In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a free man of color, and several others were charged with allegedly planning a slave revolt in Charleston. City officials believed Vesey and his followers were planning on overrunning and killing the city's white slave owners and then fleeing to Haiti. The alleged Vesey conspiracy was a watershed moment in the lives of many white South Carolinians. But Johnson doubted the alleged threat and magnitude of the plot, putting him at odds with the beliefs of most white citizens, including his own daughter.