The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina

"Henry offered important insights into the workings of South Carolina's slave patrol system." - An Old Creed for the New South (2008) "An excellent analysis of slave control...one of the few early historians of slavery to examine...why the various slave laws were passed." - Slavery, Race and American History (2015) "An analysis of the slave patrol and the elaborate police systems organized to police the behavior of African-Americans during slavery." - Black Police in America (1996) "As H.M. Henry described it, 'the plantation was a sort of governmental unit as to the police control of the slave, and to its head, the slaveowner, was given a large measure of sovereign management.'" - Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (2015)

What kept thousands slaves from escaping to freedom every time an overseer turned his back, fell asleep, or was out-numbered? In 1914, Howell Meadors Henry (1879-1956), later to become Emory Dean and Professor of History, published a study of the slave patrol system entitled, "The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina." In introducing his work, Henry writes: "Professor Frederick W. Moore suggested to me as a topic for investigation, the police control of the negro in the period of 1861-1865 and following years. It was his suggestion that by using several states as illustrations I should show to what extent the Southern people sought to perpetuate not slavery, but the same method of controlling the emancipated negro which was in force under the slavery regime...."