Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

civil rather than military activity. 140The patrols also, in certain respects, resembled the watch. The watch, evenin Northern cities. was issued specific instructions concerning the policing of theBlack population. Boston, for example, instituted a curfew for Black people andNative Americans, beginning in 1703; 141 in 1736 the watch was specifically orderedto "take up all Negro and Molatto [sic 1 servants, that shall be unseasonably Absentfrom their Masters [sic] Families, without giving sufficient reason therefore."142But while the watch was told to keep an eye on Black people along with numerousother potential sources for trouble, the slave patrols (and later, the City Guards)were more speciali7d, focusing almost exclusively on Black people. In fact, it isthis racist specialization that-more than anything else-distinguished the slavepatrols from other police types and accelerated their rate of development.The reliance upon race as a defining feature of this new colonial creationreveals the singular difference that set slave patrols apart from theirEuropean antecedents. Although slave patrols also supervised the activitiesof free African Americans and suspicious whites who associatedwith slaves, the main focus of their attention fell upon slaves. Bondsmencould easily be distinguished by their race and thus became easyand immediate targets of racial brutality. As a result, the new Americaninnovation in law enforcement during the eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies was the creation of racially focused law enforcementgroups in the American south.14\With this specialization came expanded powers-to search the homes of Blackpeople, to mete out summary punishment, and to confiscate a broad rangeof valuables without need to demonstrate further suspicion. Moreover, theirrelationship to the militia meant that patrols generally carried firearms,whereas the watch did not. 144While the slave patrols did dllticipate the creation ot modern police, itmust still be remembered that they were not themselves modern police. Ofthe two sets of criteria listed earlier, the slave patrols satisfy those of a policeendeavor: they were public, authorized (indeed, instructed) to use forCe,and had general enforcement powers (if only over certain segments of thepopulation) . They do not, however, seem very modern, by the second set ofcriteria. They were certainly not the main law enforcement body, and theyusually only operated at night. Arrangements for pay and continuity of servicevaried by location, but they were generally no more advanced than wastypical of the watch. The patrols did have citywide (and sometimes broader)jurisdiction, and they were accountable to either the militias or the courts(or later, to special committees) .14s And perhaps more than any police forcebefore them, the patrols had a preventive orientation. Rather than respondto slave revolts (as the militia had done) , or take off after runaways (likethe professional slave catchers) , the patrol aimed to prevent rebellions andsometimes operated to keep the slaves from even leaving the plantation.The slave patrol, which began as an offshoot of the militia, and came toresemble modern police, thus provides a transitional model in the developmentof policing. As the militia adapted to the needs of a rural, agrarian, slave society,it evolved into a new form that surpassed the original. The slave patrols, when44