan. Even the reference to the having “induced many poor, ignorant, and

unfortunate creatures” speaks to enslavers perception of the majority of the enslaved as

incapable of intellectual thought and sound reasoning regarding their freedom. They

figured that Gabriel’s strength was not only in his physical stature but in his literacy and

his ability to articulate a message that the enslaved community could believe in—much

like his namesake, Gabriel the archangel. They also underestimated the political maturity

of the enslaved community and Gabriel, in thinking that Gabriel appointed himself

general rather than being elected. Essentially, the add reveals that to the white citizens of

Richmond, Gabriel was intellectually elevated in a dangerous way.

General Gabriel ran four miles before he hailed a schooner coming down the James

River and was allowed aboard by an enslaved man working on the vessel. Gabriel was

armed, carrying “a bayonet fixed on a stick which he threw into the river.”42 The ship’s

captain interrogated Gabriel—who lied and told him his name was Daniel. Intriguingly,

Gabriel was not carrying forged papers. He had most likely anticipated the plan would be

a success and thought them unnecessary in the fight for freedom. Not having any pass or

freedom papers, the enslaved man working on the schooner identified him as the

42. Schwarz, 101.

108

“ambitious and insidious” Gabriel for which a three-hundred-dollar reward had been

offered

Gabriel was officially turned over to authorities by the men working the vessel in

Norfolk and shipped back to Richmond in late September. He was then marched to

Governor Monroe’s home. Monroe reported to the Virginia council that Gabriel “was

brought to my house yesterday about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and a great cloud of

blacks as well as whites, gathered around him.”43 Gabriel’s plan and great escape must

have energized and terrified the enslaved community and simply terrified enslavers

throughout the state. They all flocked to see the great general—a man who had defied the

law on more than one occasion. On October 6, 1800 General Gabriel faced trial for

“unlawfully advising, consulting, conspiring and plotting how to rebel and make

insurrection against the laws and government of the said commonwealth and to murder

diverse persons citizens of the said commonwealth.”44 He is recorded in the court

documents from his trial as being stoic and having very little to say regarding the plot for

insurrection. Gabriel was found guilty and hanged at the city gallows—where an African

burial ground currently sits in downtown Richmond, Virginia—on October 10.

One of Gabriel’s more outspoken conspirators stated at trial that “I have nothing more

to offer than what general Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the

43. Ibid., xxxi. 44. Richmond Court of Oyer and Terminer v Gabriel, Property of Thomas H. Prosser (October 6,

1800).

109

British and put to trial by them. I have adventured my life in endeavoring to obtain the

liberty of my country men, and am a willing sacrifice in their cause…”45 These

sentiments illumine the fact that Gabriel and his rebels were acting in the American

tradition of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—rhetoric that most of these men

grew up hearing in Virginia. The betrayal of Tom and Pharaoh, along with the testimony

of two other conspirators both named Ben—Ben, from the Prosser plantation—“Prosser’s

Ben,” and Ben Woolfolk—resulted in the execution of twenty-six men and the

transportation and sale of at least nine others—including Jack who eventually came out

of hiding on October 10, 1800—to the deep south to be “broken” by cruel enslavers and

forced to perform hard labor. While Richmond’s white citizens were convinced that they

had instilled order and protected their sanity by “exploding the plan” they exploded the

hearts of enslaved women, like Gabriel’s wife Nanny, and children in Richmond who

watched some of their heroes hang and the others loaded onto the back of wagons never

to be seen again.

Gabriel’s life from ages thirteen to twenty-four reveal that, ultimately, Gabriel’s

rebellion was the result of ideas of freedom that Gabriel conceptualized as a teenage boy

and apprentice. By the time the plan for rebellion took place Gabriel had been harboring

feelings of resentment toward the system of chattel slavery and the desire for freedom for

a decade. He saw the contradiction of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as was

presented by the nation’s enslaver forefathers. He knew that Blacks were fighting for

45. Schwarz, xv.

110

their freedom in Haiti. By the time Gabriel was thirteen he began the logical reasoning

process. The idea of freedom was kindling inside of him as he grew and experienced life.

Gabriel was a multi-dimensional being. His mind, body, and spirit operated as a unit.

Gabriel was a seer. He was the eyes of the community. He was the watcher and purveyor

and he saw things very clearly. He was the teacher. He was the mouthpiece and

motivator. He was able to articulate his ideas with clarity and ease. He was

compassionate. He was a leader. He shouldered the responsibility of the community. As

he stood over the fire, he forged the enslaved community’s desire for freedom with

American ideologies of freedom in the hope of creating a Black republic. He sought to

hold America accountable for alleging that all men were created equal. He did not break

or bend. He was an inspiration.

The enslaved community suffered many great loses as a result of Gabriel and his

comrades’ plan for insurrection. They bore the scars of the thwarted plan for freedom. In

the aftermath of the conspiracy, city and state officials updated existing slave codes with

harsher penalties, adding new codes to establish a standard of appropriate behavior for

the enslaved. They sought to prevent such a thing from happening again. Gabriel’s

conspiracy was surely terrifying to the white citizens of Richmond. According to Midori

Takagi, between 1801 and 1840, enslaved activities that were said to have enabled

Gabriel to plot against the republic were restricted and eliminated.46 Following the plan

for rebellion, the enslaved in Richmond were not allowed to play cards, roll dice, gamble,

46. Takagi, 65.

111

or attend horse races or cockfights. The enslaved who could leave their plantations were

always required to carry a pass bearing their name, physical description and purpose for

travel—a policy that was strictly enforced. The practice of self-hiring was also banned.47

The enslaved who were caught participating in “riots, routs, unlawful assemblies,

trespasses, and seditious speeches” were to be given thirty-nine stripes or burned on the

left hand with a poker.48

In addition to these regulations, policies were enacted that allowed for slave

dwellings to be searched once a month to prevent any prohibited behavior such as the

“unlawful assembly of slaves.”49 Most of the new legislation focused on unlawful

assembly and virtually ignored the role of literacy in the construction of the conspiracy.

In the aftermath of the rebellion updates to the slave codes were updated with emphasis

on unlawful assembly. A slave code from 1804 states

All meetings of slaves at any meeting house or any other place in night shall be considered an unlawful assembly, and any justice may issue his warrant and enter the place where the assembly may be for apprehending or dispersing the slaves, and to inflict corporal punishment on the offenders at the discretion of the justice, not exceeding twenty lashes.50

The unlawful assembly slave code was not updated in regard to education until 1819

explicitly stating, “Be it further enacted, That all meetings of free negroes or mulattoes,

47. Ibid., 64. 48. Ibid., 65. 49. Ibid. 50. Virginia Slave Codes, 71.

112

at any school-house, church, meeting-house or other place for teaching them reading or

writing, either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and

considered as an unlawful assembly.”51 (Virginia Slave Codes). Reinforcing the

“unlawful assembly of slaves” became the central focus of enslavers and overseers after

Gabriel’s conspiracy. Enslavers believed that if they could clamp down on the enslaved

gathering together secretly, they could increase their chances of staying alive and

continue to reap the economic and social benefits of the system of chattel slavery,

especially with the new technological development of a machine called the cotton gin,

which would facilitate a rapid change in the economic, social, and political landscape of

the United States of America for the next generation.

After the rebellion was quelled enslavers worried that educated slaves were far

more dangerous than had previously been anticipated and that slaves who could read and

write could maneuver through society dangerously attaching themselves to the rhetoric of

freedom and liberty which would stir them to rebel, as it did with Gabriel and his rebels.

Following Gabriel’s trial and execution, Judge St George Tucker stated that:

Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it—a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is every day diminishes. Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear.52

51. Ibid. 52. Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York: A&B Books,

1919), 157.

113

Therefore, most enslavers resisted the inclination to provide education to the enslaved.

Even still, the teaching of the enslaved to read or write was not unlawful—only in group

settings. The practice of teaching the enslaved became extremely taboo, and enslavers

were far more reluctant to teach the enslaved to read for any purpose—including

religious instruction. Janet Cornelius, author of When I Can Read My Title Clear:

Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South, argues that, after Gabriel’s

rebellion, the act of reading and writing became reserved for free African American

artisans and apprentices throughout the south.53 As a result, the efforts of the enslaved to

become literate were pushed underground and became clandestine and reliant on secret

instruction in slave quarters.

Although Gabriel’s rebellion was not a success in terms of the actual execution of

the plan, Gabriel is important in terms of understanding the formation of an African

American identity and the intellectual labor that went into the formation of communal

consciousness among the enslaved population in Richmond and throughout the South.

Gabriel and his comrades represent the first true generation of African Americans and

their struggle for freedom. They are representative of the first generations of enslaved

descendants of Africa born in this new place called America. This is not to say that

enslaved Africans did not give birth to children in the generations that preceded them in

the British colonies. It is to say that, with the formation of the nation, the social and

economic landscape shifted and gave way to the formation of a uniquely and

53. Janet Cornelius, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the

Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991), 79.

114

meticulously crafted American identity rooted in the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit

of happiness. With his plan for insurrection, Gabriel planted seeds for African American

resistance to the dominant white supremacist social order of the newly founded United

States. Gabriel and his co-conspirators signify that the enslaved community had a

political and social ideology that was real to them. Gabriel and his rebels furthermore

signify that although they were born into the worst social system a person could ever live

in, it did not make them any less human and did not change their axiological perspective

on humankind’s fundamental right to freedom.

Gabriel’s literacy was critical to his plan for insurrection. Literacy allowed

Gabriel access to written ideas that he may have otherwise never encountered. His

literacy allowed him to be an agent of change in the Richmond community. Gabriel’s

careful planning of the rebellion exposes the slave’s ability to envision a life beyond their

own oppressed circumstances and imagine life and liberty. Gabriel’s intellectual

elevation is important because it allowed him the intellectual autonomy to conceptualize

a human existence for him and his kin. It allowed him access to esoteric realms that

others could never conceive of. Gabriel’s literacy is important because it transformed the

social and political landscape of the south even though it never actually took place.

Gabriel had broken the chains of mental slavery and waged an intellectual war against

white people, the effects of which would last long after he was hanged. Gabriel’s literacy

set him apart from others and allowed him to effectively carry out his duties as a traveling

blacksmith, defend himself in a court of law, and eventually as general of a large army.

His critical literacy concretized his ideals of freedom obviously drawn from the book of

115

Exodus, and his reading of the newspapers thus promoted him to act for social

transformation and conceptualize a meticulous plan for rebellion.

The year 1800 is pivotal in the continuum of African American history and the

discourse about slave rebellions. Several key events that would shape the African

American fight for freedom took place. In 1800, just as Gabriel’s trial was taking place in

Richmond, a baby named Nat Turner was born on a plantation about eighty miles south

in Southampton, and a multilingual and literate carpenter named Denmark Vesey was

experiencing his first year of freedom, having purchased himself for six hundred dollars

after winning the local lottery in Charleston, South Carolina. While the enslaved

community of Richmond grieved the loss of freedom, which was just at their fingertips

had the skies not opened up and cried, Nat’s mother suckled her baby and whispered to

him about how he was destined for a great purpose, and Denmark began to strategize a

plan to free his wife and children from bondage.

116

CHAPTER V

DENMARK VESEY

On the heels of the American Revolution, Americans continued to charter slave

vessels packed with kidnapped Africans to the United States. The Middle Passage was

the means by which Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas

and Caribbean islands. The seasoning process took place in the Caribbean islands after

the arduous journey from the continent to the New World. Africans were offloaded in the

Caribbean islands where they were prepared for auction. They were fed solid foods for

the first time in months, their wounds from the shackles and splintered wood were

covered with tar, and they were rubbed down with pig fat to make them appear healthy

though nearly dead. Some were to stay and work on sugar and indigo plantations until

they dropped dead, and new captives arrived to take their place. Others were reloaded

onto ships destined for British, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and French colonies in North

and South America. An African boy around the age of fourteen was the ideal captive for

enslavers. A boy that age was sure to garner a large sum at auction as his young body

could immediately begin plantation work and guarantee at least ten years of hard labor.

In 1781, Barbadian slave ship captain Joseph Vesey purchased three hundred

ninety enslaved Africans in St. Thomas, a Danish colony. According to Captain Vesey,

he and his officers were “struck with the beauty, alertness and intelligence of a boy about

117

14 years of age” among the nearly four hundred bodies.1 Vesey speculated the

boy was born in 1767. Captain Vesey and his officers called the boy Telemaque. On his

arrival in Cape Francais, a slave port in the French colony of San Domingue, Captain

Vesey sold the boy to a sugar plantation. On the sugar plantation, the boy toiled chopping

sugar cane and soon suffered from epileptic fits. Upon Vesey’s return to the port, about a

year later, the boy was re-sold to Captain Vesey as defective property. Interestingly, the

boy’s epileptic fits ceased and never recurred. An intelligent child, Telemaque likely

delivered a convincing performance and faked the seizures to get out of the laborious

field work.

Douglas Egerton, author of He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey

argues that the boy could have been born on the island of St. Thomas, but it seems more

likely that he was born in Africa considering the trade in which Joseph Vesey was

involved and the nature of the slave trade.2 Captain Vesey took Telemaque under his

wing as a cabin boy. By the time they reached adolescence, most enslaved teens were

assigned laborious work. Telemaque’s experience with laboring on Vesey’s ship was

unique—particularly because most Africans experienced the Middle Passage once not

several times. As a cabin boy, he had multiple responsibilities aboard the ship. He likely

tried to remain above deck, tidying the cabin and glancing at maps in Captain Vesey’s

1. Lionel Henry Kennedy, and Thomas Parker. An official report of the trials of sundry Negroes,

charged with an attempt to raise an insurrection in the state of South-Carolina: preceded by an introduction and narrative: and, in an appendix, a report of the trials of four white persons on indictments for attempting to excite the slaves to insurrection, (Charleston: James R. Schenck, 1822), 19.

2. Douglas Egerton, He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey (Lanham: Rowman and

Littlefield Publishers, 2004).

118

quarters.3 As a cabin boy, it is likely that Telemaque served as a bedwarmer to Captain

Vesey and was forced to succumb to sexual abuse, as was common on slave ships. The

teenage boy likely stood above deck looking out onto the ocean mediating on the waves

and trying to drown out the screams and cries of the nearly four hundred Africans

shackled below him. He was likely frustrated at having to participate in their bondage and

his inability to help them, or himself for that matter. He probably pondered why he was

free and the others who looked like him were enslaved. Perhaps he thought about his free

life as a child in Africa and his parents and family who tried to protect him as he was torn

away from them. He likely vowed to himself that if he ever had children they would

never be enslaved—he would do everything in his power to make sure of it.

Under Vesey’s tutelage, teenage Telemaque learned to read and speak English,

having spoken French to this point—most likely from time spent on the French colony.4

Telemaque became multilingual as a result of Joseph Vesey’s business as a slave trader.

Historian David Robertson, author of Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America’s

Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It, argues that Telemaque was “deeply

literate” in English and French and spoke Danish and possibly Gullah and Creole.5 Like

many other Africans, Telemaque displayed a propensity for language acquisition and the

3. Ibid., 21.

4. Ibid.

5. David Robertson, Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America’s Largest Slave Rebellion and

the Man Who Led It (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 35.

119

ability to translate.6 Robertson argues that Telemaque could have served as an interpreter

on Captain Vesey’s ship. He states, “Slave ships usually carried such a multilingual crew

member or elevated bondsman on their outward voyage to translate as they did their

business on the African coast.”7 Indeed, multilingual Africans were essential to the

international business of bartering African bodies. As a polyglot, Telemaque was an asset

to Vesey’s enterprise. When called upon, the boy would be used to help negotiate prices

and broker deals for Africans as they were sold from port to port. This experience likely

embittered the teen. Being forced to directly participate in the dehumanization of his own

people was a unique type of labor experienced by few. Much like Gabriel’s discomfort

with the forging of chains and collars as a teenager, Telemaque surely felt discomfort

with participating in the horrendous activities that accompanied his assigned position on

the slave ship.

In 1783, Captain Joseph Vesey settled in Charleston, South Carolina where

Telemaque became an urban bondsman serving the Vesey family in a domestic capacity.

The city, originally called Charles Town, was formed in 1670. The founders of the

settlement were Englishmen from Barbados who brought their enslaved Africans with

them to develop the new land. The colony grew to become a major slave trading port,

and, after the American Revolution, became known as Charleston. Robertson argues that

“over one-fourth of all African slaves brought and sold in the United States entered

6. John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1979), 25. 7.Robertson, 32.

120

through Charleston or one of South Carolina’s lesser ports.”8 Charleston was the perfect

location for a slave trader of Vesey’s stature to settle and become a distinguished member

of society. As an international port, Charleston was an ideal place for Vesey to settle. He

could continue the business of slave trading, having established himself in the industry

already.

Upon Captain Vesey settling in Charleston, Telemaque became a house servant at

the beck and call of Joseph Vesey and family. Enslavement as a house servant in the city

was much different from being in the big house on a plantation. In a city setting, the

enslaved were exposed to the hustle and bustle of urban life—particularly in Charleston

because it was an international slave port. People of all kinds came in and out of the city,

buying and selling Africans and trading goods such as cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar.

Frederick Douglass once stated that, “A city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a

slave on the plantation.”9 In other words, a city slave had more mobility, more access to

information, than the average plantation slave. City slaves were more likely to have

contact with free African Americans and the ability to move about town. According to

historian James Sidbury in “Reading, Revelation, and Rebellion The Textual

Communities of Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner,” “More black and colored

Charlestonians could read than could black Richmonders, and knowledge of the world

beyond Charleston and South Carolina ran much deeper in black Charleston than did

8. Robertson, 11. 9. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York: Miller: Orton & Mulligan,

1855), 31.

121

analogous knowledge in any other North American slave town except New Orleans.”10

Telemaque probably walked the streets of Charleston mesmerized by the industry of

slavery. He likely watched ships sail in and out of the ports and was haunted by

memories of things that happened on his multiple trips across the water. On his walks

through the city, Telemaque would likely listen to local rumors and gossip about the

happenings around Charleston but also that what slave ship captains exchanged about

what was going on in their home countries and with the trade of Africans.

Telemaque was an essential part of Vesey’s business as a slave trader and

merchant in Charleston. He was an intelligent young man who proved useful both on sea

and on land. Most likely, as soon as Captain Vesey planted roots in Charleston, and after

laboring as a house servant, Telemaque was assigned to the trade of carpentry. In order to

be a carpenter, Telemaque would have undergone an apprenticeship process like other

burgeoning teenagers who were assigned to be skilled artisans. Carpenters were a critical

part of plantation and city economies. Carpenters were responsible for building essential

structures like houses, cabins, churches, rafters, flooring, stairways, barns, fences,

cabinets, chests, doors, benches, wagons, and other wood-fashioned items. Being a

carpenter required a diverse skillset. It required a man to have the ability to conceptualize

complex designs. A carpenter had to be detailed and problem solving oriented. Carpentry

required manual dexterity as well as impeccable mathematic skills. It was also necessary

10. James Sidbury, “Reading, Revelation, and Rebellion the Textual Communities of Gabriel,

Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner” in Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 123.

122

for a carpenter to possess physical stamina and strength. Telemaque being of “superior

intellect,” was the ideal person for carpentry. He could make additional money outside of

his duties in Captain Vesey’s shop. On average a Black carpenter in Charleston could

make up to one dollar a day—a dollar less than white carpenters.11

It made sense for Telemaque to be assigned to the trade of carpentry in that he

would have been valuable to Captain Vesey who was a former slave ship captain and

merchant in Charleston. Vesey dealt in enslaved Africans and goods that were needed for

shave ships. It is likely that enslavers would come to Vesey’s shop in order to purchase

replacements planks, oars, masts, etc. Telemaque’s ability to construct an array of items

would have made him extremely valuable to Vesey. Not only could Telemaque be a

useful carpenter for ship parts, but Vesey could also lease his services around Charleston

when ship business was slow. Telemaque could read and write, so he could negotiate his

own contracts on Vesey’s behalf. He was also multilingual, making it easy for slave ship

captains and merchants from different countries to do business with him.

Because of the success of Captain Vesey’s business and the quality of his

carpentry work, Telemaque became well known in Charleston. Egerton argues that, as a

young adult, Telemaque was regarded by other enslavers in Charleston as a person of

“superior power of mind & the more dangerous for it.”12 Charleston residents had been

fearful of the intellectual elevation of the enslaved dating back to 1739. However,

11. Lois A. Walker and Susan R. Silverman, A Documentary History of Gullah Jack Pritchard

and the Denmark Vesey Slave Insurrection of 1822 (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 46.

12. Ibid., 21.

123

Telemaque’s literacy was not especially irregular in Charleston. According to Carter G.

Woodson, though the first ever anti-literacy legislation was passed in South Carolina in

1740 following the Stono Rebellion, many enslavers favored private instruction of the

enslaved, particularly those who were considered sympathetic enslavers. Furthermore,

Woodson argues that enslaved persons who were house servants close to families and

attended to traveling men were often taught alongside white children in their homes.13 In

fact, several members of the literate slave community in Charleston were also

multilingual. Fugitive slave advertisements reveal that several fugitives were literate and,

in some cases, bilingual and multilingual enslaved men who desired freedom. The ads

call for the return of one “who spoke French and English fluently and passed as a doctor

among his people, another who spoke Spanish and French intelligibly, and a third who

could read, write, and speak both French and Spanish well.”14 A literate and multilingual

enslaved community was almost inevitable, considering that Charleston was an

international port of trade. Telemaque was a polyglot from his time spent on the slave

ship and was likely further educated alongside the Vesey children. As a result of this

instruction, Telemaque became a voracious reader, reading anything he could get his

hands on. He was known throughout town for his multilingual abilities and reading

newspaper, abolitionist pamphlets, and the Bible. He read and meditated on freedom as

the years went by.

13. Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York: A&B Books,

1919), 118. 14. Ibid., 84.

124

Telemaque became an avid reader. He spent his time between Vesey’s shop and

his carpentry work thumbing Noah Webster’s American Spelling Book Containing the

Rudiments of the English Language, for the Use of Schools in the United States,

commonly known as the “Blue Backed Speller” a spelling and grammar textbook that

was used to educate children. The Blue Back offered “an analysis of sounds in the

English language.”15 The Blue Back allowed Telemaque to continue to practice and

master the nuances of the English language. He was probably fascinated by languages.

He had a knack for understanding the nuances of language, which allowed him to acquire

languages with an ease that likely astonished Vesey and other enslavers in Charleston.

The Blue Back also contained multiple lessons on how to live morally righteous. Webster

designed the work to provide a Christian centered approach to teaching children to read.

Telemaque undoubtedly read through the book and contemplated if it was possible to

enslave a man and still be virtuous. When he was not laboring as a carpenter or in

Vesey’s shop, he read through the book’s fables and surely contemplated their moral

implications. He probably considered how he could apply these stories to his own life.

Yes, he was enslaved, but he was also a man, a human being and reading caused him to

wonder how he could achieve the same quality of life other humans possessed.

Telemaque also read newspapers that he acquired in the city daily. In 1791,

newspapers reported that rebellion started on San Domingue. News of the rebellion

spread throughout the Atlantic world. Considering that it was a hub for the international

15. Noah Webster, The American Spelling Book: Containing the Rudiments of the English

Language, for the Use of Schools in the United States (Middletown: William H. Niles, 1831), 7.

125

slave trade, and because an enslaved victory on the small island would have major

implications for the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean, the rebellion was probably the

talk of the town in Charleston. Telemaque, now a skilled carpenter and about twenty-four

years old, was likely fascinated by the way the enslaved had banned together to fight for

their freedom. He was likely inspired by their efforts and meditated on his own freedom

as he heard and read stories about the rebellion in the newspapers. Possibly, Telemaque

thought back to his experience there, on the sugar plantations, and pride swelled in him

thinking that the people he toiled alongside were fighting for their right to be self-

determining and independent. He probably wondered if such a thing were possible in a

place like Charleston—where the slave population outnumbered the enslavers. He might

have wondered how it would even be possible to rally all of them to fight for their

freedom or if that was something they even wanted.

Telemaque continued to serve Captain Vesey into his adult life. As the years

passed, he grew tall and strong from his work as a carpenter. He continued to labor as a

translator for Vesey’s dealings and sawing wood and fashioning it into fantastic

structures and essential items while contemplating what he would do if he ever got the

chance to taste freedom. It had been a long time since he was on a slave ship, but he

probably still shuddered thinking about his experience in chains below deck and his

experience as a cabin boy above deck. It all seemed unfair to him. Captain Vesey had

been good to him, but he still wondered what it would be like not to be owned by anyone

and be able to move about life freely.

126

At some point, likely in his late teens or early twenties, Telemaque married an

enslaved woman and they had a child. Becoming a husband and father was a lifechanging

experience for him. These events solidified his transition into manhood. It was one thing

for him to be enslaved, but quite another for his wife and child to be held in bondage.

Telemaque probably contemplated on freedom and how he could achieve it for himself

and his family. In the fall of 1799, Telemaque purchased a ticket for the East Bay Lottery

and won a cash prize of fifteen hundred dollars. On December 31, 1799, Telemaque

purchased his freedom from Captain Joseph Vesey for six hundred dollars. Telemaque

attempted to negotiate with Captain Vesey for his family’s freedom as well, but Vesey

would not sell. After eighteen years of servitude, and being nearly thirty-three years old,

Telemaque took on the name Denmark Vesey. He possibly chose to keep the surname

Vesey for business purposes and to retain the notoriety attached to Captain Vesey’s

name, but he chose a new name first name for himself and began his life as a free man

and skilled carpenter in Charleston on January 1, 1800.16

As a free carpenter, Denmark Vesey was a fixture in the Charleston community.

He accumulated a considerable sum of money from his business as a carpenter and had

progressed socially. Likely, everyone in town knew Vesey. He likely continued to be a

voracious reader. He read the newspapers daily. He probably swelled with pride reading

about General Gabriel who had attempted to free Black people in Richmond, Virginia in

1800, the first year of his freedom. He likely read and heard that Gabriel had orchestrated

16. Egerton, xviii.

127

a wide-reaching plan and marveled at his bravery and intelligence. He possibly read

about the ongoing revolution in San Domingue. He likely followed the rebellion for years

and was delighted when it ended with the formation of the first African nation in the

Atlantic, now called Haiti, in 1804. He often read abolitionist literature. In fact,

abolitionist literature had long been circulating around Charleston. However, by the time

Vesey was forty-one years old and had been living as a free man nearly a decade,

Charleston city officials believed that an 1809 pamphlet was the start of a “great

inconvenience.” Several hundred copies of a pamphlet considered to be literature “of an

insurrectionary character” were brought to Charleston by an African American man from

New York. Other literature considered to be “inflammatory pamphlets on slavery” were

also brought into the city from Sierra Leone.17 Vesey probably read these pamphlets, and

their contents resonated with him. He meditated on the ideas of freedom that these

reading materials presented, and they engendered in him a sense of pride in being free,

but he probably often thought about what freedom of the individual meant if his wives

and children and the masses were still enslaved.

Nearly a decade later, around the age of fifty-one, Vesey, now a revered elder in

Charleston, walked the streets with his head held high. In fact, he refused to bow his head

when a white man approached on the street and chastised any man who did so, stating

that all men were born equal and that he would “never cringe to the whites, nor ought any

one who had the feelings of a man.” He would remark that anyone willing to degrade

17. Kennedy and Parker, 18.

128

themselves and bow to whites “deserved to remain slaves.” When asked how they could

go about ending their bondage he would reply “Go and buy a spelling book and read the

fable of Hercules and the Waggoner [sic].”18 He would then re-tell the story and relate it

to their enslaved condition. His suggestion that they purchase a spelling book is

indicative of Vesey’s understanding that freedom is first in the mind. Vesey’s use of the

allegory demonstrates his critical analysis of the stories contained in the Blue Back

Speller. He had been reading the fables for years and thought them useful life lessons.

Vesey used his readings of various categories of literature to address the social

power dynamic of slavery. He was able to conceptualize an allegory of the enslaved with

the wagoner tale. The story of Hercules and the wagoner is one of Aesop’s fables. In the

story, a man is driving a wagon in a muddy gulch. One of the wagon wheels gets stuck in

a rut, and the more the mule pulls, the deeper the wheel sinks into the crack. The wagoner

calls out to the Greek god Hercules to save him. Hercules appears to the man and tells

him to put his shoulder to the wheel and lift it out of the rut for “the gods help those who

help themselves”. Through Vesey’s reading of the fable, he discerned that freedom would

be up to the enslaved to seize for themselves. To him, the enslaved were the wagoner—

self-determining and capable of steering their own course—and slavery was the crack in

the road—a tremendous hurdle preventing them from progress.

The wagoner calls out to the strongest of the gods to help him out of the gulch. To

Vesey, this represented the enslaved relying on outside forces to free them from bondage.

18. Ibid., 19.

129

Hercules’s appearance signified that God could hear the enslaved crying out for freedom,

but prayer alone would not deliver the enslaved from their bondage. They would have to

take matters into their own hands if they wanted to be free and lift themselves out of the

crack of enslavement. Vesey even applied this analogy to his own life in that he helped

himself out of slavery and bought his own freedom. God helped him by providing him

with the winning lottery numbers and he, in turn, helped himself. Vesey understood the

divine intervention in his own life. However, he also knew that divine interaction would

go only so far. If he wanted to end his bondage, he would have to do it himself like he did

when he purchased his freedom. He helped himself. Ultimately, Vesey believed that

without his own work, faith was dead, and that if a person works and has faith God will

undoubtedly assist with whatever they need.

Vesey was also a deeply religious man who became a fixture in the church

community. In 1787, nearly twelve years before Vesey purchased his freedom, free

African Americans Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and several others founded the Free

African Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after an incident during which officials at

the Saint George Methodist Episcopal church yanked several African American members

from their knees during prayer. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church grew

out of the Free African Society and was founded in 1816. In 1817, after a dispute over

burial land with the Methodist Episcopal church of Charleston, African American

members of the church made the decision to separate and establish themselves as

members of Allen’s African Methodist Episcopal denomination. A free man named

130

Morris Brown and Denmark Vesey were among the founding members of the AME

church in Charleston.

In the spring of 1818, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was

erected in the predominately Black neighborhood of Hampstead in Charleston.19 It is

likely that Vesey, being one of the most popular carpenters in Charleston, participated in

the actual construction of the church. That same year, one hundred forty free and

enslaved Africans were arrested for worshipping in violation of the city ordinances of

1800 and 1803.20 As a result of Gabriel’s insurrection in 1800, several states passed

legislation to try to prevent planning an insurrection at secret gatherings or meeting

guised as church. South Carolina legislature passed an 1800 law that specifically

prohibited religious meetings for enslaved and free African Americans. According to

legal historian Nicholas May, the law states: “It shall not be lawful for any number of

slaves, free negroes, mulattos, or mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet

together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction or religious worship”21 In

1820, several members of the church defied the law and were arrested for holding late

night worship service. 22 In 1821, Reverend Morris Brown was warned by Charleston

19. Egerton, xix.

20. Ibid., xix. 21. Nicholas May,” Holy Rebellion: Religious Assembly Laws in Antebellum South Carolina and

Virginia,” The American Journal of Legal History, 49, No. 3 (JULY 2007), 245.

22. Ibid., xix.

131

City Council not to allow the church to become a school for the teaching of slaves.23

Egerton states:

Like Allen’s Philadelphia church, Brown’s emerging Charleston African Methodist congregations implicitly challenged not merely white religious domination, but white social and political control as well. The black community’s struggle to create autonomous sacred institutions by seceding from white governance was, in the context of a slave society, a decidedly radical act.24

Through the creation of the church, enslaved and free Africans were able to defy white

supremacist notions of African intellectual and cultural inferiority. No one defied the

stereotype more that Vesey who grew tired of the proslavery gospel that was often

preached in Charleston and disregarded the peaceful and loving God of the New

Testament in favor of the vengeful God of the Old Testament.

As a leader in the church and beloved elder in the Charleston community, Vesey,

who was about fifty years old, began to host Bible studies in his home. At these secret

gatherings, he would preach and read from the Old Testament, particularly Exodus

wherein the Israelites, enslaved in Egypt, rebelled against their enslavers and left imposed

servitude in search of the Promised Land. Vesey had obviously turned his back on the

idea of the docile slave fit for servitude and obeying the master. Like the allegory of

Hercules and the Wagoner, Vesey was able to use the story of the Israelites enslaved in

Egypt and the enslaved in Charleston. The parallel between the system of slavery was a

direct and obvious. However, the most important parallel that Vesey drew from the story

23. Ibid., 24. 24. Ibid., 111.

132

is that he saw himself as Moses. He likened Moses being taken from the water to his

journey across the Atlantic Ocean that brought him to a strange land. His was reared

with special privileges, particularly education, as a carpenter, much like the way Moses

was reared in pharaoh’s palace and “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and

was mighty in words and in deeds”25 Like Moses, Vesey talked to God and believed God

to have given him a message. Vesey saw himself as a Moses figure, sent to deliver his

people—his children in particular—from bondage. He knew that the enslaved were

already restless. That after centuries of bondage they wanted to rise up and fight for their

freedom, but they needed a leader they trusted and who knew the enemy well. He was

that leader.

At these clandestine meetings, Vesey would read from the Bible and encourage

his visitors that they ought to “fight against the whites”. He would state that the enslaved

in Charleston were “deprived of our rights and privileges by the white people…and that it

was high time for us to seek our rights.”26 Vesey had an affinity for certain scriptures in

the Bible such Zechariah 14:1-3 which states

Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity; and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

25. Acts 7:22 26. Kennedy and Parker, 82.

133

and Joshua 4: 21 which states “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both

man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”

Vesey would repeatedly share these passages which he had meditated on with his

followers. Vesey’s inspiration and near obsession with freedom was obvious to his

followers. They were captivated by his rhetoric and the idea that their freedom was

ordained by God.

Vesey read speeches from Congress, having to do with the admission of Missouri

into the Union. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was national and local news that was

featured in the newspapers of the day. It was critical because the debate resulted in the

entry of Maine to the United States as a free state and Missouri as a slave state in 1821.

Vesey gravitated to anti-slavery speeches and those opposed to the expansion of slavery

into Missouri. Vesey contemplated the expansion of slavery, and it frustrated him. He

agreed with abolitionists’ sentiments that slavery should end and not be expanded into

new territory, but he knew that if it were up to anyone to end slavery, it would have to be

the people who were enslaved. However, Vesey suggested to many that the result of the

compromise was in fact the freedom of the enslaved. He relied on the idea that if an

enslaved person were told that they were free by law, they would see fit to seize the

freedom that was already guaranteed to them.

As early as 1818, Denmark Vesey began conceiving of a plan to destroy

Charleston and its white citizens. For four years, Vesey planned and recruited men to

participate in his war. Vesey conceived perhaps the most elaborate plot for insurrection

134

ever formed by an enslaved African in America. His ideas could have rivaled the success

of Haiti. Vesey possessed an extraordinary ability to translate text into inspiration and

extract ideas from the metatext of documents. In other words, he synthesized knowledge

in ways to help his people see their own humanity and engender a desire to fight for

themselves. Vesey recruited several men who were also literate and leaders in the church

help him do the recruiting and lead in the rebellion. Three men were particularly

important to the plot: Peter Poyas, Monday Gell, and Gullah Jack Pritchard. According to

historian James Sidbury, “Vesey and his followers enhanced the authority of their church

offices by actively contesting white interpretations of the Scripture. The insurrectionary

leaders denied that the Bible sanctioned slavery or that it required obedience.”27 Each of

these men was able to relay Vesey’s ideology in a way that was so convincing that entire

plantations were to be enlisted and nearly nine thousand enslaved and free Africans were

willing to fight in Vesey’s war against the white citizens.28 These men had a power of

persuasion. They possessed the ability to stretch people’s imaginations and stimulate pre-

existing notions of freedom as a real possibility. They were able to convince the enslaved

population in Charleston of the difference between the God of the Bible as it had been

delivered to them by whites and the real God that Vesey told them about and that they

read about themselves. Their persuasive abilities likely came from their ability to read the

27. Sidbury, 124 28. Kennedy and Parker, 25.

135

Bible and other information for themselves and in turn communicate their interpretation

and analysis in a palatable fashion for their recruits.

Vesey was most confident in Peter Poyas and thus made him second in command

and one of his main recruiters.29 Poyas bought into Vesey’s rhetoric and was willing to

commit himself to the cause of freedom. He was a ship carpenter considered “of great

value” to his enslaver.30 Peter was a fierce leader with an intense personality magnetizing

eyes.31 Peter was extremely charismatic. His ability to recruit many rebels was the result

of his ability to communicate not only what Vesey had interpreted from his readings, but

also his own his own lived experiences and literary interpretations. Peter Poyas was

known for being bold and sagacious.32 He was known for being a keen and farsighted

decision maker. Vesey knew that Peter was quick witted and had the gift of gab and

would be an asset. Peter “employed uncommon pains to remove all the objections arising

in the minds of those whom he attempted to enlist, as to the probability of the success of

the effort. And spoke with great confidence of the succours [sic] which were expected

from San Domingo.”33 Peter would start a casual conversation with a recruit and then ask

them, “Suppose you were to hear, that the whites were going to kill you, would you

29. Ibid., 15. 30. Ibid., 43. 31. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “The Story of Denmark Vesey,” The Atlantic (June 1861). 32. Kennedy and Parker, 14.

33. Ibid., 14.

136

defend yourself?”34 Depending on their response he would continue to converse with

them and eventually invite them to a meet at his shop to discuss further. In order to

convince them to join he would say “if we can't do something for ourselves, we can't live

so,” and assured them that if they joined then other people would join knowing they had

numbers on their side.35 For every question they could ask Peter could provide an answer.

It likely made the recruits have more confidence in the plot, which is likely why Vesey

had so much confidence in Peter.

Peter “wrote a good hand,” meaning that he had excellent penmanship.36 He kept

lists which contained the names of men willing to participate in the rebellion. Allegedly,

Peter’s individual list contained the names of six hundred men whom he recruited. In

addition to his own list of recruits, Peter possessed a separate list containing all the names

of men willing to participate in the insurrection, which allegedly totaled nine thousand.37

These lists were valuable for record keeping purposes, but they are also symbolic. Just as

Denmark Vesey saw himself as a Moses figure from his reading the Bible, Peter’s

reading likely allowed him to draw his own parallels. He probably saw himself as like his

namesake Saint Peter. Just as Saint Peter was one of the founders of the Christian church,

Peter Poyas was one of the founders of the AME church in Charleston. Saint Peter was

the keeper of the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and with the lists of recruits Peter saw

34. Ibid., 33.

35. Ibid., 34-35. 36. Ibid., 25. 37. Ibid.

137

himself as just that—the keeper of the keys of freedom by way of the number of men he

has enlisted to fight.

Monday Gell was a well-known harness maker in Charleston. As a boy he was

kidnapped from Nigeria and transported via the Middle Passage to Charleston. It is likely

that he and Denmark were bonded because of their shared trauma from the experience of

the Middle Passage. Perhaps they reminisced about freedom in Africa and all the things

they missed about their homeland. By the time of the insurrection planning, Monday had

been living in Charleston between fifteen and twenty years. He likely remembered life as

a free African boy and wondered what may have come of him had he not been abducted

from his homeland. Monday was enslaved by a man named John Gell who allowed his

bondsman many “freedoms” such as reading, hiring himself out, and living away from

his enslaver on his own.38 He learned to read and write with great skill upon his being

sold into the Charleston way of life. Like Vesey, Gell was an avid reader, reading the

newspapers daily, and gravitated to the reports about Congress and San Domingue.39

Monday Gell was “firm, resolute, discreet and intelligent.”40 Several secret

meetings were held at Gell’s shop. He was also responsible for authoring two letters to

Haiti “about the sufferings of the blacks, and to know if the people of St. Domingo would

help them if they made an effort to free themselves.”41 Possibly, Monday was

38. Kennedy and Parker, 24. 39. Ibid., 167. 40. Kennedy and Parker, 24. 41. Ibid., 146.

138

multilingual. He likely spoke his native Igbo language as well as English and possibly

French. He authored two letters to Haiti which was a French speaking country so it is

likely that he could have authored the letters in both English and French. Like Peter,

Monday also kept a list of candidates. Vesey instructed his men to burn the lists should

the plot be discovered.

Gullah Jack Pritchard was another critical part of the rebellion. Pritchard was an

enslaved Angolan born man who was abducted from Africa as a grown man and

transported across the Middle Passage with hundreds of other Africans.42 Pritchard

worked as a caulker and was known around Charleston as a “conjure man” who practiced

African spirituality and medicine. Though it is unknown if Pritchard was literate, he

possessed a spiritual literacy that was critical to the rebellion. He was likely able to read

the spiritual landscape of the enslaved community because he was beloved by them. He

likely knew how to read their spiritual yearning for freedom and knew what to say to

them to penetrate their sprit and reveal the angst that they felt about being enslaved.

Pritchard was a member of the AME church and formed a tight bond with Vesey. This

was likely because, like Monday Gell, they shared the common experiences of knowing

freedom in Africa and the trauma of the Middle Passage. Charleston had the largest

population of Africans and African Americans in the United States and the largest

concentrations of African ethnic groups enslaved directly from Africa at this time.43

42. Walker and Silverman, v. 43. Robertson, 36.

139

Pritchard was critical to Vesey’s recruiting efforts because he was so revered by other

enslaved Africans that they were willing to join the rebellion just because he was

involved. Pritchard also made several trinkets that he said would protect the rebels from

death in battle. The recruits were likely convinced that Pritchard was a divine being who

had the protection of God and that if they fought alongside him God would protect them

as well.

The rebels were to be heavily armed. They enlisted a blacksmith to fashion

bayonets to the end of poles to create deadly spears. They amassed several pounds of gun

powder and created ammunition and piles of cannon balls. Many of them had swords and

rudimentarily fashioned knives and daggers. Several of them had guns—some they

already owned and others stolen from their enslavers. Vesey’s plan for insurrection was

detailed and precise. A party led by Peter Poyas was to gather at South Bay and meet up

with another group from James Island. They were then to seize the arsenal and guard

house of St. Michael’s Church. Ned Bennet was to lead another group composed of

enslaved people from the country and the Neck. They were to assemble and seize the

arsenal there. Under Rolla’s command, a third group was to meet at the governor’s home,

kill the governor, and march through the city keeping guard and killing its white citizens.

Another group was supposed to gather on Gadsden’s Wharf and attack the guard house

located there. A fifth group was to rendezvous at Bulkey’s Farm, seize the powder-

magazine and then march down into the city. The sixth group was to assemble at Vesey’s

house and await his commands while a seventh, led by Gullah Jack, was to capture

140

additional arms and supplies from the naval and arms stores. An additional group of men

on horseback were to patrol the streets and keep whites from assembling. All white men,

women, and children were to be killed. The ships in the harbor were to be seized, but the

captains kept alive. After the city and its white citizens were destroyed, the rebels were to

set sail for Haiti or Africa—leaving generations of bondage behind. The rebellion was set

for June 1822—an exact date is unknown.

On Thursday June 20, 1822, Denmark Vesey was betrayed by one of his men who

identified Vesey as the main conspirator. It was Peter Prioleau, a slave who heard talk of

the plan for insurrection from William Paul and subsequently revealed the plot to his

enslaver, kicking off a full scale investigation of all potential participants behind the

plot.44 Vesey attempted to hide out from Charleston authorities, but was found hiding in

the home of one of his wives. In freedom, he had come to have several wives and

children, many of them were enslaved in the Charleston area.45

By June 22, 1822 Denmark Vesey and his comrades had been rounded up by city

officials and were facing trial. Gullah Jack and Peter Poyas refused to offer statements

regarding their own involvement in the plot let alone Vesey’s. Once captured Peter

pressed his comrades telling them “Do not open your lips! Die silent, as you shall see me

do!”46 Monday betrayed Vesey and offered a detailed account of the plan and identified

44. Ibid., 173. 45. Ibid., 42. 46. Ibid., 19.

141

Vesey as its progenitor, and revealed his role in authoring two letters to Haiti asking them

to send reinforcements for the rebellion. Peter Poyas and Gullah Jack Pritchard were both

tried and hanged for their participation in the rebellion. Monday was found guilty, but

because of his cooperation and willingness to offer a confession of his and others’ guilt

he was sentenced to be transported out of the United States.

Vesey was tried over the course of two days beginning June 26. When Vesey was

tried, he did not testify or offer any statement. He sat in the courtroom stoic with his

arms folded and eyes intensely fixed on the floorboards listening to the testimony being

given against him.47 Vesey requested to be able to cross-examine each witness himself.

The court allowed him the opportunity. They likely gave him this opportunity because he

had long been a fixture in the Charleston community and whites were reluctant to believe

that Vesey had orchestrated the plot. They gave him the opportunity to redeem his

reputation as a humble servant and carpenter and question his accusers. To no avail, he

attempted to get each witness to contradict themselves and their testimony against him.

Vesey also addressed the court at length and tried to persuade them that he was not

involved in the rebellion and that the enslaved community had turned against him to

implicate him in the crime of planning an insurrection. He was likely convinced that he

could trick them into believing his innocence in the same way that he had tricked the

sugar plantation owner and Captain Vesey that we was unfit for field labor decades ago—

it was worth a shot.

47. Ibid., 45.

142

Vesey was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. During his

sentencing, the judge made the ironic, insulting, and hypocritical statement that:

The Court were not only satisfied with your guilt, but that you were the author, and original instigator of this diabolical plot. Your professed design was to trample on all laws, human and divine, to riot in blood, outrage, rapine, and conflagration, and to introduce anarchy and confusion in the most horrid forms. Your life has become, therefore, a just and necessary sacrifice, at the shrine of indulgent justice, It is difficult to imagine what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprize [sic] so wild and visionary. You were a free man, were comparatively wealthy, and enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation.48

When he received his sentence, “tears trickled down his cheeks.”49 He probably thought

of all the horrible things he had seen done in his life at the hands of white men. He likely

thought back to his experiences on the slave ship and wondered how they could allege

that he intended to “trample on laws human and divine” when they had been trampling on

the humanity of Africans as long as he could remember. The judges, and probably most

of the whites in Charleston, could not fathom why a free man whom they had treated with

respect and allowed to live among thing could come up with a plan to kill them. They

were astonished that Vesey was not grateful they allowed him a higher station in life and

the opportunity to live free and walk among them with his head held high. They treated

him like he was special, and they were appalled that he would dishonor their gift of his

freedom.

48. Ibid., 179.

49. Ibid., 45.

143

To Vesey, his individual freedom was not worth the collective bondage of the

masses. Vincent Harding argues that Vesey “acted because he believed that, both in

Charleston and outside of it, history was evolving in ways which could be bent for the

purposes of black freedom.”50 He continues: “Neither his freedman’s status, his wealth,

his age, nor his relative security could cut him off from the oppression and injustice his

people suffered.”51 Vesey could not be free unless all of the Africans in Charleston were

free. Vesey sacrificed his life in the name of liberation for the oppressed. He was a man

who had much to lose, but everything to gain if his plan succeeded. More than anything,

he wanted the freedom of his children. Monday confessed that “Vesey said he was

satisfied with his own condition, being free, but as all his children were slaves, he wished

to see what could be done for them.”52 Ultimately, Vesey was driven by his parental

instincts. He knew that there was no real freedom without his children having the ability

to be self-determining. He knew that if anyone could save them, he could. At least he

thought he could. Tears rolled down his eyes at the thought of his not being able to

execute a plan he spent most of his life concocting.

On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey was hanged alongside six other men, including

Peter Poyas and Gullah Jack Pritchard, who co-conspired with him to incite an

insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina. One hundred thirty-one enslaved and free

50. Vincent Harding, There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (New York:

Harcourt Brace & Company, 1981), 67.

51. Ibid., 71. 52. Kennedy and Parker, 95.

144

Africans were arrested in relationship to the rebellion. Seventy-seven were convicted. Of

those seventy-seven, thirty-five were executed by hanging. Twenty-two of them were

executed at the same time on the same gallows. The others were imprisoned and

eventually shipped away to the deep south and the Caribbean for conspiring to take down

Charleston with Vesey.53

In his article, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators” historian Michael P.

Johnson poignantly encapsulates the legend and hero that was Denmark Vesey. He states

that Vesey was

A free man who identified with slaves, a black man who claimed the human rights monopolized by whites, an urban artisan who prepared to lead an army of rural field hands, a man of African descent who built a coalition of native African and country-born creoles, a religious man who melded the Christianity of Europe with the spiritual consciousness of Africa, a diasporic man inspired by the black Atlantic’s legacy of rebellion and sovereignty, a radical who wielded the ideal of the Age of Revolution against white oppression and hypocrisy, a militant man who scorned compromise and relished redemptive killing, a brave man unintimidated by the long odds against liberation, a loyal man who refused to name his co-conspirators when informant betrayed his scheme at the last minute, a stoic man who died in the gallows without giving his executioners the satisfaction of remorse or confession…54

Denmark Vesey was an abolitionist and revolutionary. Though his plan to create a new

life for both the free and enslaved Africans of Charleston, South Carolina was thwarted

his efforts to imagine a new world for the descendants of Africa speaks to the power of

literacy and how it allowed the enslaved to conceptualize freedom on their own terms.

53. Ibid., 47. 54. Michael P. Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators,” The William and Mary

Quarterly 58, No. 4 (Oct. 2001), 915.

145

Vesey’s literacy was the foundation upon which his plan for insurrection was

constructed. Ultimately, the real power that Vesey possessed was his access to

information and the power of thought and analysis. The ultimate power of a human being

is in the ability to create and conceptualize freedom. Therefore, the ultimate power of a

people is in their intellectual ability. Intellectual development allows a community to

define freedom on their own terms. That is exactly what Denmark Vesey did, he

imagined what freedom looked like for his people as a result of the multiple things that he

read such as the spelling book, the newspapers, the speeches from congress and the Bible

and he sought to achieve it by any means necessary.

Charleston’s white citizens were dumbfounded by Vesey’s bold concept and plan

for rebellion. Many of them had done business with him and had known him for years, so

they could not believe that he would attempt such a terrifying act. To respond, they

burned Emanuel AME church to the ground after the conclusion of the trials. The church

became an invisible institution, holding secret worship gatherings for over forty years

until it was rebuilt after the Civil War. A carpenter, like his father, Vesey’s son, Robert,

served as architect on the new church.55

The news of Vesey’s rebellion spread like wildfire throughout the South and

terrified enslavers. Following the Vesey conspiracy, slave codes were updated in several

states. The South Carolina legislature amended the law and included a specific clause

about insurrection. It states,

55. Robertson, 125-126.

146

And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons shall counsel, aid, or hire any slave or slave, free negroes, or persons of color, to raise a rebellion or insurrection within this state, whether any rebellion or insurrection do actually take place, or not, every such person or persons on conviction thereof, shall be adjudged felons, and suffer death without benefit of clergy.56

In August of 1822, the Charleston paper The City Gazette and Commercial Dailey

Advertiser reported that the plot for insurrection was a result of the “sinister influences of

enlightened negroes.”57 Carter G. Woodson argues that, after the Vesey rebellion,

attitudes towards teaching the enslaved to write drastically shifted to prohibiting the

practice of mental instruction for enslaved and free African Americans—including skilled

artisans and house servants. He states that “southerners of all types…changed their

attitude when it became evident that abolition literature in the hands of slave would not

only make them dissatisfied, but cause them to take drastic measures to secure liberty.”58

Those who were once in favor of education on the terms of the salvation of the slave’s

soul were willing to abandon the cause in the name of the preservation of the peculiar

institution and their families’ lives.

In When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the

Antebellum South, Janet Cornelius argues that after the Vesey trials, Charleston officials

disbanded the AME church and temporarily enforced city ordinances against teaching

56. Walker and Silverman, 352.

57. Woodson, 157. 58. Ibid., 159.

147

African Americans to read.59 A wave of legislation prohibiting teaching the enslaved to

read followed Vesey’s conspiracy but were also influenced by the debut of abolitionist

literature in the form of David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World but

in particular the United States. In 1829, copies of Walker’s Appeal began to circulate

throughout southern cities, causing widespread panic. Walker, a free man in Boston,

encouraged the enslaved to learn to read and eventually overthrow their enslavers. He

made a direct connection between literacy and insurrection. He explicitly linked the

liberation of enslaved masses worldwide—but particularly in the United States—to

literacy when he stated,

For coloured people to acquire learning in this country, make tyrants quake and tremble on their sandy foundation…. Why they know that their infernal deeds of cruelty will be made known to the world. Do you suppose one man of good sense and learning would submit himself, his father, mother, wife, and children, to be slaves to a wretched man like himself, who instead of compensating him for his labours, chains, handcuffs, and beats him and family almost to death, leaving life enough in them, however, to work for, and call him master? No! no! He would cut his devilish throat from ear to ear, and well do slaveholders know it. The bare name of educating the coloured people, scares our cruel oppressors almost to death.60

Walker boldly suggested that literacy posed a direct threat to enslaver’s lives. According

to Walker, literacy would eventually breed violent ideas of freedom, rebellion, and

revenge in the minds of the enslaved, and that terrified enslavers, especially after what

59. Janet Cornelius, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the

Antebellum South (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991), 39. 60. David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very

expressly to those of the United States of America (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1993), 52.

148

they had just overcome six years earlier through the execution of Vesey and his

candidates for insurrection. In December 1829, sixty copies of Walker’s Appeal were

seized in Savannah, Georgia. The Georgia legislature swiftly passed legislation which

explicitly stated that African Americans, enslaved and free, could and would be punished

for the circulation of “any printed or written pamphlet, paper, or circular, for the purposes

of exciting to insurrection, conspiracy, or resistance among the slaves, negroes, or free

persons of color.”61 In 1830, North Carolina passed anti-literacy legislation that, for the

first time, explicitly coupled slave literacy with eventual insurrection. The legislation

states,

Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write, has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion, to manifest the injury of the citizens of the state:

[I] Therefore be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in the State having jurisdiction thereof, and upon conviction shall at the discretion of the court if a white man or woman be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or imprisoned and if a free person of colour shall be whipped at the discretion of the court not exceeding thirty nine lashes nor less than twenty lashes.

[II] Be it further enacted that if any slave shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any other slave to read or write the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried before any justice of the peace and on conviction thereof shall be sentenced to receive thirty nine lashes on his or her bare back.”62

61. Heather Williams, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel

Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 14.

62. North Carolina Legislature, North Carolina Legislative Papers, 1830–31 Session of the General Assembly (Raleigh, 1831).

149

Enslavers feared that literacy would enable the enslaved population to fully

realize their humanity and in turn not only seek their collective freedom, but the

collective death of those who had brutalized them for generations. Little did they know

their greatest fears would be realized because of the birth and brilliance of a field hand

and preacher in Southampton County, Virginia in the summer of 1831.

150

CHAPTER VI

NAT TURNER

On October 2, 1800, a baby boy named Nat was born on the Benjamin Turner

plantation in Southampton County, Virginia—about eighty miles south of Richmond

where General Gabriel was tried and hanged for conspiring to execute an insurrection.

Little Nat was born to his enslaved mother, father, and grandmother who doted on him.

As a baby, he was oddly alert and possessed a commanding and powerful presence,

which was striking to the enslaved community on the Turner plantation. They celebrated

his birth and watched him closely as he grew. The baby quickly grew into a precocious

toddler. As he developed, it was obvious that he was different from other enslaved—and

white—children his same age. He was intellectually gifted and spiritual beyond his years.

At three or four years old, Turner’s mother overheard him telling of an event that took

place before his birth. From that moment forward his parents, grandmother, and the

enslaved community all agreed that he was a prophet and was destined for great purpose.

Benjamin Turner owned a typical Virginia plantation where tobacco, cotton, and

corn were produced. There were to be no idle hands on his plantation. As a child, Nat

Turner likely performed light chores around the plantation and worked in the fields

151

alongside his parents and grandmother, like most enslaved children.1 Work in the fields

was laborious. Frederick Douglass recalled what it was like to be a field hand when he

stated, “We were worked all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never

rain, blow, snow, or hail too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was

scarcely more the order of the day than of the night.”2 Like Douglass, Turner labored in

the fields as a child and listened to the rumblings of discontent among the other field

hands. He listened as they sang field hollers and spirituals, venting their frustrations

through song. These songs were often inspired by Biblical stories in which the

community saw their experiences reflected, and thus became the soundtrack of Turner’s

early life. To a young Turner, these songs communicated the palatable discontent and

longing for freedom that the entire community possessed and that he was born with.

He observed the power dynamics of the plantation and contemplated how and

why this dynamic was created. Booker T. Washington recalled life as an enslaved child in

Virginia when he stated, “On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten

to the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a

scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another.”3

Turner was likely fed in the same way as a child on the plantation leading him to question

why he was forced to work long hours and eat like an animal. He was a strangely mature,

1.Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 2011). 2. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York: Miller: Orton & Mulligan,

1855), 218. 3. Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1900), 9.

152

talkative, and inquisitive youngster. He asked his parents and grandmother questions they

could not answer or thought him too young to know the real answer. Turner observed his

grandmother in frequent secret conversations she called prayer. She said she spoke to

God often, and when he began to ask difficult questions about slavery, she taught him to

pray and to trust in the Lord with all his heart and lean not to his own understanding.

Turner states, “To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive and observant of every thing that

was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be

directed, and although this subject principally occupied my thoughts--there was nothing

that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed.”4 As an intellectually and

spiritually advanced child, Turner understood his grandmother’s sentiments to mean that

the most important thing he could ever do was establish a personal relationship with God

if he wanted answers to his unanswerable questions.

According to historian Patrick H. Breen in “A Prophet in His Own Land: Support

for Nat Turner and His Rebellion within Southampton’s Black Community,” It was not

illegal to teach slaves to read in Virginia during Turner’s childhood, though it was

unusual.5 Education of any kind was a privilege few enslaved people—especially field

hands—enjoyed following Gabriel’s rebellion which resulted in more enslavers having

negative attitudes towards the intellectual elevation of the enslaved. Because of Turner’s

4. Thomas Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton,

VA (Baltimore: Lucas & Deaver, 1831), 8.

5. Patrick H. Breen, “A Prophet in His Own Land: Support for Nat Turner and His Rebellion within Southampton’s Black Community,” in Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 106.

153

precociousness and maturity, his enslaver allowed him the privilege of reading. Turner

learned to read as a boy. However, he had no recollection of such instruction. He states,

The manner in which I learned to read and write, not only had great influence on my own mind, as I acquired it with the most perfect ease, so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet—but to the astonishment of the family, one day, when a book was shewn me to keep me from crying, I began spelling the names of different objects—this was a source of wonder to all in the neighborhood, particularly the blacks—and this learning was constantly improved at all opportunities.6

While Turner attributed his literacy to divine intervention as a toddler, he also had the

unique educational experience of being near white children as they were receiving their

lessons as he grew older. Like several others before him, Turner was likely educated by

proximity to his enslaver’s children. He likely sneaked out of the fields and pretended to

play by himself or with other enslaved children as he listened to his enslaver’s children

received their lessons on the porch or near an open window. He could have possibly been

assigned as a servant to the Turner children and tasked with carrying their books to and

from school. Booker T. Washington recalled a similar experience as a boy. He states,

I remember on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.7

As with any children, Washington and Turner’s formative years were a critical time of

cognitive and social development. Of his experience with books as a child Turner states:

6. Gray, 8. 7. Washington, 7.

154

“I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination, and

whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school children were

getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination

had depicted to me before.”8 Turner was a brilliant child. Reading came naturally to him.

When he encountered books, it was as if he knew what was already on the pages. He was

astonished at his own abilities. When he was not working in the field, he would listen and

meditate on the lessons he overheard and read. He states, “all my time, not devoted to my

master's service, was spent either in prayer, or in making experiments in casting different

things in moulds [sic] made of earth, in attempting to make paper, gunpowder, and many

other experiments, that although I could not perfect, yet convinced me of its practicability

if I had the means.”9 His ability to conceptualize and carry out experiments in his free

time was remarkable as no one, Black or white, had ever seen a child so naturally mature

and astute. Turner loved to read and soon formed a close relationship with the Bible. He

likely loved to read the stories of prophets who talked to God, like Moses and Gideon,

considering that he often heard members of the community say that he was a prophet

himself.

Turner was so advanced that both the Black and white communities took note of

his unique abilities. They marveled at his intellectual development and ingenuity.

8. Gray, 8. 9. Ibid.

155

Turner’s grandmother, his enslaver, and other enslavers remarked about his unique

intellectual abilities as a child. Turner states,

My grandmother, who was very religious, and to whom I was much attached—my master, who belonged to the church, and other religious persons who visited the house, and whom I often saw at prayers, noticing the singularity of my manners, I suppose, and my un-common intelligence for a child, remarked I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any service to any one as a slave.10

Turner’s experience with the response to his intellect is reminiscent of Frederick

Douglass’s experience with learning to read as a boy. His enslaver also believed that if

the young Douglass learned to read, he would be unfit to be enslaved. According to

Douglass, in a fit of rage, his enslaver scolded his wife for teaching the boy to read,

stating that “if you teach that nigger…how to read, there would be no keeping him. It

would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no

value to his master.”11 Turner’s and Douglass’s enslavers’ sentiments reveal the common

attitude of enslavers regarding enslaved education after Gabriel’s rebellion. The

correlation between the Bible and conjuring ideas of humanity and freedom and thus the

total dismantling of the American social hierarchy was something they were fearful of.

The potential for literacy to disrupt the entire system was a real threat to their livelihood.

The major difference between Douglass and Turner is that Turner’s enslaver continued to

allow him to read and participate in education in some form, even if it meant he was not

10. Gray, 7-8. 11. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (New

York, NY: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003), 33.

156

directly instructed but adjacent to the lesson being taught to his enslaver’s children. It

was obvious to Turner that he would facilitate change and that it would be the result of

his intellectual elevation. To Turner, his mind and his inability to be a slave were

inextricably bound.

As a mature child, Turner’s intellectual and spiritual gifts allowed him to position

himself as a leader among the enslaved. Though many of them were much older than

him, he was believed to have “superior judgement” and therefore gained their trust and

following. Many of them would use him to plan excursions when they would steal from

their enslavers. Though not a thief himself, Turner was delighted to have their trust and

be at their service. It likely made him feel connected to his community. They had been

observing him and listening to his wisdom since he was a toddler. Though a child, they

saw him as a wise and calculated decision maker. The community saw Turner as a

messenger from God.12 They believed him capable of communication with the Holy

Spirit in a way that only a prophet could be. They trusted him. He had influence over

their minds and sprits. When he recited scriptures, they listened attentively as if hearing

from someone divine. The community of enslavers and the enslaved surely marveled at

Turner. He was unlike any child anyone had ever seen. However, enslavers were leery of

Turner. They knew that he had the potential to wield a dangerous will over the enslaved

community. They knew long before he did.

12. Gray, 9.

157

As Turner grew into an adolescent, he began to acknowledge the power of mind

and spirit that everyone believed he possessed. Overwhelmed by everyone’s expectations,

he isolated himself and prayed. He states, “Having soon discovered to be great, I must

appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in

mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.”13 Turner retreated to his innermost

thoughts. Once the most talkative member of the community, he fell nearly silent and was

preoccupied by his thoughts and prayer. He spent much of his time isolated, reading the

Bible, and pondering on the passages he read. While working in the field, Turner talked

to God as his grandmother taught him to do. He ignored everyone around him and

focused on hearing the voice of God for years. Surely, the Holy Spirit would eventually

speak back if he prayed hard enough. As a teenager, Turner continued to study the Bible

and meditate on its pass. As he grew, he grew closer to God and his spirituality

intensified, especially after his father successfully ran away. Turner’s relationship to God,

the father, likely helped him to heal from his own father’s abrupt departure from the

Turner plantation.14

As the years rolled by, Turner worked the fields, read the Bible, meditated on the

scriptures, and prayed until he reached adulthood. In adulthood he grew to be around five

foot eight and weighed between one hundred fifty and one hundred sixty pounds.15 He

13. Gray, 8-9. 14. Ibid. 15. Eric Foner (ed), Nat Turner (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 13.

158

likely married in his late teens or early twenties as would have been the custom for a field

hand. Marriage and children would mark Turner’s transition into adulthood. His wife,

likely another field hand, who bore him children who would also be field hands. It

unsettled Turner that his children were enslaved. He likely thought about what it meant to

have a family under these conditions as he read the Bible daily and attended church

meetings. In young adulthood, he was struck by the Bible verse Matthew 6:33 which

states “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall

be added unto you.” He had read it before but hearing it in a church meeting this time

struck him. He prayed and contemplated on exactly what it meant to seek the kingdom of

God and righteousness and how he might go about obtaining God’s favor and freedom

from slavery. Surely the kingdom of God was righteous and just and therefore absent of

the practice of slavery. Heaven was a place of abundance and peace—not poverty and

bondage.

Turner’s reading of the Bible allowed him access to religion and spirituality that

consumed him and transformed him into a religious zealot committed to fostering his

personal relationship with God and fulfilling his God ordained purpose. Much like

General Gabriel’s brother Martin and Denmark Vesey, religion played an important part

in Turner’s life. Turner’s reading of the Bible and possibly other documents such as

abolitionist pamphlets and newspapers fed the flame of freedom burning in Turner’s

young mind. He continued to labor as a field hand but also became a preacher among the

enslaved. They still believed he was connected to God and was full of spiritual wisdom.

159

They believed God would speak directly to him, even if not to them. They trusted God

and they in turn trusted Turner as His messenger and prophet. Being a preacher afforded

Turner the space to teach others about the word of God and feed their minds and souls.

One day after years of prayer, while operating a plough, Turner finally heard God

speak. He heard God, as had the prophets before him, say directly to him “Seek ye the

kingdom of Heaven and all things shall be added unto you.”16 Turner was astonished that

he had finally spiritually ascended and accessed a direct line of communication with God

because of his years of prayer and meditation on the scripture. He prayed even more

feverishly hoping to hear God speak to him again. Turner spent all his time praying. He

prayed while he was working and when he was not. For two years, he likely prayed so

often that he was distracted. It is probable that though Turner was physically present and

able to perform his duties, he was so distracted by praying and meditation that he began

to perform his duties poorly. Around this time, he was likely kicked in the temple by a

mule, an injury that would leave a scar on his temple for the rest of his life.17 Bruised but

not broken, he was never deterred from his goal to communicate with God again. He

continued to meditate and pray. He thought back to his childhood and how everyone used

to say that he was too smart to be a slave, but there he was a grown man and still

16. Gray, 9. 17. Foner, 13.

160

enslaved. His purpose began to become clearer to him, and he became outwardly resistant

to slavery.18

In 1821, twenty-one-year-old Nat Turner was placed under the supervision of an

overseer—possibly because of his distracted and prayerful state. Likely unwilling to

comply with the overseer’s demands, Turner ran away. The enslaved community

believed him to have followed in his father’s footsteps and made a successful get away.

Turner hid out for thirty days, praying and meditating and waiting to hear from God. He

thought about how everyone around him knew that he was destined to fulfill a purpose

ordained by God and that he might know what that purpose was but could not say

indefinitely. He pondered what it meant to be a messenger of God and how and why God

placed so much responsibility upon his shoulders. He prayed that God would speak to

him and give him a sign like he did his favorite prophets Moses and Gideon. He thought

about what it meant to be called to lead your people to freedom and if he was worthy of

such responsibility. He likely, wanted to keep running north like his father, but the

thought about the emotional toll it took on his mother and grandmother and figured they

would not be able to bare his absence. He likely, he thought about his wife and children

and what it would mean to them if he never returned—he recalled what it meant to him

and his mother when his father left. How could he be free if they were enslaved? Turner

prayed and asked God to tell him what to do. Eventually, God answered Turner’s prayers

and said to him that his “wishes directed to the things of this world, and not to the

18. Gray, 9.

161

kingdom of Heaven” and that he should return to the service of his “earthly master.”19 To

the astonishment of the enslaved community—he walked back to the plantation after

being gone a month. The community questioned his motives in returning to servitude.

Behind Turner’s back they whispered that if they had the opportunity, they would not

serve any master in the world.20 For the first time since he was born, they questioned his

intellectual gifts. However, because of his spiritual gifts the enslaved community’s

commitment to him as a prophet remained intact.

Shortly after his return Turner had a graphic and bloody vision. He “saw white

spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened--the thunder rolled in

the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams.” In addition, he heard God’s voice saying,

“Such is your luck, such you are called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must

surely bare it.”21 Turner finally understood his purpose. Turner understood these figures

in combat to mean that there was the be a war between the enslaved and their enslavers

and that the enslaved were to initiate it. He saw the battle for the kingdom of Heaven play

out before his eyes. He was astonished as he saw the black figures cut down the white

figures swiftly and aggressively. He understood himself as the leader of the black figures.

He watched his shadow men carry out the business of freedom as God had ordained it.

Turner knew that when the time was right for God would provide him the plan for war.

19. Gray, 9. 20. Ibid., 10. 21. Ibid.

162

He retreated into prayer and isolated himself as he had the first time God spoke to him

and waited for God to reappear.

Turner continued to pray, preach, and labor in the fields. In 1822, word of

Denmark Vesey’s thwarted plan for insurrection spread like wildfire. Turner likely heard

of Vesey or read about him in the newspaper and wondered if he too talked to God, and if

God also sent Vesey to execute an impossible task. According to Carter G. Woodson,

When Nat Turner appeared, the education of the Negro had made the way somewhat easier for him than it was for his predecessors. Negroes who could read and write had before them the revolutionary ideas of the French, the daring deeds of Toussaint L’Overture, the bold attempt of General Gabriel, and the far-reaching plans of Denmark Vesey. These were sometimes written up in the abolition literature, the circulation of which was so extensive among the slaves that it became a national question.22

Turner was twenty-two at the time the Denmark Vesey conspiracy was stamped out, and

Gabriel and L ’Overture had long since been folk-heroes in the slaved community. These

men symbolized intellect, strength, and power—traits that young adult Turner had

already outfitted himself with as a boy. It is possible that Turner encountered literature

about these men and was inspired by them as cultural heroes. He probably thought about

their deeds and their burning desire to bring about an end to slavery. Perhaps they were

prophets who came before him in the tradition of Moses and Gideon in the Bible. Gabriel

and Vesey were inspired by L’Overture and what he was able to accomplish in Haiti, and

it is likely that Turner was inspired by them in that same fashion.

22. Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York: A&B Books,

1919), 163.

163

In 1822, Turner was sold to Thomas Moore after the death of his enslaver Samuel

Turner. In 1825, Turner’s relationship to the Bible and God intensified. Through his

continued reading, prayer, and meditation, he gained further access to the spiritual realm

and began to experience visions in which God bestowed “knowledge of the elements,

revolution of the planets, the operation of the tides, and changes in the seasons” upon

him.23 He believed that these visions were the result of years of isolated meditation on the

scripture. This vision was pivotal as it imparted upon him the knowledge of the entire

universe. Turner’s visions began to come more frequently because of him obtaining the

knowledge of the universe from God. This knowledge made him otherworldly. He had

seen God and the kingdom of heaven. He was convinced that he was divine.

While laboring in the fields, another vision came to Turner. He saw

Drops of blood on the corn as though it were dew from heaven…and I then found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters, and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens. And now the Holy Ghost had revealed itself to me, and made plain the miracles it had shown me.24

In “Reading, Revelation, and Rebellion: The Textual Communities of Gabriel, Denmark

Vesey, and Nat Turner,” historian James Sidbury argues that “The Holy Ghost did not

initially tell Turner the meaning of these visions. Instead, it initiated him into true

23. Gray, 10. 24. Ibid., 10.

164

knowledge by communicating through a mystical written text.”25 Turner considered these

visions a sign from God that his purpose was to deliver his people from slavery. Sidbury

argues that “While Turner based his authority on his special ability to understand the

Bible, his interpretive gift allowed him to turn nature into a new divine text and to read

God’s intentions there.”26 Turner exhibited a spiritual literacy that confirmed his status a

prophet. He read the social and spiritual landscape and acted on what he saw.

In May of 1828, Turner’s next vision was perhaps the most important of all. He

“heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the

Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of

men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast

approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.”27 Turner’s

statement paraphrases the Bible verse Matthew 20:16 which states “So the last shall be

first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” After years of meditating on

the Word of God, Turner awaited a final sign for the appropriate time for him to fulfill his

purpose. Sidbury argues Turner’s “authority was rooted in stories of his lifelong ability to

see things others could not and in his extraordinary access to the written word.”28

25. James Sidbury, “Reading, Revelation, and Rebellion the Textual Communities of Gabriel,

Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner” in Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 129.

26. Ibid. 27. Gray, 11. 28. Sidbury, 130.

165

Turner kept his purpose to himself and continued to pray awaiting a final sign

from God to tell him when to commence the “work of death.”29 In 1830, Turner moved to

Joseph Travis’s plantation when the widowed mother of his infant enslaver married

Travis. In February of 1831, an eclipse occurred. Turner considered this a sign from

heaven and that it was time for him to fulfill his purpose. He revealed his purpose and

plan to four men whom he trusted: Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. The men decided to

begin the work of freedom on July 4th.30 Some twenty years before Frederick Douglass

asked the question, these men asked themselves “What to the slave is the fourth of July?”

They went back and forth about a plan of action. They created several plans of action but

could not settle on one. Turner was so consumed and overwhelmed by the planning that

he fell ill, and the uprising was postponed awaiting another sign. The plan Turner

conceived at this time is unknown. In August, once again, an atmospheric disturbance

occurred which made the sun appear to be blueish green. Turner considered this the sign

from God that it was time for him to fulfill his purpose

On August 21, 1831, Turner and his co-conspirators planned to meet for dinner in

the woods and to come up with another plan for the rebellion. Turner skipped dinner so

that he could talk to God. He probably prayed and asked God to reveal the proper

strategy to him. Turner arrived at the rendezvous point in the middle of the night.

According to Eric Foner, there are no documents associated with the plan for rebellion,

29. Gray, 11. 30. Ibid.

166

but Turner allegedly drew a map that described the county of Southampton in pokeberry

juice. Foner argues that as a preacher, Turner was able to travel throughout the county

which allowed him to know the lay of the land.31 The map was probably an important

part of the plot and helped Turner and his rebels come up with an effective strategy for

war.

Unlike Denmark Vesey and General Gabriel before him, who initiated large and

far-reaching plots, initially, Turner only enlisted four other men to join his cause. By

August 21, 1831, four additional men had been recruited—Sam, Nelson, Will, Jack and

Austin. Testing his loyalty, Turner asked Will about why he joined the plan for rebellion.

He states, “His life was worth no more than others, and his liberty as dear to him. I asked

him if he thought to obtain it? He said he would, or loose [sic] his life.”32 The use of the

term “liberty” signifies the connection between the enslaved in Virginia and the rhetoric

of the American Revolution. The spirit of men like Gabriel and Jack Ditcher was still

very much alive in Virginia.

According to historian and Nat Turner scholar Patrick H. Breen, “Inspired by his

religious visions, Nat Turner tapped into the latent hope and discontent of slaves and free

blacks in Southampton. The prophet became a general and led his men in a desperate

battle against slavery.”33 General Turner’s plan was to attack Turner’s enslaver and his

31. Foner, 4.

32. Ibid., 12. 33. Breen, 118.

167

family, collect arms, and form an army of “soldiers”—as he called them—as they moved

from plantation to plantation killing every white man, woman, and child with guns axes,

clubs, and swords and march toward Jerusalem, Virginia a few miles from Southampton.

On August 22, 1831, under the cover of night, Turner and his comrades crept into the

home of Joseph Travis and slaughtered the family with an axe as they lay in their beds.

The soldiers swept across plantations surprise attacking and murdering and taking no

prisoners. The number of rebels swelled to nearly seventy as they went from plantation to

plantation dealing death blows and spilling blood. Turner’s vision had been realized.

More joined the cause. There were enslaved and free men as well as enslaved women and

children who participated in Nat Turner’s rebellion. The rebellion lasted nearly forty-

eight hours before it was shut down by the white militia. Fifty-five whites died in the

rebellion; the majority of those killed were children--which has major implications in that

Turner was attempting to eliminate the possibly of slavery through inheritance and

lineage. To him the entire white population had to be eliminated for slavery to end. It

demonstrates his understanding of slavery as a battle between good and evil.

By August 31, most of the rebels had been captured and the trials of Turner’s

soldiers began. Turner ran and went into hiding for a second time in his life. He changed

hiding places several times, but never left the vicinity. For the first six weeks of his

escape, he hid in a hole that he dug which he concealed with a pile of fence rails near the

Travis property and prayed and mediated listening for God’s instruction. He crept out of

the hole in the dead of night to get water from a nearby stream and eavesdrop outside of

168

neighborhood windows to gather intelligence about what happened to his soldiers and the

status of the search for him. A letter to Governor John Floyd is the only complete

physical description of Nat Turner that exists. The governor used this description when

issuing the proclamation calling for Turner’s capture:

He is between 30 and 35 years old, 5 feet six or 8 inches high—weighs between 150 and160, rather bright complexion but not a mulatto—broad shouldered—large flat nose—large eyes broad flat feet—rather knock-kneed—walk brisk and active hair on top of the head very thin—no beard except on the upper lip and the tip of the chin, a scar on one of his temples produced by a kick of a mule also one on the back of his neck by a bite—a large knot on one of the bones of his right arm near the wrist produced by a blow.34

While the search for Turner continued, approximately twenty-six of fifty-two enslaved

and free people were charged with involvement in Turner’s insurrection and were

convicted. Eighteen of them were hanged, twelve were sold out of state, and the rest were

acquitted or had the charges against them dismissed . Many suspected of being

participants never made it to court as white vigilantes killed them as they caught them.35

After being discovered by two slaves out hunting with a dog, Turner relocated to another

hole he dug out with a sword under the top of a fallen tree. There he was discovered and

apprehend at gunpoint by Benjamin Phipps on October 30. Turner was turned over to the

authorities in Jerusalem and charged with “making insurrection and plotting to take away

34 34. Foner, 13. 3535. Heather Williams, Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom

(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 218; Kenneth S. Greenberg (ed), Confessions of Nat Turner: And Related Documents (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 2017), 57-58.

169

the lives of diverse free white persons.”36 Turner delivered a detailed confession and

autobiographical account of his life to Thomas Gray in the days before his trial. Most of

what is known about Turner and the rebellion is drawn from this confession. Turner’s

trial took place on November 5. The confession was read at Turner’s trial in lieu of

putting him on the stand. He was sentenced to execution the same day he was tried. On

November 11, 1830, Turner refused the invitation to offer his dying words before the

crowd that swarmed to watch his impending doom and was hanged.

The treatment of Turner’s dead body after his execution is indicative of the hate

that enslavers felt for Turner and his immeasurable intellect. According Daina Ramery

Berry, author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from the

Womb to the Grave in the Building of a Nation, Turner’s lifeless body was beheaded and

skinned and turned over to medical students to be dissected. Bystanders allegedly made

grease of his flesh for retribution. Berry argues that whites were fearful and curious and

therefore wanted the body to be studied to know if there was a psychological or

biological reasoning for Turner’s actions.37 In the prologue to the confession that Turner

gave to him, which was later published and widely disseminated following the execution,

Thomas Gray states that the rebellion “was not instigated by motives of revenge or

sudden anger, but the results of long deliberation, and a settled purpose of mind.”38

36. Gray, 21. 37. Daina Ramey Berry, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from the

Womb to the Grave, In the Building of a Nation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2017), 101-103. 38. Gray, 5.

170

Gray’s sentiments are reflective of Turner’s mental and intellectual gifts of which his

rebellion was the result. According to Carter G. Woodson because of Turner’s rebellion

“The slave states had a striking example of what the intelligent Negroes of the South

might eventually do.”39

On September 3, 1831, the editor of the Richmond Constitutional Whig wrote that

If there was any ulterior purpose, he alone probably knows it. For our part we still believe there was none; and if he be the intelligent man represented, we are incapable of conceiving the arguments by which he persuaded his own mind of the feasibility of his attempt, or how it could possibly end but in certain destruction. We therefore incline to the belief that he acted upon no higher principle than the impulse of revenge against the whites, as the enslavers of himself and his race….40

This quote is revealing of the attitudes of whites at the time in that it suggest that even

though Turner was an intelligent man the reason had to be revenge against the white race

and not a matter of securing the freedom of his people. It reveals that enslavers saw

freedom as something reserved for them and their grandfathers who fought in the

Revolutionary War. No one ever questioned if Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry wanted

revenge against the British. They were considered heroes because they fought for their

freedom and independence. This quote displays the inability of whites to understand that

the enslaved were capable of conceptualizing freedom on their own terms.

The quote also speaks directly to the notion that whites were well aware of the

crimes against humanity they had committed as a result for enslaving African people and

39. Woodson, 162.

40. Foner, 57.

171

believed that revenge would be the ultimate goal of any other human being who had

suffered centuries of dehumanization. Revenge was the expectation after centuries of

injustices. Turner was driven by something far more complex than a revenge plot. Turner

stated in his confession that he did not have any actual issues with his enslaver Joseph

Travis. He states, He states, “I had been living with Mr. Joseph Travis, who was to me a

kind master, and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complain

of his treatment to me.”41 Turner’s rebellion was not a revenge plot, it was not about the

way he had been treated as a slave or about his enslaver particularly. The purpose of the

rebellion was to end slavery and everyone, both Black and white, knew that the only way

that it could be dismantled was through violence, that white people would not give up the

institution which was sacred to them without a fight. Before John Brown dealt the system

of enslavement a haymaker that propelled the nation into Civil War, Nat Turner threw the

first punch. Turner’s rebellion was ordained by God and could not have been stopped by

anyone. Nat Turner was particularly jarring to enslavers because it alerted them to the

fact that the institution of enslavement was resting on quicksand.

The extent of literacy in Turner’s uprising was much different than both Gabriel’s

rebellion and Denmark Vesey’s. Whereas in both those cases the co-conspirators wrote

lists which contained the names of their thousands of participants, there were no lists in

Turner’s rebellion. It is also unclear as to whether any of the men who joined Turner

could read. Also, there is no knowledge of any written documentation of a plan, but

41. Gray, 11.

172

Turner’s wife was said to be “forced under the lash to give up her husband’s papers”42

Exactly what these papers contained is unknown. However, the fact that Turner’s wife

was brutally beaten until she turned over the papers signifies that they were most likely

related to the plan. According to Eric Foner, The one piece of information that points to

the role of literacy in the planning of the rebellion is a map that If anything, Turner’s

spiritual literacy and read of the Bible is what ultimately drove him to rebel.

In a letter from Virginia governor John Floyd to South Carolina governor James

Hamilton, Floyd provides a thorough explanation of insurrection which transpired in his

state. He states,

The course has been by no means a direct one. They began first by making them religious; their conversations were of that character, telling the blacks, God was no respecter of persons; the black man was as good as the white; that all men were born free and equal; that they cannot serve two masters; that white people rebelled against England to obtain freedom; so have the blacks a right to do…. Finally our females and of the most respectable were persuaded that it was piety to teach negroes to read and write, to the end that they might read scriptures…. Then commenced the efforts of the black preachers. Often from the pulpit these pamphlets and papers were read, followed by the incendiary publications of Walker, Garrison, and Knapp of Boston; these too with songs and hymns of a similar character were circulated, read and commented upon, we resting in apathetic security until the Southampton affair…. From all that has come to my knowledge during and since this affair, I am fully convinced that every black preacher, in the whole country east of the Blue Ridge, was in the secret, that the plans as published by those northern prints were adopted and acted up by them, that their congregations, as they were called knew nothing of this intended rebellion, except a few leading, and intelligent men, who may have been head men in the church…. I feel fully justified to myself, in believing the northern incendiaries, tracts, Sunday Schools, religion and reading and writing has accomplished this end….I shall in my annual message recommend that laws be passed to confine the slaves to the estates of their masters, prohibit negroes from

42. Foner, 1.

173

preaching, absolutely to drive from this state all free negroes, and to substitute the surplus revenue in out treasury annually for slaves, to work for a time upon a railroad, etc. and then sent out of the country, preparatory, or rather as the first step to emancipation. This last point will of course be tenderly and cautiously managed…43

Hysteria and rumors spread throughout the south after the Turner rebellion. Enslavers and

state and local politicians, like Virginia’s governor, scrambled to make sense of what had

taken place. The Turner rebellion ignited the debate about abolition of the system of

slavery and propelled the national conversation. This kind of brutality against white

people was unheard of. The perception of insurrections up to this point was that they

were quixotic attempts at freedom. The Turner rebellion revealed that if, given the

opportunity to achieve mental and spiritual enlightenment, it was inevitable that

widescale rebellion would eventually ensue. As a result, the debate on whether to

emancipate grew more intense. However, enslavers leaned in favor of preserving the

system and passed legislation making the system particularly more oppressive. While the

first anti-literacy legislation had been past nearly a century before enslavers were lax in

enforcing these laws. However, after Turner’s execution enslavers found themselves

going the extra mile to make sure that the enslaved did not have access to reading or

writing, religion, or congregating.

Historian Nicholas May, author of “Holy Rebellion: Religious Assembly Laws in

Antebellum South Carolina and Virginia,” states that, “The brutal violence of Turner's

attacks on white women and children combined with the zealous theology supporting the

43. Ibid., 59-60.

174

revolt aroused fears of slave religion and literacy more than ever before.”44 Therefore, the

goal of legislation following the Turner rebellion was to totally prevent the dissemination

of information among the enslaved and the ability of the enslaved to read any type of

information that may encourage ideas of freedom. The debate about emancipation was

short-lived in the south. Legal repression of the behavior of the enslaved became one of

the main ways that enslavers sought to regain mental and physical control over the

enslaved and free population. Legislation was enacted that prohibited gathering for

religious meetings, prevented free men from owning firearms. Legislation barring

education was passed in April as a response to Walker’s Appeal—these laws were

updated to carry harsher penalties. Informal schools were shut down and the activities of

preachers were suppressed. The slaves were to be closely monitored. North Carolina

prohibited free Blacks and slaves from preaching. Alabama had circulation of incendiary

pamphlets a capital offense. These laws were never really enforced but their creation is

representative of the enslavers and politicians were willing to go to tighten the reigns on

slavery. The laws explicitly stated what type of activities were believed to result in

insurrection. For example, Virginia passed legislation in 1831 which states:

Be it further enacted, That all meeting of free negroes or mulattoes, at any schoolhouse, church, meeting-house or other place for teaching reading or writing either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered an unlawful assembly; and any justice of the county or corporation, wherein such assemblage shall be, either from his own knowledge, or on the information of others, of such unlawful assemblage or meeting may be, for the purpose of apprehending or dispersing such free negroes or mulattos , and to

44. Nicholas May,” Holy Rebellion: Religious Assembly Laws in Antebellum South Carolina and

Virginia,” The American Journal of Legal History, 49, No. 3 (JULY 2007), 252.

175

inflict corporal punishment on the offender or offenders, at the discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding twenty lashes. 5. Be it further enacted, That if any white person or persons assemble with free negroes or mulattoes in any school-house, church, meeting-house, or other place for the purpose of instructing such free negroes or mulattoes to read or write, such person or persons shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in a sum not exceeding fifty dollars, and moreover may be imprisoned at the discretion of a jury, not exceeding two months. 6. Be it further enacted, That if any white person, for pay or compensation shall assemble with any slaves for the purpose of teaching, and shall teach any slave to read or write, such person or any white person or persons contracting with such teacher so to act, who shall offend as aforesaid, shall, for each offence, be fined at the discretion of a jury, in a sum not less than ten, not exceeding one hundred dollars, to be recovered on and information or indictment.45

In 1834 South Carolina also passed legislation that was explicit in communicating which

behaviors were strictly prohibited. The legislation states:

Be it enacted by the Honorable the senate and House of Representatives, now met and sitting in General Assembly and by the authority of the same. If any person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or shall aid or assist in teaching any slave to read or write or cause or procure any slave to be taught to read or write such person, if a free white person, upon conviction thereof, shall, for each and every offence against this act, be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, and imprisoned not more than six months; of if a free person of color, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes, and fined not exceeding fifty dollars, at the discretion of the court of magistrates, and free holders before which such free person of color is tried; and if a slave, shall be whipped at the discretion of the court, not exceeding fifty lashes; the informer to be entitled to one half of the fine, and to be a competent witness; and if any free person of color or slave, shall keep any school or other place of instruction, for teaching any slave or free person of color to read or write, such person of color or slave, shall be liable to the same fine, imprisonment and corporal punishment, as are by this section, imposed and inflicted on free persons of color and slaves, for teaching slaves to read or write.46

45. Virginia Slave Codes, 1831. 46. South Carolina Slave Codes, 1834.

176

Following Turner’s rebellion, the system of enslavement drastically changed. Not only

had the transition from the production of tobacco to cotton occurred making the system

more wide ranging and back breaking, but state and local governments created harsher

policies, like the ones above, to monitor the behavior of the enslaved fearing the internal

enemy that was the enslaved. Fear of insurrection being the result of an intelligent

population laws were created a social environment which forbade teaching the enslaved

to read or write but also reduced the movement and access of the skilled artisans and

slave preachers. Unlawful assembly had long been the law of the land, but the enslaved

were monitored even more closely and gathering without the presence of a white person,

enslaver or overseer was strictly prohibited. These efforts transformed the culture and

made learning to read a clandestine effort that was often shared in cabins by candlelight

after the workday had ended. Where it was once thought of a necessity for the salvation

of the enslaved soul, literacy was now seen as having disastrous consequences. This

legislation was reflective of the lengths that enslavers were willing to go to preserve the

institution of slavery. However, all these policies did was drive teaching the enslaver

underground.

Even though the laws were on the books it was difficult to enforce them.

Therefore, some enslavers defaulted to their own means of controlling literacy on their

plantations and resorted to the amputation of body parts to enforce a no tolerance policy.

According to John Cromwell, the Turner trial was followed by a “reign of terror” and acts

of violence in the form of floggings, amputation and even death became more

177

commonplace.47 Threats of violence related to the enslaved becoming literate became

standard practice after Turner’s rebellion. The WPA narratives reveal the lengths to

which enslavers went to enforce illiteracy on their own plantations. For example, Titus T.

Bynes recounted his story to an interviewer. When Titus was five or six years of age he

was given to his enslaver’s wife to groom him to be a house servant. Bynes never

received any education but was quick to learn how to read and write from being in the

home with the white children. He recalled that he learned to tell the time of day and could

distinguish one newspaper from another. He recounted an incident which happened when

he was about eight years old which led him to conceal his precociousness. One day while

play by himself and writing on the ground, he heard his mistress’s daughter run and tell

her mother that he was writing about water. The woman called out to him and told him

that if he were caught writing again his right arm would be cut off. From then on his

preciousness vanished.48

Another formerly enslaved man Young Winston Davis relayed a similar

experience with violence on the plantation as a result of his learning to read. He states,

“We could attend church but dare not try to get any education, less we punished with

straps.”49 As a child, another man named Douglas was tasked with carrying his enslaver’s

children’s book to school every morning. One of the boys would teach Davis what he

47. John Cromwell, “The Aftermath of Nat Turner’s Insurrection,” The Journal of Negro History,

5, No. 2 (Apr. 1920), 208-234. 48. Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, 3, Florida, Anderson-Wilson with combined

interviews of others. (1936),55-56. 49. Ibid., 88.

178

learned in school and Davis eventually learned the alphabet and numbers. When the

child’s mother found out she called both boys to the dining and after writing out the alpha

and numbers up to ten she asked Douglas if he knew what they were. He proudly

answered. She then asked him to write the alphabet and numbers to 10. To Douglas’s

surprised she raised her hand and struck him across the face and told him that if she ever

caught him writing again she would cut his arm off. She then tied the two boys to a post

on the front porch and flogged both of them for so long that “for two weeks the clothes

stuck to their back on the lacerated flesh.”50 Following the Turner rebellion, the violence

associated with every days of literacy terrified the enslaved population on some

plantations. Another formerly enslaved interviewee states, “We didn’t have a chance to

learn to read and write, and master said if he caught any of his slaves trying to learn he

would skin them alive.”51 Although the majority of enslavers were adamant about not

teaching their slavers to read because they perceived the dangers associated with it to be

too great, the WPA narratives reveal that there were still some enslavers who taught their

enslaved to read for religious purposes. One interviewee recalled,

White folks never teach us to read nor write much. They learned us our A, B, C’s, and teach us to read some in de testament. De reason they wouldn’t teach us to read and write, was ‘cause they was afraid slaves would write their own pass and go over to a free country. One old nigger did learn to write his pass and got ‘way wid it and went up North.”52

50. Ibid., 98-99 51. Ibid., 63.

52. Ibid., 11.

179

The WPA narratives reveal that an underground tradition of education existed among the

enslaved after the Nat Turner rebellion, despite legislation created to prevent intellectual

elevation. Historians such as, Carter G. Woodson, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Janet Cornelius

argue that by the time of the Civil War between five and ten percent of the enslaved

population were literate. There were approximately four million Africans Americans

emancipated at the end of the Civil War which means that somewhere between two

hundred thousand and four hundred thousand of the newly freed that could read. These

narratives and figures are reflective of the tenacity of African Americans to learn to read

and write under the worst social circumstances imaginable.

Anti-literacy statutes and legislation are most often associated with the Nat Turner

rebellion. Turner’s rebellion was not as meticulously planned as General Gabriel’s or

Denmark Vesey’s, but it proved to be impactful. Turner’s rebellion was a major turning

point in American history. The Turner rebellion caused a social and cultural shift that

drastically changed the system of enslavement for the next three decades. Nat Turner has

gone down in history for carrying out a successful slave rebellion and has become a

popular culture icon for what he was able to accomplish. However, the real victory of

Turner’s rebellion is not in the violence. The victory is in the intellectual elevation that

Turner was able to accomplish and how spiritual literacy allowed him to envision

freedom from bondage for the masses.

180

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

Accurate interpretations of history reveal that rebellion has always existed within

the African American community. During slavery, the enslaved community rebelled in

multiple ways and participated in armed rebellion multiple times. For centuries, slave

rebellions have been dismissed as random acts of violence perpetuated by a handful of

discontented slaves. The truth is that an analysis of slave rebellions reveals that more than

rebellions being the result of a few discontent slaves, they were like potential energy

waiting to be conducted. The spirit of rebellion is like energy in that it cannot be created

or destroyed, it can only be conducted and converted. The most far-reaching slave

rebellions were the result of educated enslaved men named Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and

Nat Turner. These men used their literacy and access to information to become

conductors of the energy of rebellion that already existed among enslaved communities.

The enslaved community trusted these men to break the chains of slavery and lead them

to freedom. These three rebellions are particularly important because they revealed to

enslavers that intellectual elevation of the enslaved would inevitably result in a violent

uprising for freedom. Therefore, they enacted policies to legislate African American

genius and stymie rebellion. The last three decades of slavery were marked by laws that

181

strictly prohibited teaching the enslaved to read and write. An accurate analysis of history

suggests that those slave codes were the direct result of and response to slave rebellions.

In March of 1863, in a call to African American men to fight for the Union Army,

Frederick Douglass wrote an impassioned editorial. He evoked his heroes when he stated,

“Remember Denmark Vesey of Charleston; remember Nathanial Turner of Southampton;

remember Shields Green, and Copeland who followed noble John Brown and fell as

glorious martyrs.”1 These men were well known for their roles as leaders in slave

rebellions. Though hanged for their crimes of insurrection these men lived on in the

memory of the enslaved community. Douglass, who was three or four years old at the

time of the Denmark Vesey rebellion in 1822 and thirteen or fourteen years old when Nat

Turner fought for freedom in 1831, remembered the impact that these men were able to

have on the masses. They empowered the enslaved community and terrified enslavers.

Douglass was a lover of freedom and admired their commitment to freedom by any

means. He was inspired. These men, along with General Gabriel, had become heroes to

the enslaved. Though they were not successful in initiating the war for their freedom and

dismantling the system of slavery in America, their attempts positioned them as cultural

and folk heroes. In his editorial, Douglass appealed to the enslaved to rise and seize their

freedom just as their ancestors had attempted to do in the generations preceding them. A

1. David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (New York: Simon & Schuster,

2018), 395.

182

race war which generations of African Americans and whites anticipated had finally

arrived and had been raging for two years.

On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation

which emancipated those enslaved in rebel states and territories. This political action

drew men, women, and children off plantations and into the Union Army’s contraband

camps. Nearly 200,000 formerly enslaved African Americans escaped to Union lines and

served in the Union army.2In contraband camps, practices that has once been illegal and

needed to be kept secret could now be conducted openly. Education took place on the

plantation, however most of it was done in discretion considering that strict laws against

it. Informal schools in contraband camps mark a departure from education as forbidden

fruit to a public and inspiring act for African Americans. Those who were secretly

educated on the plantation rose to the ranks of teachers in contraband camps. They found

themselves preparing for a new life of freedom. The hope and the dream of their

ancestors was finally coming true, and they intended to be ready to be productive citizens

in freedom. Women and men who were educated in clandestine schools during slavery

and eventually ran away to the Union army, became the first wave of teachers in

freedom. On April 9, 1965, the Civil War ended and nearly four million African

Americans were emancipated after one hundred forty-seven years of enslavement.

During Reconstruction, education was a priority for African Americans. Northern

aid and missionary societies along with the Freedman’s Bureau are largely responsible

2. David Williams, I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 5.

183

for funding and constructing schools for African Americans. The Freedman’s Bureau bill

was adopted on March 3, 1865 and established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and

Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedman’s Bureau, under the War

Department. The intention of the Freedman’s Bureau was to aid in the transition from

enslavement to freedom for one year. The Bureau was established to address the

immediate needs of emancipated American Africans by providing food, clothing, living

facilities, and medical treatment. However, it developed into a larger social service

organization whose laundry list of duties included legal assistance, job placement,

settlement on abandoned and confiscated lands, and the promotion of education.

Education was critical to freedom and became the bedrock of Reconstruction

policy. The hundreds of reports by the Bureau’s many agents describe the extreme

violence and exploitation experienced by the formally enslaved, as well as their passion

to acquire the education that had been denied them during their time in bondage. One of

the Bureau’s leading achievements was the creation of freedmen’s schools. These schools

were designed to meet the needs of not only children, but adults as well. Within the first

year of its founding, the Bureau with the assistance of Freedman’s Aid Societies and

Northern Missionary groups established 740 schools, serving nearly 100,000 students

throughout the South. Within five years the Freedman’s Bureau educational network

included more than 2,500 schools and 150,000 students, plus several colleges dedicated

to training African American teachers.3

3. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Life Upon These Shores: 1513-2008 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

2013), 145.

184

Though the financial backing for educational funding came from outside sources,

it is necessary to acknowledge that the desire for education and the initiative to construct

African American institutions lie within the African American community itself.

Education was not something that was merely suggested by outside forces it was

demanded by a community of people envisioning a brighter future full of possibilities for

themselves as they had so long been denied the right. Both the young and old flocked into

schools that were opened post-Civil War. The desire to be educated led families to move

from rural settings to towns and cities so that their children could have access to

education. This schooling had a domino effect as it allowed for children to instruct their

parents after school hours.

Therefore, it is necessity to understand the communal nature of education to

African Americans during the Reconstruction period. Lincoln Institute, now Lincoln

University, has perhaps one of the most inspiring founding stories and reflects the

communal commitment to education of those who fought for their freedom in the war. In

January 1865, the 62nd and 65th regiments of the U. S. colored infantry were discharged

from service and they jointly contributed to a fund of $6,379 ($5,000 from the 62nd

regiment and nearly $1,400 from the 65th) for the establishment of a school for African

Americans in the state of Missouri.4 The emphasis that this institution and many others

placed on both practical labor training and formal education speaks to the desire of these

4. W. E. B., Du Bois, ed. Atlanta University Publications No. 5: The College-Bred Negro (Atlanta:

Atlanta University, 1900).

185

individuals to create productive citizens. It is important to understand that the formerly

enslaved were not looking for handouts even after the centuries of inhumane treatment

that they endured. They were looking for an opportunity to better their circumstances and

envision the world and freedom on their own terms.

Although congress extended the Freedman’s Bureau’s tenure past its initial one-

year term by the end of the 1860’s northerners began to lose interest in the reconstruction

effort as Ku Klux Klan violence ran rampant and schools for African Americans were

destroyed and rebuilt in a vicious cycle. In 1869, Congress voted to terminate all the

Bureau’s social relief efforts except those that were related to veteran’s affairs and

education. A year later funding for education was cut off—the United States government

has not enacted policy to support African American education since. With the elimination

of its school funding the Freedman’s Bureau lost most of its influence in the south and

closed in 1872 altogether. However, because of the diligence of the African American

community and outside funders many of these institutions, now called Historically Black

Colleges and University’s (HBCUs), remain open and serve as a testament to African

Americans’ belief in the power of education and mental elevation as a pathway to

freedom.

In 1896, the supreme court ruled separate but equal the law of the land crippling

three decades of social progress and ushering in the Jim Crow era. Under Jim Crow,

schools for African Americans continued to operate, but as the turn of the century

approached the debate about whether African Americans should be taught to be thinkers

186

or workers emerged. The public disagreements between Booker T. Washington and W. E.

B. Du Bois revealed two different approaches to African American education.

Washington was an accommodationist and believed focus on industrial education was

what was best for African Americans. Du Bois was an integrationist and believed in

formal education and creating a leadership class. Most African Americans were in favor

of formal education and thought the idea of continuing to be a labor class

unconscionable. Though segregated and denied access to the same resources as whites,

African Americans continued to see education as the pathway to permanent liberation.

They abandoned the idea of a laboring class and moved toward creating a leadership class

who could move the social landscape and help to gain access to the things their American

citizenship guaranteed them.

In 1933, Carter G. Woodson argued, in The Mis-Education of the Negro, that

though African American institutions were great in number and the number of African

Americans being educated was greater than ever before, we have been the perpetual

victims of mis-education in the generations post manumission. Woodson’s central

argument was that rather than being provided with a relevant education that speaks to

their African heritage and culture, the descendants of enslaved Africans in America have

been indoctrinated through the education system to believe in their inherent inferiority

and that they have no history or culture which they could or should attach themselves to

with pride. The Miseducation of the Negro offers a staunch critique of the ways in which

187

education has been used as a tool to oppress the African American community.5

Woodson’s critique of education was poignant and continues to ring true in these

contemporary times. Since the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision of 1954, which

ruled that racial segregation was unconstitutional, the struggle for a quality education for

African American people continues. During the desegregation process African American

children were sent into physically and intellectually violent school systems. These school

systems have provided them with propaganda that minimizes their ancestors’

contributions to the building of this nation as well as the multiple ways they resisted and

struggled for freedom for history lessons.

The United States of America is afraid of African Americans. The underlying fear

of slave rebellion that permeated the south during slavery lingers. To white America,

African Americans are, and have always been, the internal enemy. In a society that says it

values education and literacy, African Americans are consistently systematically denied

access to education. Though not explicitly stated as it was in the slave codes of

yesteryear, the same white supremacist attitudes towards the intellectual elevation of

African Americans continue. The United States fears educated African Americans. The

fear lies in the truth that if educated on a large-scale African Americans would have

access to information about their civil and human rights, and thus initiate the violent

struggle to have them as General Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner did before

them. Ultimately, literacy allows a community to read and understand the laws that

5. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro (Chicago: 1933).

188

govern them, and America is afraid of that. As long as the African American population

in America is denied access to education, we remain the victims of a system built on the

idea of our inherent inferiority and subservience to white people. The descendants of

Africa in America have never accepted this. For this reason, white people in America

continue to be fearful of what the result of providing equal access to education will do to

dismantle the system their ancestors built for them. White supremacist politicians and

policies continue to widen the gap between African Americans and whites. African

Americans continue to be oppressed and brutalized intellectually and physically in

America.

On May 25, 2020, a forty-six year old African American man named George

Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota by police officers who restrained him

and knelled on his neck and body until he was dead. This murder was caught on camera

and has sparked international outrage. What began as peaceful and non-violent protest

has escalated to a rebellion during which cities across the nation have seen multiple

buildings, including the Minneapolis police precinct, burned down and business raided

and looted. After having peaceful protesters tear gassed and fired at with rubber bullets,

President Donald Trump has threatened to enact the Insurrection Act of 1807 on

protestors across the nation. The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a federal law that gives the

commander in chief the power to deploy the United States military and federalized

National Guard troops within the United States to suppress civil disorder, insurrection,

and rebellion. On August 23, 1831 President Andrew Johnson evoked to the Insurrection

189

Act of 1807 to squash the Nat Turner rebellion of Southampton County, Virginia, restore

public order, and further legitimize white supremacy and the state sanctioned death of

Black men. The more times change the more things stay the same, and the struggle for

African American freedom continues.

190

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1740 South Carolina Slave Code. Acts of the South Carolina General Assembly, 1740 # 670. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.

Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts: On Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey,

Gabriel, and others. New York: International Publishers, 1993. Asante, Molefi. Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change. Chicago: African American

Images, 2003. Bacon, Thomas. Four Sermons upon the Great and Indispensable Duty of All Christian

Masters and Mistresses to Bring up Their Negro Slaves in the Knowledge and Fear of God. London: J. Oliver, 1751. Accessed March 1, 2019. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/bf54e040-2117-0134-3556-00505686a51c#/?uuid=bfc342b0-2117-0134-d3ad-00505686a51c&rotate=0

Bankole, Katherine Olukemi. “Researching the Lives of the Enslaved: The State of the

Scholarship,” In Handbook of Black Studies, edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Maulana Karenga. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005:89-106

Belt-Beyan, Phyllis M. “The Development of African American Literacy Traditions: A

Family and Community Effort in the Nineteenth Century.” PhD diss., Kent State University, 1999. Accessed March 1, 2019. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Berry, Daina Ramey The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from the Womb to the Grave, In the Building of a Nation. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017. Blassingame, John. 1973. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. New York: Simon &

Schuster, 2018.

191

Bly, Antonio T. “Breaking with Tradition: Slave Literacy in Early Virginia, 1680–1780.”

PhD diss., The College of William and Mary, 2006. Accessed November 1, 2014. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Breen, Patrick. “A Prophet in His Own Land: Support for Nat Turner and His Rebellion within Southampton’s Black Community,” in Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003: 103-118. Browder, Anthony T. Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization. Washington, D. C.: The

Institute of Karmic Guidance, 1992.

Bullock, Henry. A History of Negro Education in the South: From 1619-Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1967.

Cornelius, Janet. “We Slipped and Learned to Read: Slave Accounts of the Literacy

Process, 1830-1865.” Phylon, 44, no. 3 (3rd Quarter, 1983): 171-186. ———. When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the

Antebellum South. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991. Cromwell, John. “The Aftermath of Nat Turner’s Insurrection.” The Journal of Negro

History, 5, No. 2 (Apr. 1920): 208-234. Douglass, Frederick. 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American

Slave. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics. 2003. ———. My Bondage and My Freedom. New York: Miller: Orton & Mulligan, 1855.

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass55/menu.html Du Bois, W. E. B. 1935. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880. New York: The

Free Press, 1998.

———ed. Atlanta University Publications No. 5: The College-Bred Negro. Atlanta: Atlanta

University, 1900. Egerton, Douglas R. Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and

1802. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

192

———. He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 200). Equiano, Oladuah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or

Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. London: 1789. Accessed March 1, 2019. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/equiano1.html

Franklin, V. P. “African American Educators and Community Leadership, 1795-1954.”

Journal of Education, 172, no. 3 (October 1990): 39-64. Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, 3, Florida, Anderson-Wilson with

combined interviews of others. 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mesn030/. (Accessed January 15, 2017.)

Freedman, David. “African-American Schooling the South Prior to 1861.” Journal of

Negro History, 84, no. 1 (Winter, 1999): 1-47. Freire, Paulo and Donaldo Macedo. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Westport:

Bergin and Garvey, 1987. Gabrial, Brian. The Press and Slavery in America, 1791-1859: The Melancholy Effect of

Popular Excitement. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2016.

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis. Life Upon These Shores: 1513-2008. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

Genovese, Eugene. Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage

Books, 1974. Gray, Thomas R. The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Leader of the Late Insurrection in

Southhampton, VA, as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray. Baltimore: Lucas & Deaver, 1831. Accessed March 1,2019. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html.

Greenberg, Kenneth S. (ed), Confessions of Nat Turner: And Related Documents. New

York: Macmillan Publishers, 2017. Gronniosaw, James Albert Ukawsaw. A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in

193

the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself. Kidderminster: W. GYE, 1772. Accessed March 1, 2019. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/gronniosaw/gronnios.html

Gundaker, Grey. “Hidden Education Among African Americans During Slavery.”

Teachers College Record, 109, no. 7 (July 2007): 1591-1612. Hager, Christopher. Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Harding, Vincent. There is a River: The Struggle for Black Freedom in America. New

York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Harris, Violet J. “African American Conceptions of Literacy: A Historical Perspective.”

Theory into Practice. 31, no. 4 (August 2010): 276-286. Hilliard III, Asa G. SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind. Gainesville: Makare

Publishing, 1997. Holohan, Marianne Mullia. “Scenes of Reading: Forgotten Antebellum Readers, Self-

Representation, and the Transatlantic Reprint Industry” PhD diss., Duquesne University, 2013.

Johnson, Michael P. “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators.” The William and Mary

Quarterly 58, No. 4 (Oct., 2001): 915. Jennison, Watson W. Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia, 1750-1860.

Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2012. Karenga, Maulana. Introduction to Black Studies. 4th ed. Los Angeles, University of

Sankore Press, 2010. Kershaw, Terry. “Towards a Black Studies Paradigm: An Assessment and Some

Directions.” Journal of Black Studies, 22, no. 4 (June 1992): 477-493.

King, Wilma. Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.

Macgregor JK. “Notes on NsIbid.i.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of

Great Britain and Ireland, 39 (Jan-Jun 1909): 209-219.

194

Marrs, Elijah. The Life and History of Elijah P Marrs. Louisville: The Bradley & Gilbert Company, 1885. Accessed March 1, 2019. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/marrs/menu.html.

May, Nicholas. “Holy Rebellion: Religious Assembly Laws in Antebellum South Carolina and Virginia.” The American Journal of Legal History, 49, No. 3 (JULY 2007): 237-256.

McColley, Robert. “Slavery in Jefferson’s Virginia.” Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association, 1, No.1 (Spring 1960): 23-31.

McDougal III, Serie. Research Methods in Africana Studies. New York: Peter Lang, 2014.

Mitchell, Anthony B. “Self-Emancipation and Slavery: An Examination of the African

American Quest for Literacy and Freedom.” Journal of Pan African Studies, 2, no. 5. (July 2008): 78-98.

Monaghan, E. Jennifer. “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on

Liberty and Literacy.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 108, no. 2 (January 1998): 309-341.

Mullen, Harryette. “African Signs and Spiritual Writing.” Callaloo 19, No. 3

(Summer 1996): 670-689. Newton, James E. “Slave Artisans and Craftsmen: The Roots of Afro-American Art.”

The Black Scholar, 9, No. 3, Plastic Arts and Crafts (November 1977): 35-42. Nicholls, Michael L. Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating Gabriel’s Conspiracy.

Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press. 2012. North Carolina Legislature, North Carolina Legislative Papers, 1830–31 Session of the

General Assembly, Raleigh, 1831. Pasley, Jeffrey L. The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American

Republic. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003. Powell, Barry B. Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization. West

Sussex: Blackwell Publishing. 2012

195

Rasmussen, Birgit Brander. “‘Attended with Great Inconveniences’: Slave Literacy and the 1740 South Carolina Negro Act.” PMLA, 125, no 1 (January 2010): 201-203.

Robertson, David Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America's Largest Slave Rebellion

and the Man Who Led It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Sawyer, Jeffrey K. “"Benefit of Clergy" in Maryland and Virginia.” The American Journal

of Legal History, 34, No. 1 (Jan. 1990), 49-68. Schiller, Ben. “Learning Their Letters: Critical Literacy, Epistolary Culture, and Slavery

in the Antebellum South.” Southern Quarterly, 45, no. 3 (Spring 2008): 11-29.

Schwarz, Charles Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012.

Sidbury, James. “Reading, Revelation, and Rebellion the Textual Communities of Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner” in Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Span, Christopher M. and James D. Anderson. “The Quest for Book Learning: African

American Education in Slavery and in Freedom.” In A Companion to African American History, edited by Alton Hornsby Jr. (Malden: Blackwell Publishing 2005): 295-311.

Stein, Stephen J. “George Whitefield on Slavery: Some New Evidence.” Church History,

4, no. 2 (June 1973): 243-256. Street, Brian V., Literacy in Theory and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press,

1984. Takagi, Midori. Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia,

1782-1865. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999. Thornton, John K. “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion.” The American Historical

Review, 96, no. 4, (October 1991): 1101-113.

Vesey, Denmark, Approximately, Lionel Henry Kennedy, and Thomas Parker. An official report of the trials of sundry Negroes, charged with an attempt to raise an insurrection in the state of South-Carolina: preceded by an introduction and narrative: and, in an appendix, a report of the trials of four white persons on

196

indictments for attempting to excite the slaves to insurrection. Charleston: James R. Schenck, 1822. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/90107205/.

Walker, David. 1829. Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular,

and very expressly to those of the United States of America. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1993.

Walker, Lois A. and Susan R. Silverman (eds.). A Documentary History of Gullah Jack

Pritchard and the Denmark Vesey Slave Insurrection of 1822. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.

Wallendorf, Melanie. “Literally Literacy.” Journal of Consumer Research, 27, no. 4 (March 2001): 505-511.

Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1900. Webber, Thomas. Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Community 1831-1865.

New York: Norton, 1978. Webster, Noah. The American Spelling Book: Containing the Rudiments of the English

Language, for the Use of Schools in the United States. Middletown: William H. Niles, 1831.

Wentworth Higginson, Thomas. “The Story of Denmark Vesey.” The Atlantic. June 1861. White, Deborah Gray. Aren’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South. New

York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Williams, David. I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War

Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Williams, Heather Andrea. Self-Taught: African Americans Education in Slavery and

Freedom. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005. Wilson Starling, Marion. The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History. Washington

D.C.: Howard University Press, 1988. Woodson, Carter G. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. New York: A&B Books,

1919. ———. The Miseducation of the Negro. Chicago: 1933.

197

Ye, Ying.“Black Initiative in Black Education Prior to and During the Civil War.” Phd diss., Saint Louis University, 2007. Accessed March 2, 2019. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.