Cornelius Sinclair

Cornelius Sinclair (c. 1813 to unknown) was an African American child kidnapped in Philadelphia in August 1825 by Patty Cannon's gang. He was one of a number of children kidnapped that summer and later transported south, to be sold into slavery.[1] Sinclair was sold in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in October 1825 and subsequently freed in March 1827 through the efforts of several Methodist ministers, who filed a lawsuit on his behalf. John Gayle (Alabama) of the Alabama Supreme Court presided over the trial, where a jury of slave-owners in Tuscaloosa found in favor of Sinclair's freedom. When he returned to Philadelphia he testified as part of the successful prosecution of one of his kidnappers.[2] The African American newspaper the African Observer provided coverage of the efforts to free Sinclair and prosecute the kidnappers.

References

  1. ↑ Notes and Documents: "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
  2. ↑ Judson Crump and Alfred L. Brophy, Cornelius Sinclair's Odyssey: Freedom, Slavery, and Freedom Again in the Old South
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