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Martha "Patty" Cannon was a slave trader and the leader of the Cannon-Johnson Gang of Maryland-Delaware, which operated for about a decade in the early 19th century kidnapping free blacks and refugee slaves to sell into slavery in the South. Mayor Joseph Watson of Philadelphia and Governor John Andrew Schulze of Pennsylvania worked to recover young free blacks kidnapped by the gang in the summer of 1825 and to prosecute its members. They did not succeed in trying any of the white members. After being acquitted in Mayor's Court, in 1827 mulatto gang member John Purnell (alias John Smith and others) was convicted on two counts of kidnapping in Philadelphia County Court in Pennsylvania; he was sentenced to a fine and 42 years in jail. He died in jail five years later. In 1829 Cannon was indicted in Delaware for four murders, after the remains of four blacks (including three children) were discovered on property she owned. She confessed to nearly two dozen murders and died in prison while awaiting trial.〔Henderson (2008), "Rescuing African Americans", p. 328〕 Some sources say she committed suicide by poison. Beginning in 1841, some popular accounts referred to the slave trader as Lucretia P. Cannon, although there is no evidence to indicate she used the name "Lucretia" in her lifetime. A popular 19th-century novel based on her exploits contributed to her mythic status as a ruthless figure. She has continued to be featured as a figure in fiction. ==Personal background== Cannon married local farmer Jesse Cannon and they lived near what is now Reliance, Delaware/Maryland (then called Johnson's Crossroads),〔Kaminkow, Marion J. ''Maryland A to Z: A Topographical Dictionary.'' Baltimore, Maryland: Magna Carta Book Company, 1985. p285〕 on the border with Delaware at the convergence of Caroline and Dorchester counties in Maryland, and Sussex County, Delaware.〔Ecenberger, William. ''Walkin' the Line: A Journey from Past to Present along the Mason-Dixon'', New York: 2000, p. 50〕 Jesse Cannon died around 1826.〔 Cannon and her husband had at least one daughter, who twice married men known to engage in slave-stealing and kidnapping. The daughter first married Henry Brereton, a blacksmith who kidnapped free people of color for sale into slavery. Brereton was convicted and imprisoned in 1811 for such kidnapping, but escaped from the Georgetown, Delaware jail. Brereton was captured, convicted of murder in another case, and hanged with one of his criminal associates, Joseph Griffith.〔Frank, William P. "Interview with genealogist George Valentine Massey," ''Wilmington News'' (Delaware), 2 September 1960, quoted in Ted Giles, ''Patty Cannon: Woman of Mystery'', Easton, Maryland: The Easton Publishing Co., 1965〕 Some time after this, Cannon's daughter married Joe Johnson, who became the mother's most notorious partner in crime.〔 Johnson had a tavern a few miles from the Cannon house. Information about Cannon and Johnson has been confusing, with fact and fiction mixed; Johnson has been described as Cannon's husband or son-in-law.〔(John Henderson, Joseph Watson, Job Brown, Thomas Bradford Junr., R. L. Kennon, Joshua Boucher, H. V. Somerville and Eric Ledell Smith, "Rescuing African American Kidnapping Victims in Philadelphia as Documented in the Joseph Watson Papers" ), ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'', Vol. 129 (2008), pp. 317, 330-332, accessed 16 April 2015 〕 The Cannon-Johnson gang included whites and blacks, among them Henry Carr and John Purnell, described as a "yellow" man or mulatto, who used several aliases.〔Henderson (2008), "Rescuing African Americans", p. 323〕 They served as decoys to get young blacks aboard their boat or close enough to take captive.〔Giles, Ted. ''Patty Cannon: Woman of Mystery.'' Easton, MD: Easton Publishing Company, 1965.〕 Robert Bereton, a relative of Cannon's late son-in-law, also continued to be involved with the gang at least until 1826.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Patty Cannon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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