Nearly two centuries before Dylann Roof, the state of South Carolina conducted its own massacre of Emanuel AME Church members.

Roof, who embraced white supremacy, killed nine church members Wednesday evening. The white supremacist-controlled state of South Carolina killed 35.

The earlier massacre was in 1822, six years after the congregation was founded.

A freed slave named Denmark Vesey was accused of plotting a slave revolt. State prosecutors charged that Vesey, along with other organizers, had used evening sermons at Emanuel AME to organize congregation members to rebel against their white masters.

“He rendered himself perfectly familiar with all those parts of the Scriptures, which he thought he could pervert to his purpose; and would readily quote them, to prove that slavery was contrary to the laws of God; that slaves were bound to attempt their emancipation,” reads a contemporary account of Vesey’s prosecution.

Vesey’s alleged plot to spark a massive slave uprising was discovered and the church where he planned it was burned to the ground. Rev. Morris Brown, the church’s pastor, was forced to flee north to Philadelphia.

I went to the Library of Congress after this week’s shooting to review records of the investigation of Vesey’s prosecution. A book detailing the prosecution and the alleged slave revolt contains a page listing the 35 members of the congregation, including Vesey, who were put to death for their association with Vesey and the alleged plot.

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