Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas

by Sally E. Hadden

Obscured from our view of slaves and masters in America is a critical third party: the state, with its coercive power. This book completes the grim picture of slavery by showing us the origins, the nature, and the extent of slave patrols in Virginia and the Carolinas from the late seventeenth century through the end of the Civil War. Here we see how the patrols, formed by county courts and state militias, were the closest enforcers of codes governing slaves throughout the South.

Mining a variety of sources, Sally Hadden presents the views of both patrollers and slaves as she depicts the patrols, composed of "respectable" members of society as well as poor whites, often mounted and armed with whips and guns, exerting a brutal and archaic brand of racial control inextricably linked to post-Civil War vigilantism and the Ku Klux Klan. City councils also used patrollers before the war, and police forces afterward, to impose their version of race relations across the South, making the entire region, not just plantations, an armed camp where slave workers were controlled through terror and brutality.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Social Justice, Police

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2001

Reviews

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book, that is to say, there are many details that, as a casual reader, I skimmed. However, there is also much that is fascinating. This book strongly reinforces the knowledge that slavery could only be maintained by a police state. Every nook and cranny of the Confederacy had organized, government sanctioned patrols out of sheer necessity, if the white people wanted to be able to sleep at night. (How they could, considering what their wealth depended on, is beyond me.) I have read elsewhere that the Second Amendment "right to bear arms" and "well-regulated militias" were actually sops to the Southern states, allowing them to keep their slave patrols in return for joining the United States. After reading this book, my personal thought (not addressed by the author) is that the violent nature of modern America is rooted in the violence used to maintain slavery. I'm sure this isn't an original idea, but I'm certainly convinced now. Every book I've read about American chattel slavery has opened my eyes to a greater understanding of our national history, and of why the Confederate states today are what they are. This book was well worth the read; if you find yourself getting bogged down, I suggest you just skim those sections and move on. There is much of interest here.

[Kylo Sten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from some small, mostly technical criticisms and a potentially superfluous mid-section, this book excellently shows the foundations of racial violence in American law enforcement. From the early colonial period to post-Reconstruction, it’s clear that, historically, policing is the defense of white supremacy.

[Circa24 Circa24 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched and very readable history of the slave patrols, an instrument of terror used against the enslaved. The book does not stop at their use in the American South but extends the research into the Caribbean colonies, where some of the earliest slave patrols formed. Nor does the research stop at the Civil War, but it shows how the terror tactics continued after emancipation, both through official bodies and unofficial ones such as the KKK.

Don't be intimidated by the length. It includes lots of endnotes (that are definitely worth reading) and the references upon which the research was built. (I recommend glancing through the endnotes before reading a chapter. They will help orient you, and if you're like me, you'll be less tempted to stop and check them out whenever they occur.)

[Heidi Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book literally has “Law and Violence in VIRGINIA and the Carolinas” in the title and yet it never once mentions either George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. This book, which covers the period from before the colonies in America existed up to 1865. Never once, did this book mention the extremely relevant historical fact that Geo Washington, himself a VIRGINIAN, and prominent militia leader (whose job this book repeatedly establishes it was to directly commanded slave patrols), just six days after defeating the British army, “Washington directed his officers and "persons of every denomination concerned" to apprehend the "many Negroes and Mulattoes" found in and around Yorktown and consign them to guard posts on either side of the York River. There free blacks would be separated from runaway slaves who had sought freedom with the British, and steps taken to return the latter to their masters.” The ‘persons of every denomination concerned’ that Washington was referring to were the slave patrollers!! The subject of this book!

This book also played fast and loose with certain terms and figures of speech that made me Google if the author was actually a historian, as she claimed. She is! So, why then did Sally E Hadden omit any mention of Virginia’s two most famous enslavers, slave-law-makers, and slave patrol commanders? Why then did the author, a professor of history and law, refer to the enslaved resisters as “compatriots”, as if black people in America at that time weren’t legally considered three fifths of a person? Sorry, but “compatriot” literally means a fellow citizen of a country, all fifth fifths of them. Enslaved people were property without representation or regard as a whole person. The use of ‘compatriots’ to describe enslaved people planning a resistance against their violent enslavers is misleading and inexcusable.

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slave Patrols was an interesting read. The bulk of the information is similar to what is found in various slave narratives, but the author provides excellent extensive details from court, newspaper, and witness accounts. This is the type of book you would read mostly for research and to get a feel of those willing to hunt down another man.

This book informs us that every homestead in certain jurisdictions must rotate through a scheduled patrol duty. And that in some states or counties, there were some laws and expectations of potential punishment to detour abuse of the captors. Farmers could also get waivers and exemptions (Hilary, law enforcement & medical), so they didn't have to go out on patrol.

The reasons behind the patroller's beatings could be planned, manipulated, and some plantation owners refused to allow the patrollers to beat their bondsmen/slaves. A few cases were lighthearted and comical, howeve4most were somber. Of special note was how they continued to have these patrols after the civil war and how they tightened patrols on the weekend and sometimes relaxed them during the week, bad weather, and other times they felt no one would run or stray away.

There is an extensive breadth of information for history buffs and genealogy researchers.

[Jediael Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about the role of violence on black people (I hate the term black bodies). The author also notes how enslaved people went from being property of their asters, to property of their masters and the state. The only critique I have is a personal one where I wish she utilized an afro pessimist lens to support her argument of the policing of enslaved and free black people.

[Michael Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent study of the excesses of the slave patrols

[Lori Beninger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too repetitive - could have cut the size of the book in half with the redundancies had been cut. Not well organized. Interesting subject, however.