“Details the brazen robberies, shameless kidnappings and heartless murders committed by Delmarva’s legendary criminal.”—Cape Gazette Truth lies behind the grim legend of Patty Cannon. In the early nineteenth century, Patty and her gang terrorized the Delmarva Peninsula, kidnapping free African American men, women and children. Using surprise and treachery, Cannon even employed a free African American accomplice to lure her unsuspecting prey. Captives who survived confinement in Patty’s cells were sold south. The position of the Cannon home on the shadowy border between Delaware and Maryland allowed her to dodge the law until a local farmer unearthed the remains of her victims in 1829. Patty mysteriously died in jail awaiting trial. Author Michael Morgan investigates the chilling history of one of the nation’s first serial killers.

Kidnapping was perhaps the greatest fear of free blacks in pre-Civil War America. Though they may have descended from generations of free-born people or worked to purchase their freedom, free blacks were not able to enjoy the privileges and opportunities of white Americans. They lived with the constant threat of kidnapping and enslavement, against which they had little recourse. Most kidnapped free blacks were forcibly abducted, but other methods, such as luring victims with job offers or falsely claiming free people as fugitive slaves, were used as well. Kidnapping of blacks was actually facilitated by numerous state laws, as well as the federal fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850. Greed motivated kidnappers, who were assured high profits on the sale of their victims. As the internal slave trade increased in the early nineteenth century, so did kidnapping. If greed provided the motivation for the crime, racism helped it to continue unabated. Victims usually found it extremely difficult to regain their freedom through a legal system that reflected society's racist views, perpetuated a racial double standard, and considered all blacks slaves until proven otherwise. Fortunate was the victim who received assistance, sometimes from government officials, most often from abolitionists. Frequently, however, the black community was forced to protect its own and organized to do so, sometimes by working within the law, sometimes by meeting violence with violence. Mining newspaper accounts, memoirs, slave narratives, court records, letters, abolitionist society minutes, and government documents, Carol Wilson has provided a needed addition to our picture of free black life in the United States.

The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP, is a journal of civil rights, history, politics, and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color. For nearly 100 years, The Crisis has been the magazine of opinion and thought leaders, decision makers, peacemakers and justice seekers. It has chronicled, informed, educated, entertained and, in many instances, set the economic, political and social agenda for our nation and its multi-ethnic citizens.

A comprehensive, contextual presentation of all aspects—social, political, and economic—of slavery in the United States, from the first colonization through Reconstruction. For 250 years, slavery was part of the fabric of American life. The institution had an enormous economic impact and was central to the wealth of the agrarian South. It had as great an impact on American culture, cementing racism and other attitudes that echo into the present. This encyclopedia is an ambitious examination of all the issues surrounding slavery: the origins, the justifications, the controversies, and the human drama. These volumes represent the work of 75 distinguished scholars from around the world. Ten thematic essays present a thorough examination of slavery and slave culture, including a rare treatment of slavery from the slave's point of view. Three hundred A–Z entries provide instant access to specific people, issues, and events. Today, slavery's immorality seems obvious. This encyclopedia provides the student or general reader with an in-depth explanation of how the practice evolved and was normalized, then anathematized and abolished.

compiled and written by the Federal writers' project of the Works progress administration for the state of Delaware.