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Slave Patrols : Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas (Harvard Historical Studies)
Slave Patrols Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas - Harvard Historical Studies Author: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... more » how the patrols, formed by county courts and state militias, were the closest enforcers of codes governing slaves throughout the South. "[Hadden's] in-depth analysis provides an understanding of the daily enforcement of slave laws and an awareness of how Southern police forces were influenced by slavery and white dominance … This is essential reading." —Edward G. McCormack, Library Journal "No one has examined slave patrols in such detail, unearthed the whole world of racial control they represented, and linked them to post–Civil War vigilantes and the KKK. The details on the recruitment of the patrols, their procedures and effect, and their shifting roles in different circumstances of public safety and disturbance are very well done." —Bernard Bailyn, author of Ideological Origins of the American Revolution« less