Gullah Jack

Last updated
Gullah Jack
BornUnknown
Died(1822-07-12)July 12, 1822
South Carolina, United States
Criminal statusDeceased
Criminal penaltyDeath by hanging

Gullah Jack (died July 12, 1822), also known as Couter Jack and sometimes referred to as "Gullah" Jack Pritchard, was an African Methodist and Hoodoo conjurer, who Paul Pritchard enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina.

Contents

Background

Little is known about his background, except that he was of Angolan origin and was shipped from Zanzibar to America under Zephaniah Kingsley's direction. [1] He was sent first to Florida, to the Kingsley Plantation. [2] However, in 1812 after a Seminole raid on the Kingsley Plantation, he escaped to Charleston, South Carolina where he was eventually purchased by Paul Pritchard in 1821. [3]

Role in the 1822 Slave Revolt

Gullah Jack is known for his role as a co-conspirator, along with Denmark Vesey, in planning the rebellion that would become known as Denmark Vesey's slave conspiracy in 1822. [4] Both Vesey and Gullah Jack were involved in some capacity with the AME Church in Charleston. [3] It was at the AME Church that Vesey recruited Gullah Jack for his planned uprising in Charleston. [3]

Using his Africa-based influences, Gullah Jack was crucial in recruiting African-born enslaved people as soldiers and provided them with charms as protection against the "buckra" (whites). He is also said to have used his spiritual powers to terrify others into keeping silent about the conspiracy. Historians believe Jack's strong African culture, contrasted against Vesey's preaching, helped attract many of the enslaved people that joined the revolt.[ citation needed ]

The Vesey plot involved taking over the state armory to arm enslaved people from rural areas and the local sea islands, who would rise and assist the others in revolt. The enslaved people would then kill the whites of Charleston, take the city, and finally use the city's ships to escape, supposedly, to Haiti, where enslaved people had overthrown the white government and now ruled.[ citation needed ]

Eventually, the Vesey plot was leaked by other enslaved people who were coerced into confession. Gullah Jack was arrested for his part in the plot on July 5, 1822, and was tried for his role in the planning, along with 130 others. [3] Ultimately, South Carolina authorities hanged Vesey, Gullah Jack, and 34 other leading conspirators.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave rebellion</span> Armed uprising by slaves

A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of slaves have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedom and the dream of successful rebellion is often the greatest object of song, art, and culture amongst the enslaved population. These events, however, are often violently opposed and suppressed by slaveholders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoodoo (spirituality)</span> Spiritual practices, traditions and beliefs

Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure. As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism. Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. It is a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel's Rebellion</span> Slave rebellion in Virginia, United States (1800)

Gabriel's Rebellion was a planned slave rebellion in the Richmond, Virginia, area in the summer of 1800. Information regarding the revolt was leaked before its execution, and Gabriel, an enslaved blacksmith who planned the event, and twenty-five of his followers were hanged.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gullah</span> African American ethnic group in south United States

The Gullah are a subgroup of the African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to their shared history and identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denmark Vesey</span> African–American anti-slavery leader (1767–1822)

Denmark Vesey was a free Black and community leader in Charleston, South Carolina, who was accused and convicted of planning a major slave revolt in 1822. Although the alleged plot was discovered before it could be realized, its potential scale stoked the fears of the antebellum planter class that led to increased restrictions on both enslaved and free African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hamilton Jr.</span> Governor of South Carolina (1786–1857)

James Hamilton Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. He represented South Carolina in the U.S. Congress (1822–1829) and served as its 53rd governor (1830–1832). Prior to that, Hamilton achieved widespread recognition and public approval for his actions as Intendant (mayor) of the city of Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, during the period when plans for a slave rising were revealed. As governor, he led the state during the Nullification Crisis of 1832, at the peak of his power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Y. Hayne</span> American politician (1791–1839)

Robert Young Hayne was an American politician. He served in the United States Senate from 1823 to 1832, as Governor of South Carolina 1832–1834, and as Mayor of Charleston 1836–1837. As Senator and Governor, he was a leading figure in the Nullification Crisis and, along with John C. Calhoun and James Hamilton Jr., a vocal proponent of the doctrines of states' rights, compact theory, and nullification; his 1830 debate in the Senate with Daniel Webster is considered a defining episode in the constitutional crisis which precipitated the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York Conspiracy of 1741</span> Alleged plot by poor whites and slaves to overthrow New Yorks colonial government

The Conspiracy of 1741, also known as the Slave Insurrection of 1741, was a purported plot by slaves and poor whites in the British colony of New York in 1741 to revolt and level New York City with a series of fires. Historians disagree as to whether such a plot existed and, if there was one, its scale. During the court cases, the prosecution kept changing the grounds of accusation, ending with linking the insurrection to a "Popish" plot by Spaniards and other Catholics.

South Carolina was one of the Thirteen Colonies that first formed the United States. European exploration of the area began in April 1540 with the Hernando de Soto expedition, which unwittingly introduced diseases that decimated the local Native American population. In 1663, the English Crown granted land to eight proprietors of what became the colony. The first settlers came to the Province of Carolina at the port of Charleston in 1670. They were mostly wealthy planters and their slaves coming from the English Caribbean colony of Barbados. By 1700 the colony was exporting deerskin, cattle, rice, and naval stores. The Province of Carolina was split into North and South Carolina in 1712. Pushing back the Native Americans in the Yamasee War (1715–1717), colonists next overthrew the proprietors' rule in the Revolution of 1719, seeking more direct representation. In 1719, South Carolina became a crown colony.

Antebellum South Carolina is typically defined by historians as South Carolina during the period between the War of 1812, which ended in 1815, and the American Civil War, which began in 1861.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Bennett Jr.</span> American politician (1781–1865)

Thomas Bennett Jr. was an American businessman, banker and politician, the 48th Governor of South Carolina from 1820 to 1822. A respected politician, he had served several terms in the state legislature since 1804, including four years as Speaker of the House, and a term in the state Senate.

Jehu Jones Jr. (1786–1852) was a Lutheran minister who founded one of the first African-American Lutheran congregations in the United States, as well as actively involved in improving the social welfare of blacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Charleston, South Carolina</span>

The history of Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the longest and most diverse of any community in the United States, spanning hundreds of years of physical settlement beginning in 1670. Charleston was one of leading cities in the South from the colonial era to the Civil War in the 1860s. The city grew wealthy through the export of rice and, later, sea island cotton and it was the base for many wealthy merchants and landowners. Charleston was the capital of American slavery.

Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, taken from the Gold Coast region in modern-day Ghana. The term was primarily used in the Caribbean and is now considered archaic.

Robert James Turnbull was an American lawyer, planter, writer and politician from South Carolina who also published under the name Brutus. His essays in the Charleston Mercury advocating nullification were published as a pamphlet under the title The Crisis: Or, Essays on the Usurpations of the Federal Government, which has been described as "the handbook for nullification and resistance."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Americans in South Carolina</span> Largest racial and ethnic minority in South Carolina, United States

Black South Carolinians are residents of the state of South Carolina who are of African American ancestry. This article examines South Carolina's history with an emphasis on the lives, status, and contributions of African Americans. Enslaved Africans first arrived in the region in 1526, and the institution of slavery remained until the end of the Civil War in 1865. Until slavery's abolition, the free black population of South Carolina never exceeded 2%. Beginning during the Reconstruction Era, African Americans were elected to political offices in large numbers, leading to South Carolina's first majority-black government. Toward the end of the 1870s however, the Democratic Party regained power and passed laws aimed at disenfranchising African Americans, including the denial of the right to vote. Between the 1870s and 1960s, African Americans and whites lived segregated lives; people of color and whites were not allowed to attend the same schools or share public facilities. African Americans were treated as second-class citizens leading to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In modern America, African Americans constitute 22% of the state's legislature, and in 2014, the state's first African American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction, Tim Scott, was elected. In 2015, the Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse after the Charleston church shooting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, colloquially Mother Emanuel, is a church in Charleston, South Carolina, founded in 1817. It is the oldest AME church in the Southern United States; founded the previous year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, AME was the first independent black denomination in the nation. Mother Emanuel has one of the oldest black congregations south of Baltimore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Brown</span>

Morris Brown was one of the founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and its second presiding bishop. He founded Emanuel AME Church in his native Charleston, South Carolina. It was implicated in the slave uprising planned by Denmark Vesey, also of this church, and after that was suppressed, Brown was imprisoned for nearly a year. He was never convicted of a crime.

A House Divided: Denmark Vesey's Rebellion is a 1982 television film about Denmark Vesey, a literate skilled carpenter and former slave who planned a slave rebellion in 1822 in Charleston, South Carolina. Denmark Vesey's Rebellion was produced by WPBT and PBS, and Yaphet Kotto played Vesey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denmark Vesey Monument</span>

The Denmark Vesey Monument is a monumental statue in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. The monument was erected in 2014 in Hampton Park and honors Denmark Vesey, a freedman who lived in Charleston and was executed in 1822 for plotting a slave revolt. It was designed by American sculptor Ed Dwight.

References

  1. 1 2 Junius (1997), p. 322
  2. Alexander, Leslie (2010). Encyclopedia of African American History. ABC-CLIO.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Rodriguez, Junius (2007). Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 325.
  4. Young, Jason (2007). Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery. LSU Press. p. 140.

Bibliography