HEZAKYA NEWZ PRESENTS: "SLAVE PATROL"

The origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the “Slave Patrol.” The earliest formal slave patrol was created in the Carolinas in the early 1700s with one mission: to establish a system of terror and squash slave uprisings with the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners.

Slave patrols—also known as patrollers, patterrollers, pattyrollers or paddy rollers—were organized groups of armed men who monitored and enforced discipline upon slaves in the antebellum U.S. southern states. The slave patrols’ function was to police enslaved persons, especially those who escaped or were viewed as defiant. They also formed river patrols to prevent escape by boat.

Slave patrols first began in South Carolina in 1704 and spread throughout the thirteen colonies, lasting well beyond the American Revolution. As the population of enslaved Black people boomed, especially with the invention of the cotton gin, so did the fear of resistance and uprisings by the enslaved. The development of slave patrols began when other means of slave control failed to quell enslaved people’s resistance.

Their biggest concern was the enslaved being held against their will on the plantations since that is where enslaved populations were highest. Initially, incentives were offered to the non slave owning majority of Whites such as tobacco and money to urge Whites to be more vigilant in the capture of runaway slaves. When this approach failed, slave patrols were formally established.

Laws were put into place to regulate the activities of both Blacks and Whites. Black persons were subjected to questioning, searches, and other harassment. Slaves who were encountered without passes from their White “master” were expected to be returned to their owners, as stated in the slave code. Punishment for runaway slaves, such as whippings and beatings, could be expected.

More than floggings and beatings, however, enslaved people feared the threat of being placed on the auction block and being separated from their families. If caught by patrols and returned to their masters, being placed on the auction block was an option for masters who no longer wanted to deal with their “non-compliant” slaves. During these times, slaves were often neglected and mistreated despite having permission to travel.

Slave owners feared gatherings held by enslaved people would allow them to trade or steal goods, and had the potential for organizing a revolt or rebellion. South Carolina and Virginia selected patrols from state militias. State militia groups were also organized from among the cadets of the Southern military academies, of The Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute, which were founded to provide a military command structure and discipline within the slave patrols and to detect, encounter, and crush any organized slave meetings that might lead to revolt or rebellion.

Slave patrollers had their own characteristics, duties, and benefits, apart from slave owners and overseers. Patrollers were often equipped with guns and whips and would exert force in order to bring slaves back to their owners.

At times, black people developed many methods of challenging slave patrolling, occasionally fighting back violently. The American Civil War developed more opportunities for resistance against slave patrols and made it easier for enslaved people to escape. Slave patrol duties started as breaking up slave meetings. These slave meetings occurred on holidays, in which they would plan revolts and uprisings. Eventually, slave patrols expanded to be year-round, not just on holidays. Slowly, new duties and rights of patrollers became permitted, including: “apprehending runaways, monitoring the rigid pass requirements for Blacks traversing the countryside, breaking up large gatherings and assemblies of blacks, visiting and searching slave quarters randomly, inflicting impromptu punishments, and as occasion arose, suppressing insurrections.”[7]

Slave patrols consisted mostly of white citizens. Most people in slave patrols came from working and middle-class conditions[citation needed]. In some southern states, the militia and army served as slave patrols. In other southern states, slave patrols came about from colonial or state government legislation. Slave patrols typically rode on horseback in groups of four or five, sometimes even in family groups. They often worked sun-up to sun-down and varied their times and locations of patrol, to lower the chances of slaves escaping. They used no special equipment. Their chief tools, instead, were whips and intimidation.[citation needed].

Some states required every white man to arrest and chastise any slave found away from his home without proper authorization. In colonial South Carolina, failure to do so incurred a fine of forty shillings.

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