Denmark Vesey's Revolt: The Slave Plot That Lit a Fuse to Fort Sumter

8-Mainstream of Reaction

In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Representative if you have questions about ἀnding the option. Job Name: -- /351334t 8 MAINSTREAM OF REACTION • Charleston at the turn of the century was still the commercial and social center of South Carolina and of a large part of the South as well. The South Carolina port, now containing 20,473 inhabitants, had dropped from fourth to fifth place among American cities.1 But the great expansion of cotton cultivation and the resultant export trade promised a growing future. Regular shipping lines with vessels bound for Jamaica, Cuba, France, and England advertised their dates of sailing. On a single day well over a hundred sail, exclusive of coasting vessels, could be counted in the harbor. Big stores with a variety of merchandise fronted on Broad, Tradd, and Elliott Streets. Items such as men's and women's gold watches, seals and silver knee buckles and wine were ordinary articles of import. Some seventy silversmiths found business in Charleston. Wagons from all over the state and beyond rolled into upper King Street laden with commodities for trade. There were no less than four public markets in the city. The factors who handled business transactions on cotton and rice for the planters had their offices on East Bay. Business dealings were considered by the well-to-do plantation owners to be beneath their dignity. The Carolina Coffee House at Bedon's Alley and Tradd Street was a popular hotel. Well known public buildings were the state house, the guard house, the armory, the Charleston orphan house, the exchange, and the poor house. Among the places of worship were two Episcopal churches, and one each for the Congregationalists, Baptists, Scotch Presbyterians , German Lutherans, and French Protestants. The Methodists had three churches. Besides these there was a In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Representative if you have questions about ἀnding the option. Job Name: -- /351334t MAINSTREAM OF REACTION 97 Roman Catholic chapel, a Quaker meeting house, and a Jewish synagogue. Homes were frequently built adjacent to the street, leaving room behind for secluded gardens and auxiliary structures. Some of Charleston's most notable houses were built during the first half of the nineteenth century, their erection providing work for artisans such as Denmark Vesey.2 The pace of Charleston society was set by the relatively small group of planters who cultivated rice and cotton on the flat low lands of coastal South Carolina and made the city their base of social operations. They lived on their plantations during a part of the year and moved to town houses in Charleston in winter for social events and in summer to escape what they considered to be the unhealthy environment of the fields. Without realizing the true source of the danger, they were in fact following a sensible course in summer and avoiding the low-lying rural areas where disease-carrying mosquitoes were more prevalent. Most slaves were left in the country on the theory that they were immune or expendable. A wealthy plantation family carried with it to the city, however, a retinue of servants which might include a coachman, grooms and a footman, a butler, a housekeeper and assistants, a maid for each woman in the family and for each small child, a cook and an apprentice and a kitchen boy, laundresses, and a man servant for each adult male in the family. Made comfortable by their attendants, the planters were free to indulge their proclivities for hospitality and European tastes. Like their counterparts in Virginia, they traveled and read. In 1803 Ebenezer S. Thomas, one of four Charleston book dealers, brought from England 50,000 volumes dealing with every phase of literature, art, and science.3 With the coming of St. Domingue refugees to Charleston, the theater reopened. A number of Charleston teachers were women of French extraction, and they created another tie with the continent. The February horse races represented the big social In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Representative if you have questions about ἀnding the option. Job Name: -- /351334t 98 DENMARK VESEY'S REVOLT event...