Slave patrols were first established in South Carolina in 1704 and the idea spread throughout the colonies before their use ended following the Civil War.

Slave patrols first began in South Carolina in 1704 and spread throughout the thirteen colonies, lasting well beyond the American Revolution.

[3] 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.

Although these laws were initially created to keep tensions low between the north and the south, it caused the physical formation of slave patrols.

[5] During the Civil War, the theory of Contraband prevented the return of Southern slaves who reached Union-held territory.

They were partially recruited to form a buffer state to stop enslaved Black people from escaping from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia to Florida.

Slave patrols and plantation police were organized by Whites as legal and extra-legal means to stop this from occurring.

This end, however, is linked to post-Civil War groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which continued to terrorize and threaten the black community.

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.

South Carolina's law, by 1840, banned meetings at night for "mental instruction or religious worship," whether whites were present or not.

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.

[citation needed] Slave patrollers were compensated in several ways, including exemption from public, county, and parish taxes and fees during their terms of service.

[6] With the war lost, Southern Whites' fears of African Americans increased in 1865 due to Reconstruction governments that were perceived as oppressive to the South.

Later, city and rural police squads, along with the help of Union army officers, revived patrolling practices among free men.

During the post-Civil War Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, old-style patrol methods resurfaced and were enforced by postwar Southern police officers and also by organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.