Slave patrol - Definition and Overview

Slave patrols (called patrollers or pattyroolers by the slaves) were gangs of poor white people who enforced discipline upon black slaves in the antebellum U.S. southern states. They policed the slaves on the plantations and hunted down fugitive slaves. Patrols were allowed to use summary punishment against escapees, which included maiming or killing them. Because of their brutality, many plantation owners refused to allow them on the property.

After the American Civil War, the culture of slave patrols found new forms of expression, such as the Ku Klux Klan and lynch mobs.