The closeness to the southern states and the Mason-Dixon Line also added fuel to the fire that allowed the Cannon gang to commit its crimes. Patty Cannon and her gang took advantage of this population boom and began their kidnapping ring.
WESTERN LOUISIANA SERIAL KILLER MIXED RACE FREE
The Maryland and Delaware regions as well as Pennsylvania all had large populations of free African Americans and former slaves. The proximity to rivers made these cities an ideal location for illegal slave trading via the waterways. Cities like New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Louisville were hot spots for kidnappers. The illegal slave trade dates back to the 1780s and only ended after the Civil War in 1865. They were then transported to Southern slave-holding states and sold to plantation owners and at slave auctions. Men, women, and children were all kidnapped as a part of the trade. Now known as The Reverse Underground Railroad, it involved the kidnapping of freed slaves, free African Americans, and escaped slaves in free border states. When slavery was legal, the illegal slave trade was a booming part of the criminal underworld in the United States. History has recorded various accounts of the horrors they inflicted. With Joe Johnson, Cannon’s gang continued its activities for several years. Ridgell later died of a gunshot wound from the fight.īrereton and another associate named Joseph Griffith were captured for the murder and hanged around noon on April 13, 1813.Īfter Brereton’s death, Cannon’s daughter married again - this time to a man named Joe Johnson, who would become Cannon’s number one accomplice. Full of booze supplied by the bar, Ridgell was ambushed by Cannon and her cohorts. But that same year, he escaped from the jail in Georgetown, Delaware.Īfter his escape, Cannon, Griffith, and Brereton conspired to ambush the carriage of a patron at Cannon’s bar, a slave trader known only as Ridgell. In 1811, Brereton was arrested and began serving a prison sentence for kidnapping slaves. The illegal slave trade allowed women to take control of their own criminal enterprises and make their mark in an era when most of these fields were dominated by men.Īccording to historian Richard Bell, the illegal slave trade gave women the opportunity to “leverage familial relations with male conductors and station agents on this Reverse Underground Railroad in order to secure their own passage through an otherwise treacherous and decidedly homo-social world.” Some accounts claim that he introduced the Cannon clan to the practice of illegal slave trading, while other accounts assert that Cannon herself learned about the illegal slave trade from patrons at her tavern. Wikimedia Commons A common occurrence in the 19th century was the kidnapping of both free Black people and slaves to sell to new slave masters.īrereton was a blacksmith who engaged in the illegal slave trade. With her dreams of becoming a madam crushed, she opened a tavern that would later become a central location for her criminal activities.Ĭannon’s daughter married a man named Henry Brereton, who apparently introduced the Cannon family to a new type of crime. Cannon, who was known for her unpleasant demeanor, was not successful with this endeavor.ĭue to her sour disposition, Cannon was having trouble attracting johns by the age of 24. Jesse Cannon died under mysterious circumstances, and it was later rumored that Patty had poisoned him to death.Ĭannon reportedly worked as a barmaid and later as a prostitute, and she even made plans to open her own brothel. They had two children and lived near the present-day town of Reliance, Maryland, close to the border of Delaware. Some sources say she was actually born in Canada and moved to Delaware at age 16. Throughout her life, Cannon remained secretive about her past. Records indicate that Cannon was born either Martha or Lucretia Patricia Hanly around 1760. Little is known about Cannon’s early life. Her notoriety, although seldom discussed, is the stuff of American infamy.
WESTERN LOUISIANA SERIAL KILLER MIXED RACE TRIAL
Ultimately, Patty Cannon died in jail while awaiting trial for her crimes. Cannon and her gang - which included her own family members - committed unspeakable crimes, including selling, kidnapping, and murdering freed slaves. Wikimedia Commons Patty Cannon murdered a slave trader named Ridgell for his money.Īs a slave trader and murderer, Patty Cannon terrorized Black Americans in the early 19th century.