Abstract

The peculiar institution of slavery operated to confine and control enslaved people in the history of the United States. Chattel slavery from the colonial era to the Civil War included two forms of policing: overseers and slave patrollers that exist in a structurally linked relationship. Drawing on Frederick Douglass’s and Harriet Jacobs’s autobiographical accounts, this article examines how enslaved people perceived overseers’ and patrollers’ activities and functions during slavery. It develops an alternative conception of overseers and slave patrollers as kindred agents of confinement and control, whom society permitted to enclose and monitor enslaved people to exploit their material and symbolic value to society. Overseers deployed watching and whipping to exert control, while patrollers used searching and whipping to regulate enslaved people. This article demonstrates that there is much to be gained by considering the structural syncretism in the activities and functions of overseers and slave patrollers.

Keywords

slavery, racial domination, surveillance