The Plight and Power of the Conjurer
“JACK PRITCHARD -- The Court, after deliberately considering all the circumstances of you case, are perfectly satisfied of your guilt. In the prosecution of your wicked designs, you were not satisfied with resorting to natural and ordinary means, but endeavored to enlist on your behalf, all the powers of darkness, and employed for that purpose, the most disgusting mummery and superstition.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h497t.html
The excerpt above is from a transcript of Jack Pritchard’s (“Gullah Jack”) trial sentence. A notoriously powerful African conjureman, Gullah Jack was charged with helping Denmark Vesey organize a rebellion of free and enslaved African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822 (”The Vesey Conspiracy”). As a distinguished priest in Charleston’s African American community, Vesey sought to combat the white authorities’ repression of the black church (”The Vesey Conspiracy”). However, the rebellion was stopped in its tracks and Vesey and Gullah Jack were executed (”The Vesey Conspiracy”).
While the transcript implicitly claims to condemn Gullah Jack on a legal level, the Presiding Magistrate, L.H Kennedy, seemed more concerned with Gullah Jack’s use of “all the powers of darkness” in his “wicked designs” (”Sentence of Gullah Jack”). In fact, most of the transcript records Kennedy’s disgust towards Gullah Jack’s “charms,” “altars,” and “gods” (”Sentence of Gullah Jack”). Although Kennedy’s hatred for Gullah Jack is all but palpable in the document, I could not help noticing the traces of fear woven into the magistrate’s self-righteous rhetoric. I felt as if each bold condemnation possessed a degree of uncertainty-as if Kennedy half believed that “the airy spectres, conjured by [Gullah Jack]” could come back if the man remained alive (”Sentence of Gullah Jack”).
Gullah Jack’s powerful role in the Vesey Conspiracy reminded me of Mama Day’s position in Willow Springs in Gloria Naylor’s novel, Mama Day. Despite Dr. Buzzard and Dr. Smithfield’s medical titles, the residents of Willow Springs place their faith in Mama Day’s healing expertise. Even when Bernice takes pills from Dr. Smithfield’s office, she insists on consulting Mama Day after she experiences side effects (Naylor 72). Ultimately, Mama Day and Gullah Jack’s influence over their communities illustrates racial division based on spiritualism and healing. In both situations, we see a black population gravitating towards non-normative practices that challenge the influence of the dominant ideology. From the obvious friction between the black church and white authorities in Charleston, 1822, to the subtle tension between Willow Springs and the mainland in Mama Day, it is clear that the conjurer was a force to be reckoned with.
Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1988. Print.
"Sentence of Gullah Jack." Slave Insurrections: Selected Documents. Connecticut: Negro Universities, 1970. 1-114. PBS-Africans in America. PBS. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.
"The Vesey Conspiracy." PBS-Africans in America. PBS. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.
