Eleanor Power

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Eleanor Power (died 11 October 1754) was the first English woman to be executed in what is today Canada. Power was hanged for the murder of William Keen, a justice of the peace in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Hanging suspension of a person by a ligature

Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging was in Homer's Odyssey. In this specialised meaning of the common word hang, the past and past participle is hanged instead of hung.

Murder Unlawful killing of a human with malice aforethought

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is a killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.

Contents

The crime

Power, her husband Robert Power, and seven other men were convicted of murdering Keen in a burglary attempt of Keen's summer home on 9 September 1754. There had been ten accomplices who initially broke into Keen's house and stole a chest and some silver spoons. When the chest was found to contain only alcohol, Eleanor Power and one of the male accomplices left the scene. [1] [2] The eight who remained behind decided to make another burglary attempt. When Keen awoke in his bed during the second attempt, he was beaten by two of the accomplices with a scythe and the butt of a musket. Keen died of his injuries on 29 September 1754. [3]

Burglary crime of entering someones property, often with the intent to steal from them

Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is an unlawful entry into a building or other location for the purposes of committing an offence. Usually that offence is theft, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To engage in the act of burglary is to burgle in British English, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize in American English.

Scythe agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or reaping crops

A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or reaping crops. It has largely been replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia.

Musket firearm

A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in early 16th-century Europe, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating heavy armor. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket went out of use as heavy armor declined, but as the matchlock became standard, the term musket continued as the name given for any long gun with a flintlock, and then its successors, all the way through the mid-1800s. This style of musket was retired in the 19th century when rifled muskets became common as a result of cartridged breech-loading firearms introduced by Casimir Lefaucheux in 1835, the invention of the Minié ball by Claude-Étienne Minié in 1849, and the first reliable repeating rifle produced by Volcanic Repeating Arms in 1854. By the time that repeating rifles became common, they were known as simply "rifles", ending the era of the musket.

Trial and execution

On 8 October 1754, nine of the accomplices, including Eleanor Power, were brought to trial for murder before the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Newfoundland. [4] The tenth accomplice, Nicholas Tobin, was the only Crown witness against the nine defendants. Undefended by lawyers, the nine defendants were convicted of murder by a jury after 30 minutes of deliberation and sentenced to death by hanging. [5] Two of the male accomplices were executed on 10 October 1754; the following day, Eleanor and Robert Power followed and became the first married couple to hang together in present-day Canada. [6] Eleanor Power was also the first non-Native American woman to be executed by British authorities in present-day Canada. [7]

After years of imprisonment in St. John's, the five remaining defendants were eventually pardoned on condition that they leave Newfoundland and never return.

Modern analysis

Modern commentators have suggested that Eleanor Power might have escaped execution had she been represented by a qualified lawyer at her trial. [8] This is because while Power could have legitimately been convicted of burglary, she was likely not guilty of murder since she had abandoned the conspirators after the first break-in and played no role in Keen's death. [9] The same commentators have also suggested that the court that convicted the nine defendants was illegally constituted because the English law that governed the Colony of Newfoundland mandated that capital trials for offences committed in Newfoundland had to be tried by courts in England. [10]

Notes

  1. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 26.
  2. ↑ McCarthy, p. 44.
  3. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, pp. 26–27.
  4. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 31.
  5. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, pp. 31–32.
  6. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 34.
  7. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 34.
  8. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 35.
  9. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, p. 36.
  10. ↑ Greenwood and Boissery, pp. 29–31, 35–36, citing King William's Act, 10&11 Wm. III (1699), c. 25, s. 13.

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