My new book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America, has just been published by Pickpocket Publishing and is available for purchase. I hope you enjoy reading it. Amazon.com: Paperback ($16.99) and Kindle ($4.99). Smashwords: All e-book formats ($4.99). The book will soon be [...]
Some notable crime-related blog articles have appeared over the last week or so. Ben Ruset of the NJPineBarrens has written a fascinating article on Captain John Bacon, a notorious outlaw who took advantage of the American Revolutionary War to commit robbery and burglary in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. ExecutedToday.com notes the execution of Thomas [...]
“Take My Hammer” is a work song that possibly has roots going back to the time of slavery and was sung by convicts who were leased to dig tunnels through the Appalachian Mountains: Take my hammer, Carry it to the captain, Tell him I’m gone, Tell him I’m gone. If he ask you was [...]
George Burns made one last desperate attempt to save himself: he wrote to the Attorney-General and named Ephraim Jones and Arthur Sykes as accomplices in a robbery that he had actually helped to pull off with three different men on July 29, 1766. The victim of the robbery, John “Ready Money” Scott, had mistakenly fingered [...]
From the 1870’s to the 1920’s, some Southern states contracted their convicts out to private landowners and companies to perform heavy labor, such as timbering, mining, railroad work, and farming. Little to no concern was given to the prisoners’ safety or health, and they received inadequate food, shelter, and clothing. Because the convicts belonged [...]
In 1933, John and Alan Lomax visited prison farms in the South in the hope of recording African-American songs that dated back to the time of slavery. Their visits were based on the theory that the best places to find songs of slavery preserved in their purest form were in prison camps, with their [...]
Over the past year or so I have been writing about burglars and burglary in early America. To conclude this informal series I am going to try something a little different. Please click on the audio media file attached to this post to hear me talk about my reflections and conclusions about burglary in [...]
Note: This post follows “Henry Tufts’s Partners in Crime.” While living in Massachusetts in 1793, Henry Tufts purchased a silver tablespoon and five teaspoons from John Stewart, who said he found them while clearing out a cellar. Tufts used the spoons until a neighbor recognized them as stolen and reported Tufts to the authorities. [...]
J. L. Bell, who writes the Boston 1775 blog, recently wrote a series of posts that breaks down the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on whether a life sentence for a seventeen-year-old convicted of two armed robberies–or for any juvenile offender who hasn’t committed murder–constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment to [...]
I was recently interviewed by Leonard Sipes about “Early American Crime in the Media” for D.C. Public Safety Radio, which presents audio programs on crime, criminal offenders, and the criminal justice system. The program lasts a half hour and covers the criminal justice system in colonial America, how crime was covered in early American newspapers, [...]
Anthony Vaver has broad expertise in the social and cultural history of crime and punishment. He holds a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.L.S. from Rutgers University. Vaver has been profiled and interviewed by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, D.C. Public Safety Radio, and other media outlets. He is also the author of the Amazon.com bestselling book, Bound with an Iron Chain. Contact Me.
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Read my new book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America, an Amazon.com bestseller! Visit Pickpocket Publishing for more details.
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