Bust-length portrait of the criminal., In Sampson, M. B. Rationale of crime and its appropriate treatment; being a treatise on criminal jurisprudence considered in relation to cerebral organization. Edited by Eliza W. Farnham (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 158., “My acknowledgements are due to the officers of the Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island for their politeness in furnishing me with facilities for taking the daguerreotypes, and to Mr. L. N. Fowler for aiding me in the selection of cases; nor must I omit to name Mr. Edward Serrell, who was obliging enough to take the outline drawings for me; or Mr. Brady, to whose indefatigable patience with a class of the most difficult of all sitters, is due the advantage of a very accurate set of daguerreotypes.” -- Introductory preface by Mrs. Farnham, p. xx., "C.P., a half-breed Indian and negro woman, under confinement for the fourth time. She has been twice imprisoned for petit, and once for grand larceny, and once for assault and battery with a knife. During one of her terms of confinement she attacked her keeper with a carving-knife, and he was compelled to fell her with a loaded cane. When excited she exhibits the most uncontrollable fury, and is always disposed to be offensive, aggressive, and more or less violent. In her head destructiveness is enormously developed, with large secretiveness and caution, and very defective benevolence and moral organs generally.”--P. 158.
With an axe in one hand and a candle in the other, a slave woman kneels in the cramped attic space where her two young sons sleep on the floor. Hovering above the boys, she shines her light upon them before killing them. According to an accompanying text, she then kills herself., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. I, no. 9, p. 97., Small caption underneath the image reads: "Why do you narrate the extraordinary cases of cruelty? These stories will not convert the cruel, and the wound the feelings of masters who are not son." REPLY. Cruelty is the fruit of the system., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Date
[September 1835]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 16998.D v 1 n 9 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2858
