Independence Was My Idol: Murder, Attempted Kidnapping, and One Woman’s Encounter with the Criminal Justice System of the Early 19th Century

This paper utilizes microhistory as a means of examining the lived experience of a woman named Ann Carson in 1816 and how she encountered the criminal justice system. Gleaning much material from Susan Branson’s Dangerous to Know, this paper finds Carson’s life particularly useful in highlighting the ways in which women have utilized violence (physical, psychological, emotional, etc.) to protect themselves. For centuries the acts of murder and violence have been portrayed as masculine. In the instances of women perpetuating violent acts, they have often been sensationalized in the media. Ann Carson enacted violence against her situation as given her by the patriarchal system she was subjected to in Philadelphia and perpetuated this violence in several ways. By refusing to allow the idea of male stewardship over female lives to force her into poverty, Ann perpetuated a kind of violence on the patriarchal system she was living under by starting her own successful business. When someone she loved was in peril at the hands of the justice system, she utilized violence as a way of freeing that loved one, first by directly attempting to break him out of jail and then by attempting to kidnap the governor of Massachusetts in order to force a pardon. She was criminally tried twice, once as an accessory to murder and once for attempted kidnapping. By securing acquittals for both indictments, she exercised violence against the criminal justice system. This microhistory of Ann Carson’s life will elucidate larger understandings of female agency at the hands of a patriarchal social, economic, religious, and legal systems within the rich historiography that precedes it. Thus, it is an indispensable tool for understanding the lives of women interacting with the criminal justice system in the early nineteenth century.