In the early years of his full manhood accordingly Denmark Vesey found himself a free man in his own right and possessed of the means for a little real start in life.  He improved his time and proceeded to win greater standing and recognition by regular and industrious work at his trade, that of a carpenter.  Over the slaves he came to have unbounded influence.  Among them, in accordance with the standards of the day, he had several wives and children (none of whom could he call his own), and he understood perfectly the fervor and faith and superstition of the Negroes with whom he had to deal.  To his remarkable personal magnetism moreover he added just the strong passion and the domineering temper that were needed to make his conquest complete.

Thus for twenty years he worked on.  He already knew French as well as English, but he now studied and reflected upon as wide a range of subjects as possible.  It was not expected at the time that there would be religious classes or congregations of Negroes apart from the white people; but the law was not strictly observed, and for a number of years a Negro congregation had a church in Hampstead in the suburbs of Charleston.  At the meetings here and elsewhere Vesey found his opportunity, and he drew interesting parallels between the experiences of the Jews and the Negroes.  He would rebuke a companion on the street for bowing to a white person; and if such a man replied, “We are slaves,” he would say, “You deserve to be.”  If the man then 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.