asked
what he could do to better his condition, he would say, "Go and buy a
spelling-book and read the fable of Hercules and the wagoner."[1] At the
same time if he happened to engage in conversation with white people in
the presence of Negroes, he would often take occasion to introduce some
striking remark on slavery. He regularly held up to emulation the work
of the Negroes of Santo Domingo; and either he or one of his chief
lieutenants clandestinely sent a letter to the President of Santo
Domingo to ask if the people there would help the Negroes of Charleston
if the latter made an effort to free themselves.[2] About 1820 moreover,
when he heard of the African Colonization scheme and the opportunity
came to him to go, he put this by, waiting for something better. This
was the period of the Missouri Compromise. Reports of the agitation and
of the debates in Congress were eagerly scanned by those Negroes in
Charleston who could read; rumor exaggerated them; and some of the more
credulous of the slaves came to believe that the efforts of Northern
friends had actually emancipated them and that they were being illegally
held in bondage. Nor was the situation improved when the city marshal,
John J. Lafar, on January 15, 1821, reminded those ministers or other
persons who kept night and Sunday schools for Negroes that the law
forbade the education of such persons and would have to be enforced.
Meanwhile Vesey was very patient. After a few months, however, he ceased
to work at his trade in order that all the more he might devote
himself to the mission of his life. This was, as he conceived it, an
insurrection that would do nothing less than totally annihilate the
white population of Charleston.

[Footnote 1: Official Report, 19.]

[Footnote 2: Official Report, 96-97, and Higginson, 232-3.]

In the prosecution of such a plan the greatest secrecy and faithfulness
were of course necessary, and Vesey waited until about Christmas, 1821,
to begin active recruiting. He first sounded Ned and Rolla Bennett,
slaves of Governor Thomas Bennett, and then Peter Poyas and Jack
Purcell. After Christmas he spoke to Gullah Jack and Monday Gell;
and Lot Forrester and Frank Ferguson became his chief agents for the
plantations outside of Charleston.[1] In the whole matter of the choice
of his chief assistants he showed remarkable judgment of character. His
penetration was almost uncanny. "Rolla was plausible, and possessed
uncommon self-posse