[Music] the following program contains depictions of violence and offensive but historically accurate racial epithets [Music] it is the summer of 1856 slave catcher James C Knox is tracking the Escape slave Big Sandy Knox owns no property and earns his living by hunting down runaway slaves Knox needs the reward money he has set out from East Batton Rouge Louisiana confident he will capture Big Sandy big Sandy has spent his entire life enslaved known for his contempt of white Authority he has been repeatedly whipped by his Louisiana owner Robert Davis he'd sooner killed than be returned to slavery when knox's trained blood hounds finally Tracked Down Big Sandy he refuses to surrender they start to fight for 15 minutes the Hunter and the hunted struggle [Music] get a final blow ends Big sy's Dreams of Freedom James Knox fails to return Big Sandy alive and will not get paid it's the cost of doing business when you're a slave Hunter over a period of 300 years of slavery in America slave owners would build a sophisticated structure to sustain this brutally corrupt and immoral system a system of controls that began with militia grew to include citizen patrols and slave hunters and became so vast that by 1850 with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law every American was required to be a slave catcher it is the late 1600s on a small Plantation near Charleston South Carolina that Arthur Middleton has inherited Middleton quickly doubles his land making him one of the colony's wealthiest businessmen enslaved Africans teach him how to cultivate rice and provide free labor enabling Middleton to extract enormous riches from the swampy Wilds of South Carolina when some people talk about the creation of plantation society I think about the creation of slave labor camps that's what these are the people are enslaved they're laboring and they're in a camp if you could cope with the moral obscenity of it you could become extremely rich and that sort of bargain with the devil was one that was made very early by these Southern wouldbe Planters and as soon as enslaved Africans were brought to colonial America they resisted they fought back and they ran away would they go willingly into a situation of Perpetual racial servitude no way what you have here often is this conflict between humanity and inhumanity between those who would deny human recognition to a human being and those who would assert that human recognition under the most drastic the most dangerous of circumstances Parents try to be reunited with children children struggle to be reunited with parents by running away but not necessarily running towards freedom in the abstract but by running towards family members that for them represent Safety and Security [Music] to stem the financial loss of slaves who Escape for whatever reason South Carolina begins to experiment with different ways for catching them at first neighbors are asked to volunteer rewards are given to those who capture runaways when this fails the legislature passes a law in 1690 that mandates all whites to serve as slave Hunters requiring the entire white population of South Carolina to be a racial police force those who refuse to serve are fine in cities like Charleston night Watchmen are paid to keep an eye out for slaves who violate curfew they even try using their militia then in 1704 The Colony tries something new they begin to experiment with small makeshift groups of Citizen Police called trolls if the colony's system for catching slaves is inconsistent and uncertain the punishments aren't runaways who are caught are brutally whipped their noses sometimes slit they were branded with uh hot branding iron on various parts of their bodies sometimes on the shoulders sometimes on the back sometimes on the cheek sometimes on the forehead they were branded with the letters of the owners they're branded with r for runaway in 1722 South Carolina with the consent of some leaders of the Baptist Church passes a law requiring all male runaways to be castrated you have to make it very clear that I own you and I own you for life and I'm going to own your children and your children's children and the repercussions of running away or res existing is physical it's much more brutal than we understand in areas where slaves greatly outnumber whites punishments are particularly brutal these ad hoc methods of control manage to prevent large numbers of slaves from escaping however the colony is changing as the plantations of Arthur Middleton and other South Carolinians grow so too does their appetite for slaves until by 1708 Africans outnumber Europeans by 1721 1,000 enslaved Africans are arriving each year in South Carolina and by 1730 23s of South Carolina's population are slaves but it isn't just the numbers that send a chill through the white Community many of the new arrivals come from Angola in southern Africa they know each other and speak the same language and some possess military skills the concern about one or two individuals escaping is becoming the fear of large organized groups running away or a full-scale slave rebellion not long after Arthur Middleton assumes the role of acting Governor the news filtering in from Caribbean slave colonies is more than unsettling in the 1730s slaves in Jamaica rise up in rebellion and Massacre their white owners during the same time Africans massacred 2,000 white families on St John's Island also in the Caribbean 18th century South Carolina is a pressure cooker the whites realize that they're outnumbered and yet the people in charge are making so much money it is so profitable that they willing to run extreme risks South Carolina holds its breath slaveholders have made a deal with the devil they had made themselves rich off the backs and brains of their slaves but in doing so they had put their own lives at risk and they were about to trigger one of the largest slave rebellions in the colonies it is the summer of 1739 a feeling of of dread has fallen over the white population of South Carolina still a British colony with 39,000 Africans outnumbering 25,000 whites the colonists are now a minority and they sense they are sitting a top a volcano about to explode adding to the white population's fear Spain Britain's arch enemy has built Fort mos in nearby Florida guarded by free black soldiers Spain has also granted land there to escape slaves for the first black settlement in North America then news arrives that England and Spain have declared war in order to destabilize their English neighbor the Spanish openly offer freedom to any slave who runs away to Florida over 100 slaves had already escaped to Fort MOS the previous year to protect the colonists the South Carolina legislature passes a law requiring all whites to arm themselves while worshiping at church the time when they are most vulnerable but two weeks before this law takes effect the volcano erupts early on Sunday morning September 9th 1739 a slave named Jimmy gathers 20 other African slaves near the stonel river just 20 M from Charleston all are from Angola in southern Africa and speak the same language together they head towards Fort mos in Florida in one of the largest slave rebellions in the colonies the men sto first at a local store to steal guns and ammunition they kill two shopkeepers and leave their severed heads on the front steps many of those who particip paid in the stone of rebellion were slaves captured in the Congo they were military men they start drilling and preparing for a military exercise using military strategies worked out in the Congo they attempt escape and they move Beyond escape to open Rebellion The Runaways then move from Farm to farm killing any white person they meet they spare only attack owner named Wallace known to treat his slaves better than most their notion is to strike enough fear in the whites and to build enough confidence in blacks so that people who hear about it on neighboring plantations will join them and it works that within a day they've got 50 60 people this their ranks are growing you see these descriptions that Whit's uh offer of seeing these men doing these African dances right what they were doing is close order drill they were they were training others in the area and they were forming themselves into a military unit they've raised a flag they're beginning to develop some Spirit and hopefulness the lieutenant governor a man named bull comes riding down the road and he realizes what's going on and he turns away and is able to Rouse the militia the Presbyterian congregation at willtown South Carolina is the first to respond by late afternoon a large group of Planters has assembled they attack killing and scattering Jim's men then use their prisoners to send a powerful message to all other enslaved Africans the group is dispersed some people run away and remain at Large but those who were caught and killed some of them had their heads cut off put on post on the mile markers back to Charleston they put a head on every post however 30 Rebels escaped over the next month the militias methodically hunt them down down alt together 60 Africans are killed and 20 whites the Rebellion has been crushed the exit has stopped The Colony believes it now needs a new structure to keep the immoral system of slavery intact after Stono the white slave owning Community has options they could get rid of slavery they could say this is too costly an institution for us to actually continue to maintain it has the potential for for death and and destruction in the white Community white slave owners obviously reject that as an option they're going to keep slavery so if they're going to keep it then they're going to have to make sure that the slaves are kept under tighter control the Stono Rebellion was one of the most serious rebellions in early American history and It produced a powerful response on the part of of the white Community it necessitated a change in the slave code the legislature passes the Negro Act of 1740 which cracks down on the few Liberties remaining for black Carolinians they can no longer assemble in groups grow their own food or move about without a pass and to enforce the new law the white Community calls upon its slave patrols patrols had existed before Stono but what Stono does is it forces members of the colonial assembly to reassess how effective those patrols really are and to create a stronger Patrol mechanism to control what slaves do on a day-to-day basis citizen patrols are South Carolina's racial police force composed of five or six white men they roam the countryside on Horseback several times a week looking for slaves without passes their goal is to stop runaways and to strike fear into any slave even thinking about running away often it was required that slav carry with them a pass signed by the master which gave them permission to leave the plantation and slave patrols made it their business to check the passes of All Blacks found off the plantation all right you any black person caught without a pass is whipped in some districts this means 20 lashes and others up to 30 all white men in South Carolina from poor subsistence Farmers to wealthy plantation owners are required to serve on slave patrols the kinds of people who are involved in Patrol work are typically of military age that is to say they're old enough to serve in the militia some of whom are slave owners and some of whom are not the patrols work at night when slaves are most likely to run away and often ride Dark Horses to give them the advantage of surprise the men carry flint lock muskets whips and binding ropes but rarely bring along dogs fearing their barks might give them away the patrollers often stay out till dawn searching for any Gathering they fear might lead to a mass Escape or another ston of rebellion slaves obviously have a lot to fear from slave patrols they are effectively Masters on Horseback and so for a slave encountering a slave Patrol is always a potential physical threat the South Carolina government authorizes patrols to maim or kill any slave who dares to resist any owner who slave is killed is reimbursed by The Colony for his financial loss the patrols also keep an eye on relations between slaves and poor whites Richard EPS a doctor is a patrol captain in City Point Maryland like many captains he owns large tracks of land and many slaves EPS hears that slaves are trading with a local store owner Charlotte peny it is illegal to trade with slaves and EPS assumes the slaves have stolen the goods from their owner these poor whites are often suspected by wealthier members of the white Southern community of trading or being in cahoots with slaves as uh Traders or dealers in stolen goods Dr EPs and his Patrol members stake out the store and wait as the black men approach Mrs peny EPs and his men jump them the slaves fearing they'll be shot surrendered EPS discovers a pistol a cutas and three flasks of Brandy Mrs penny is prosecuting the enslaved men punished the slave patrols have accomplished their mission what patrols do is they provide the the psychological comfort zone for white slave owners to stop fearing their slaves so openly so consciously South Carolina has managed to put the lid back on its slaves for the moment but the fear of an uprising will never go away in 1739 news of the Stono slave rebellion braces through the American colonies like a tornado every slaveholding society saw itself threatened by events like the stone of rebellion and so the effects were very wide spread slave codes in every Southern State were revised to reflect that growing anxiety over the fear of what 18th century slaveholders generally referred to as the contagion the fear of a spread of slave rebellions so they tightened the controls the year after the Rebellion South Carolina requires that every militia man serve on slave patrols and that any woman who owns 10 slaves must provide a horseman in 1753 North Carolina forms its first patrols Tennessee strengthens theirs the same year until in time every slaveholding state in the South has fashioned its own form of racial policing the desire for freedom on the part of slaves is intensified so they have to fine-tune this Patrol system they combine the mil I system and the patrol system and then they they keep tinkering should we pay wages should you get exempt from militia duty if you're on the patrol you can watch them experiment with it until they get something that they think will keep this system in place Patrols in South Carolina are organized along the lines of Beats that is to say they were military districts that were cut into subse sections that were typically the size that one man could ride on Horseback in a set number of hours so it typically be no larger than say a five or 10 m square area as part of this beat South Carolina law requires patrols to pay a surprise visit to every Plantation at least once a month patrolman fox hall Sturman recalled we were told to search Negra cabins and take everything which we found in them which bore hostile aspect such as powder shot Etc they also told us to apprehend every negro whom we found from his home and if he made any resistance or ran from us to fire on him immediately unless he could be stopped by other means they also search for any evidence of literacy books pens paper if slaves can read slaveholders understand they will learn about freedom and how to escape if a slave owner fails to control information on his farm the slave Patrol does often with brutal violence grand jury presentments pointed to the fact that some Patrol groups got drunk and indiscriminately beat slaves there's always a fear that slave patrollers will exceed the amount of force that they deem necessary and administer too harsh a beating to a slave that sadistic element that could come into play is something that some slave owners fear excessive violence from patrollers angers slave owners unfortunately not out of compassion for their slaves but out of concern for their damaged property the violence gets so out of hand that a North Carolina Court ruling requires the majority of patrollers to be present before punishment can be inflicted it is hoped that the group will overrule one man's excess for the white population serving on patrols is also a social activity slave patrols provided an informal sort of glue in the white Community they provided opportunities for socializing the same way that musters or or Hunting Expeditions did they provide the appearance of relative equality between whites so that poor whites and Rich whites could mingle together and they provide a form of solidarity for a poor white slave patrols were a way to say they were better than slaves better than free blacks it was their way to express their solidarity with all other whites African-Americans resist the patrols with great Ingenuity they learn to avoid routs that patrols use they Place Lookouts to warn Gatherings when they are approaching and they devise tricks for avoiding patrols when they do appear slave narratives tell us that when patrollers knocked on the door of a cabin trying to intrude into a slave Gathering a quick-thinking slave grabbed up a shovel full of coal ash and blew it into the face of the patrollers making it possible for all of the slaves to escape through Windows Doors and in one particular tail even up the chimney if I become creative as a slave then you as the master will become creative in ways to contain me so it's different every day when one side adjusts their nightly roots for patrolling or Escaping The Other Side adapts too you build a better mouse trap and I'll become a smarter Mouse there's a cat and mouse game if you will going on all the time and you can see that in the history of the patrol system in South Carolina the slave catcher often was confronted by a person bent on making it clear that you are now confronting a person and not a piece of property slave catchers on the other hand by the very Act of taking this person back to bondage their assertion was you are a piece of property you are owned you have no Humanity that you can control on a cool Winter's evening in Alexandria Virginia the local Patrol acts on a tip that slaves are frequenting a certain stretch of road all the men have passes except two as they March the two slaves back for punishment the patrol doesn't realize that the balance of power has has now shifted they paus to rest and two of the men stalking them Alfred and Spencer spring out of the darkness free their friends and disappear into the night Spencer is later executed and Alfred sold to a slave trader their owner receives fair market Market compensation for both men you had to keep the lid on all the time this was something that was changing from day to day it was a war and slaves find other avenues of Revenge it is not uncommon for the homes or barns of patrollers to go up and smoke at night patrollers known to be especially sadistic are common targets so are the most Vigilant Patrol captains arson becomes so common that the American fire Insurance Company of Philadelphia refuses to write fire insurance policies in slave states some slave holders told themselves that their slaves were docel and their slaves were contended and they were in no danger but in reality I think most slaveholders understood the fact that on a daily basis they were in danger and then that helps us to understand the almost military organization of Southern Society from generation to generation whites have refined and passed along a system to control their slaves and for the most part it has kept Rebellion at Bay yet for some the memory of the stal Rebellion will not go away always there is that nagging anxiety the nagging fear that somewhere someday a slave Insurrection will be successful on the eve of the American Revolution whites have reason to be anxious as their demands for Liberty from Great Britain are echoing across the colonies one one of every five Americans is now enslaved and they too long for Freedom so you got this big contradiction you have the same people who are saying we believe in Freedom those same people holding other people in slavery and here comes the question how do you justify this what looks like hypocrisy well one of the ways that America tried to justify it was by reaching to theories of race and that is we do believe in freedom but only for certain people and the calls for Liberty are reaching other ears as well don't forget slaves are hearing this too no nobody agrees that human beings ought to be free like a slave when people talk about god-given rights to Freedom slaves understand this too who understands issues of Liberty and freedom better this enslaved worker or this Virginia planter living at monachello they both have a pretty good understanding of it the freedom that African-Americans demand will not only threaten the slaveholders system for controlling slaves it will threaten the existence of slavery itself during the Revolutionary War the British understand the slaves demand for freedom and they play it to their military advantage in November 1775 Lord Dunmore British governor of Virginia issues a proclamation aimed at the enslaved the message is electric run away and fight with the British and we will free you George Washington predicts if that man dunore is not crushed before the spring he will become the most dangerous man in America from the perspective of slaves dunmore's proclamation to them them is an open-handed opportunity to embrace Freedom slaves who learn of it and of course it travels the grape vine through slave communities like wildfire slaves who can take advantage of it will do so every night boats fill with runaways leave the Virginia Shoreline heading for waiting British ships the impact of the Proclamation of course was to create fear and dread in the white Community throughout the South and indeed throughout the country because because of the potential of of spreading uh Rebellion the response was therefore to bring out the full apparatus of control to crush any potential slave Rising slave owners had to take quick and immediate action governor Patrick Henry issues a circular letter that goes to every County telling County courts they need to tighten their patrols but by this time slave owners face a new crisis and and the men who normally would be on slave patrols have more pressing duties slave patrols are always affected by wartime there's both a greater need for their services and at the same time there are fewer men who can perform slave Patrol Duty white men of military age are taken away through the militia musters through Army Recruitment as white Rebels leave to fight the British the ranks of patrols are stretched very thin panicked Southern counties increased their patrol budgets Georgia even converts a third of its troops to patrols to prevent slaves from running away after December 1778 battles in the South take on the focus of the war and things go from bad to worse for slave owners the arrival of the British in Georgia and later in South Carolina created enormous chaos It produced an exodus of Whites Whites moved in large numbers out of the lower South into the upper South with sometimes with their entire slave population it also created enormous opportunities for slaves to free themselves what began as a trickle with the Dunmore Proclamation turns into a flood African-Americans take advantage of the chaos and flee to join the advancing British troops the South Carolina weekly Gazette warns whites to keep a strict eye over your black walking property thousands and tens of thousands of black slaves walked off the plantation Thomas Jefferson estimates 30,000 blacks walked off the Plantation in Virginia alone they flocked to British lives 20 of Thomas Jefferson's 187 slaves are among them Patrick Henry who uttered Give me liberty or give me death finds that one of his slaves took his words to heart and fled there are slave revolts in every one of the southern colonies going from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina to Virginia to Maryland the southern theater of the war was the most vicious the most brutal pillaging plundering murdering assassinating governmental processes simply collapsed the economy was wrecked Society disintegrated some plantations have no supervision at all in many counties patrols exist in name only finally in 1783 the Revolutionary War ends an estimated 100,000 slaves have run away those who haven't escaped with the British are returned to slavery and now their enslavement is codified in the United States Constitution which supports continuation of the Atlantic slave trade for 20 more years and increases the power of slave states in Congress the enslaved population had waged a desperate but in the end an unsuccessful struggle for freedom in the post-revolutionary period we see a lot of evidence that the Imp that the revolution provided persisted and as always slave owners use every means to stop the flow of [Music] runaways Robert Pringle who was a merchant he's writing to one of his Merchant contacts in Portugal and he's saying on board this ship I'm going to put a young black woman named Esther she's 15 years old she's a very good house servant her only problem is her mother and father live on a plantation outside of town and she runs away to see them every chance she gets and I can't stop it [Music] anymore so I'm sending her to you in Lisbon Portugal this the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and I hope you will will be able to sell her at a reasonable [Music] price in the early 1800s a prized field slave could bring $500 worth over $7,000 today while large plantation owners might see runaways as just a cost of doing business small farm owners are strongly affected by the loss of even a single s when a slave does run away patrollers can't leave their beat to pursue him owners must instead hire a professional slave catcher the closest modern analogy to slave catchers today is the Bounty Hunter a bounty hunter is someone who enters his profession because he's good at tracking individuals who don't want to be tracked slave catchers do exactly the same thing slave catchers are drawn principally We Believe from the lower rungs of the economic ladder in southern Society often times there are individuals who could barely read who might have no other means of support financially so they're typically going to be fellas who are loners or who work in pairs but who don't have a piece of land or property to call their own slave patrolling is considered a civic duty slave catching is a business in States like Louisiana slave catchers are a vital part of the slavery system professional slave catchers like Edward King adverti their services and fees in the local newspapers he had spent years tracking slaves he knew the rivers he knew the woods he knew the plantation Hinterlands he knew where slaves went if he catches an escaping slave he earns up to $50 more if he tracks him down in another state most day laborers make only a dollar a day and many slave catchers get an extra $5 search charge for whipping fugitives once they're caught but the search offers other rewards as well who are the people who are below you one of the ways that you make this point as a slave catcher is to assert your personal power over individuals many of these individuals are runaway slaves and it became a way of self- validation for slave catchers that I am somebody like any slave catcher Edward King has tools for tracking Escape slaves the favorite tool is commonly referred to as the Negro dog or Worse negro dogs could be fox hounds Bulldogs or Scotch stag hounds but the dog of choice is The Blood Hound these dogs are trained for one purpose and one purpose only to hunt down runaway slaves the dogs are locked up and only let out to track black people a well-known keeper of hounds was Zachary Taylor before being elected president of the United States Taylor was a Louisiana slave owner who imported blood hounds from Cuba trained as negro dogs his dogs could tear a person to shreds in minutes slave catchers like David Turner of Hardman County Tennessee Pride themselves as masters of hounds Turner boasts I have two of the finest dogs for catching [ __ ] in the southwest they can take the trail 12 hours after the Negro passed and catch him with ease I am ready at all times to catch runaway negras but hunting with the dogs can also be recreational for the slave Hunter David Barrow of Louisiana confesses that he and his neighbors Chase runaways with the zest of sport as he related the trailed a male slave about a mile treed him made the dogs pull him out of the tree dogs tore him naked took him home before the Negroes at dark and made the dogs give him another overhauling however slave catching is usually deadly serious Eugene jeene Jardine advertises himself as a master of Hounds in the mid 1800s Jardine is called to a nearby Plantation owned by es contell in St James Parish Louisiana Kell's field slave octave Johnson has disappeared striking yet another blow against the immorality of slavery like the vast majority of runaways Johnson hasn't gone far he's taken refuge in a nearby swamp in a community of runaway slaves known as a maroon like any hunter worth his salt Jardine knows where to look he heads into the dense Louisiana swamps but when his dogs pick up octave Johnson's scent the hunter is in for a surprise octave Johnson The Fugitive later recounted his Escape one day 20 blood hounds came after me we killed eight then we all jumped into the Bayou the dogs followed us and the alligators caught six of them the alligators preferred dog's flesh to human flesh but even the brutality of negro dogs and slave catchers cannot contain what is about to explode it is the fall of 1829 a small pamphlet is finding its way into the hands of free and enslaved black people its title Walker appeal its author David Walker is a free black man born in North Carolina who flees to Boston the appeal frightens the slaveholding population to its core what David Walker is saying directly to Slaves is assert your manhood and he uses that term assert your manhood strike against slavery part of what he is saying is run away and run away any way you can Walker also urges the enslaved to murder their masters saying I do declare that one good black can put the death six white men this is their worst nightmare and it is being issued by a person outside the South that you cannot control all across the South whites have Bann schools and outlawed Literacy for African-Americans to keep them from Reading pamphlets like Walkers about rebellion and freedom information is power and you want to keep them as ignorant as possible of everything outside the [Music] plantation in December authorities in Savannah Georgia find and confiscate 60 copies of Walker's appeal smuggled in by a [Music] sailor they're developed through the 19th century a kind of an underground Communication System these are Communications that were often carried by any African-Americans who traveled boatmen and sailors became particularly important and don't forget how important this was if you were playing an escape for years free black Sailors from the north and from England have smuggled in literature about the outside world in the 1820s white Southerners try to shut down this source of information by enacting what becomes known as The Negro Sean laws when black Sailors came into the various sea ports in the South one of the things that southern authorities wanted to do is to isolate those Sailors from the rest of the black community free or slave so in places like Charleston in New Orleans and a variety of Southern Seaport towns many of these black Sailors were put into jails for the period of time that they were import and those black Sailors who are not locked up are often open game for slave Hunters the hunters kidnap the black Sailors even though they are free men and sell them into slavery for a quick profit legislator in Georgia North Carolina Mississippi and Louisiana vote to ban Walker's appeal rumors swirl that a $1,000 bounty has been placed on Walker's head within a year after his pamphlet first appears David Walker is found dead on the doorstep of his Boston shop many in the black community think he's been murdered again and again slaveholders attempt to quell the flow of information to the enslaved in the South but they never quite succeed in plugging all the leaks when slaves travel North with their owners they bring back news of Freedom with them many of these slaves traveling with their masters were housed in the Dumas hotel which became a place where Masters put their slaves while they were in Cincinnati doing business well the Dumas Hotel then becomes an important information center many of those free blacks with friends and relatives in slavery and one of the things they want to know is what do you hear from home and the information that was passed back and forth becomes critical from the standpoint of encouraging runaways once information reaches the South it is said to travel through the slave underground from Plantation to Plantation over 100 Mil per week another inspiration for Freedom feared by whites lay much closer to home the Bible where slave Traders are labeled ungodly and sinful many slaves in the south have begun to accept Christianity and adapt it to their needs worried that the unfiltered word of God will encourage slaves to escape slave owners themselves interpret the Bible for their slaves preaching that slavery is a part of God's design running away was defined as a sin Disobedience to one's master was defined as a sin religion became part of that whole apparatus of control that joins the slave patrols the militia the county courts all others agencies of control in maintaining order within the slave community in the summer of 1831 just two years after Walker's appeal whites have good reason to fear religion in Southampton County Virginia Nat Turner an enslaved preacher has his own interpretation of the Bible he believ believes that God has chosen him to avenge the sins of slavery as Turner makes his rounds preaching in the fields he quietly enlists other slaves to his cause for months the men meet secretly conspiring on the plans of their Uprising in the early morning hours of August 21st 1831 Turner and his men launched one of the largest slave rebellions in American history the rebels move from home to home killing every white person they meet as they Advance towards the nearby town of Jerusalem more recruits join them the local slave patrols have failed to uncover Turner's plot so the militia is called out to track down and kill the Rebels for 36 hours the Rebellion rages on church bells ring out in distress the reaction of the white Community to this is ex stream the paranoia shoots off the scale 50 dead today how many dead tomorrow for white Virginians and white slaveholders across the South it was uh a shock a reminder of that they could lose their lives in a minute that the entire system could explode rumors spread among whites that the whole southern slave population has finally exploded in Revolt and that the British are invading to liberate the slaves as Panic swells the United States government provides important military support and that support is ensured by slaveholder power in 1830 slave states control 41% of Congress and then President Andrew Jackson himself owns over 100 slaves Fort Monroe sends three artillery companies the USS Warren and Naz add Naval units don't forget that slavery is protected not only by the slave holder not only by the local militia or the state militia but also by the full force of the military might of the United States of America except for that slavery would not have been possible in the South as the hunt for Nat Turner and his men continues 800 US troops joined 2,000 local militia men within a week the Rebellion is squashed more than 50 Rebels are captured nearly 60 white men women and children have been killed but Nat Turner is still at large and the white population remains terrified Patrols in Virginia and North Carolina go on their own vengeful Rampage every available white man who is of the appropriate age and is able is pressed into service to make sure that Patrol groups are functioning and active everywhere they visit the homes of freed blacks they visit the homes of slaves but they'll be active from sun down to Sun up to make sure that slaves are utterly under control they search for books and letters weapons and gunpowder any sign of evidence that African-Americans support and will continue the Rebellion Harriet Jacobs a slave who later runs away herself writes that men poured into her town of Edenton North Carolina to join in an orgy of violence every everywhere men women and children were whipped to the blood stood in puddles at their feet some received 500 lashes others with tied hands and feet and tortured with a bucking paddle the laws that normally govern slave patrols give way to vigilantism patrols formerly included wealthy slave owners but they are now mostly composed of poor whites with little concern for slave owners property they roam the towns and Countryside particularly targeting educated black men and randomly lynching others there's a story of this white militia group that is going through the southern portion of Southampton County which is where the Rebellion takes place and they see this free black man out working in his fields and they say to him is this Southampton County and he says yes they kill him the violence doesn't fully subside until Nat Turner is captured 2 months later on October 31st not by a patrol or slave catcher but by a farmer by accident Turner is tried hanged and skinned in all the state executes 55 black people for conspiring with Turner the patrols murder another 2 many have nothing to do with the Rebellion every stop has been pulled out to quash the uprising all the way up to the United States military and still slaves run and slave Hunters expand their networks for tracking them Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion stuns the nation and pushes the South slave policing system to its limits in the wake of the turn of rebellion whites who live in the western part of Virginia begin to question whether the institution of slavery is worth hanging on to they start petitioning the legislature in Richmond sending in petitions that say let's abolish slavery let's end slavery as an institution there's a sense on the part of the white community that maybe this is a an opportunity in Disguise maybe this is a wake up called the Turner Rebellion frightened whites literally out of their minds and yet even that wasn't strong enough to provoke them to get rid of slavery as an institution because for slave owners profit outweighs morality and their own safety by 1830 nearly 2 million slaves are fueling the Southern economy and slaveholders aren't about to give up their free labor instead the state legislators Target what they believe could forment future rebellions black schools are closed black churches are banned and burnt to the ground in an attempt to stop the unfiltered teachings of the Bible and slave patrols are ordered to punish any African-American caught worshiping or singing hymns within a generation the number of slaves in the South has climbed to over 3 million and they are running away in ever increasing numbers a minimum number of slaves per year that ran away was 50,000 just a continuous movement away from the plantation it was almost a routine visitors to the South report that virtually every Plantation owner has problems with escaping slaves on the morville plantation in Louisiana in 1 month in 18 55 10% of the slaves had run away so many slaves run away that printers begin to sell fill in the blank wanted posters with the familiar runaway symbol the stakes are getting higher runaways pose two kinds of threats to a slave owner there's a psychic cost and there's a financial cost the psychic cost is to the slave owners myth the slave owners belief that all slaves are happy and contented but the financial cost is also very real a slave who runs away in 1800 who's an adult male field hand could be sold for $500 in 1860 it's $1,500 to ease the psychic cost slave holders turn to the writings of prominent Louisiana physician Samuel cartright in 1851 Dr cartright claims to have identified a new disease he calls drapetomania drapetomania he writes causes an ear repressible desire to run away strangely the illness only afflicts black people it's cure whipping owners thought of a wide range of responses to this problem from harsh punishments to hiring slave catchers who Trail runaways to selling loved ones away from one another they were never able to control the plantation scene always slave owners are searching for ways to stop the financial loss of runaways they threaten to sell runaways to the sugar plantations where life was even more brutal the prospect of being sold down the river it was the prospect of being sold into a place where your life would not be long and being sold away from family that was one of the one of the things that that slaves feared a great deal despite the threats slaves continue to escape the most likely slaves to run away are young unmarried men the reason for that has to do age means Mobility greater physical ability to flee being single means one would not be leaving family obligations behind perhaps a wife perhaps children it's a common assumption that slaves always ran North to achieve their freedom as runaways but the reality is is that slaves would run in whatever direction would best serve their purposes to get that Freedom by the the 1840s While most runaways are still hiding in the South more and more are setting their sights on freedom in the north aided at times by the Underground Railroad but even with such assistance the enslaved always had to watch out for the Long Reach of the slave catcher slave catchers know the roots North and working their local areas begin to specialize their services some scour the riverways North for runaways they went on steamboats they went up River down river they had connections with magistrates they had connections with individuals they had connections with uh those that ran private jails uh along the rivers still others know the land rots that crossed the Mason Dixon line like the back of their hand men like John Nelson and Bill Foster in the summer of 1841 slave catchers now and Foster are summoned to Luke ur's Plantation near cockyville Maryland James Watkins one of ur's 400 slaves has run away Nelson and Foster quickly track him down to cure his desire for Freedom ensor forces Watkins to wear a yoke of iron with bells on his head day and night for 3 months the Cure doesn't work 3 years later on a Saturday night in May 1844 Watkins Slips Away Again Luke ener isn't about to lose his $900 investment nor his pride he sends slave catchers most likely Nelson and Foster again on the hunt slave catchers will also congregate at fairies or at Bridges places that slaves might have to cross to get across a geographic barrier they'll also be uh looking at off the- beaten path places uh Trails or uh Deep Woods areas where slaves might try to hide themselves the constant anxiety as you moved across the countryside about being recognized about being stopped about being interrogated and you might not be able to answer the exhaustion of the movement uh if you were on a cross country you had to go usually at night you didn't know uh it was all unknown on the fourth day Nelson and Foster's dogs pick up Watkins scent deep in the woods and move in but this time Watkins is older and not about to be outsmarted he masks his scent by throwing snuff and cayenne pepper on the ground the spices work impeding the dog sense of smell and sending them in the wrong direction but in this deadly game of wits the slave catcher usually has the upper hand they'll Place ads in newspapers or they'll put up ads trying to advertise a runaway so that the broader Community can take part in the chase almost every Tavern courthouse and post office in the south is flooded with runaway posters hoping to lure the general public into the hunt for runaways as a fugitive on the road any person is a potential IAL threat because any person who acknowledges your presence who questions your presence could be a person angling to get whatever reward is offered for your return two men and a woman see the poster for Watkins $250 alive equal to 35 weeks pay or $150 Dead come on down here that night they happen upon Watkins they they don't intend to lose their reward money what you coming with us we have Watkins escapes and is eventually helped by an African-American man who directs him to others who can guide him to Freedom Watkins finally makes it to Hartford Connecticut he is one one of the lucky ones among the 50,000 slaves a year that ran away probably not more than two one or 2 thousand made it to freedom in the north but reaching the north didn't guarantee a slave's Freedom Watkins like all runaways was still a fugitive and now a target for Northern slave catchers who are just as vient as southern slave catchers [Music] [Applause] runaway slaves who reach the north are still not free the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 require that runaways caught even in free states should be returned slave catching in the north of course evolves over time in the early days there were actually these gangs of slave catchers that that roam the north especially Northern cities and especially areas of black communities uh and sometimes kidnapping sometimes capturing fugitive slaves and they did this for money successful slave catchers could collect bounties as high as $1,000 one notorious Northern slave catcher is George Alberti a former constable in Philadelphia he scours places where African-Americans gather and calls upon his network of white informants southern slave owners often hire him he boasted that he captured at least 100 black people Alberti routinely kidnaps free black people in the 1830s he abducts two Philadelphia freemen sells them to a Baltimore woman for $1,100 and is indicted he made no distinction between free black people and runaways after his arrest for another kidnapping he says defiantly the slave holder has as good a right to his [ __ ] as he has to his horses and if they run away as a good citizen I have a right to catch him [Music] [Music] another Northern slave catcher is the Canon Johnson gang it operates on the Maryland Delaware border the gang knows the routs that runaways take and often claims to be abolitionists offering to help tired and lost runaways unusual being led by a woman Patty Cannon the gang includes family members for 15 years they kidnapped black men women and children the gang then frequently tortured their victims before returning them to their owners for the reward like Alberti the Canon Johnson gang also kidnaps free black people and sells them into slavery as well but slave catchers aren't always successful in the South they were pitted against individual slaves in the north they face hostile and protective a African-American and abolitionist communities abolition had begun among Quakers in the 1730s and in the 1800s other activists joined that movement this was especially true in Boston Boston is not a safe place for slave catchers to operate when slave catchers were in town there were posters that went up they advertised in the newspapers all kinds of notifications to free black there are slave catchers in town beware and almost instantly blacks and sometimes whites formed as groups to protect fugitives when a slave catcher is spotted he is quickly followed and harassed by African-Americans and white abolitionists announcements ring out from the pulpits of black churches but in the early 1850s not all bostonians are opposed to slavery an issue that is increasingly dividing communities south and north in Boston some prominent citizens even host Jefferson Davis the future president of the Confederacy on a speaking tour of the city many are profiting from the south slave labor no North no South they packed the famed Fel Hall to overflowing and repeatedly applaud Davis as he declares that agitation to African slavery as he refers to it is destructive to the union that the common Bond must be maintained what is there to sustain this agitation in relation to other people's Negroes however the ties that slaveholders have to wealthy Northerners are not their only source of influence outside the South the power of slave owners from the period of the American Revolution of the Civil War was enormous slaveholders control most of the major committees in both houses of Congress slaveholders control the Supreme Court slave holders have a vice likee grip on the American economy using that power they are able to protect their human property the engineer passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 its impact is far-reaching and terrifying for the first time any African-American simply accused of being a fugitive slave can be pursued and captured Now by federal officials and federal Commissioners are paid $10 for sending an African-American back into slavery but only five if they judge them to be free and because of the fact that the law required you to participate in the capture and return of fugitives every person in the country even in the Abolitionist strongholds of the north were legally bound to be slave catchers but the law has another effect many in the black and ab abolitionist communities move closer to Armed self-defense including Frederick Douglas the noted abolitionist and fugitive slave who proclaimed the only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make a few dead slave catches South Carolinians are confronted by the militant resistance to this law when they tried to capture William and Ellen craft William and Ellen craft had escaped from slavery and traveled nearly a thousand miles from Mak Georgia to Boston the light-skinned Ellen passed as white with her husband William as her slave when their owners found out they were in Boston they sent two slave catchers John Knight and Willis Hughes to bring them back Knight and Hughes are determined declaring if we have to stay here to all eternity and if there are not enough men in Massachusetts to take them we will bring some up from the south Hughes and Knight tracked the crafts to the home of Lewis Hayden Hayden and his wife both escaped slaves were known to hide more than a dozen fugitives at a time Hayden was also known to use any means to protect them and he has barricaded his house he places on either side of his front door caves of explosives and he stands there with lighted torch and he says you enter this home at your peril he threatens to explode the house to kill everybody in the house including the slave catchers if the slave catchers attempt to enter backup soon arrives the vigilance committee a group of mainly black bostonians rushes to the Hayden's house the committee's activities were secret but the group had successfully rescued other fugitive slaves together they discourage the activities of the Fugitive Slave catchers and drive them out of the city William and Ellen craft are Spirited Away eventually sailing to England and to Freedom despite victories like the crafts the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act has a devastating effect on the black community 15,000 black people flee the United States in Boston the 12th Street Baptist Church one of the city's largest African-American churches loses fully onethird of its congregation though the ranks of the resistors have been drained their Spirit remains this is the Boston of 1854 when Anthony Burns an escape slave from Virginia is tracked to the City by his owner charles subtle subtle gets a Warr for Burn's arrest under under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act he hires the infamous ASA butman a former Boston constable and now a federal Marshal he checks with his sources and confronts Burns Federal warrant in hand burns resists arrest and a group of white men in a Tavern rush outside to help subdue him thus begins an incident so well publicized that Boston is forced to see not just a nameless fugitive slave but Anthony Burns the man angering even slavery supporters at least for the moment within hours Lewis Hayden and his colleagues from the vigilance committee here of Burn's arrest earlier they had failed to rescue another captured runaway now they vowed to make their stand with Anthony Burns they Tred to free Burns by attacking the courthouse but failed 9 days after Burn's arrest a federal court judge enforces the Fugitive Slave Law orders Burns return to slavery and collects his $10 anti-slavery activists believe this expanding Federal support of the immoral institution of slavery Must Be Stopped as word spreads about the ruling protest ERS begin to gather and Boston braces for a showdown on the day that he is to be delivered to the ship that is going to take him back to Virginia hundreds of people line the street the merchants on the street have draped their windows in Black they have hung a coffin across the Main Street which says Liberty President Franklin Pierce responds by sending in federal troops ironically from Fort Independence the Massachusetts Infantry and the volunteer militia line the route with orders to shoot if the crowd interferes Burns is Led from the courthouse guarded by an artillery Battalion four platoon of Marines and a lighthorse squadron people have walked in from not only the immediate vicinity of Boston but even from Western Massachusetts to watch the the shame of their city as they called it the shame of their city in the return of Anthony Burns a hostile crowd screams in protest at this Federal show of force nevertheless Burns has marched to the ship that will take him back to Virginia the federal government has spent $100,000 to return Anthony Burns to slavery this slave catching incident may be the most costly in American history however he would be the last runaway returned from Boston for burns had made real the human costs of the Fugitive Slave Law still the country was divided over slavery even in the north it would take a civil war to get the United States out of the slave catching business it is April 12th 1861 Confederate soldiers fired on Fort Sumpter the Civil War has begun there are now over 4 million slaves onethird of the South's population and slavery is the nation's most valuable commodity surpassing the assets of all of America's railroads Banks and factories combined while whites mobilized for war slaves sense opportunity on a night in May 1861 only 3 weeks after Fort Sumpter three slaves paddle silently through Chesapeake Bay sent by their owner to Aid the Confederate Army the men instead steer their boat towards Fort Monroe Virginia where the Union Army is quartered they try to convince the commanding officer General Ben Butler to Harbor them thank you the next day Confederate Major John kry arrives to pick up the fugitive slaves assuming the Union Commander will abide by the slavery laws Butler known as a shrewd criminal lawyer has no intention of playing the slave catcher as far as he is concerned since Virginia has seceded from the Union it is now a foreign country and the escaped slaves are Contraband of War he refuses to hand them over and instead gives them Refuge overnight news of General Butler's action races through the slave underground Network 3 Days Later 59 more runaways of all ages arrive at the forth the following day even more arrive as Contraband it's time to come up out of Egypt all that year Union forces attack and blockade Southern towns up and down the Atlantic coast whenever the union troops appear slaves meet them and turn themselves in just as their ancestors had done with the British during the Revolutionary War as Union troops came into an area the idea of freedom was so intoxicating that hundreds and then thousands of slaves ran away to Union line and these were in a sense not runaways they were African-Americans freeing themselves in Charleston South Carolina an enslaved African-American Robert Smalls even steals a Confederate Steamboat and with his family rushes to Union ships blockading the harbor in Hamstead Virginia a slave owner returns from patroling only to find that five of his own slaves have fled and he's not the only one slaves have also fled from four other slave owners in the area and the war is only a year old panic at the loss of property the Confederate States step up their slave patrols those men who don't volunteer for the Army are required to join the patrols on extra beats but as the war drags into its second year its demands are beginning to be felt back home during the Civil War Manpower is constantly being drained out of Southern communities whether white men choose to enlist voluntarily or are taken out through the conscription act of 1862 the needs of of the army always run counter to the needs of Patrol groups in local communities white men are being taken away to serve in the Army it means there are fewer white men at home to serve in Patrol groups to fill the void ministers teenagers and professors are pressed into Patrol Duty the 20 negro law is enacted requiring slaveholders with more than 20 slaves to stay home to guard them it helps but at the cost of angering drafted whites too poor to own slaves slave owner Theodore Gordan complains that only one man his overseer is available to keep watch over 470 slaves in North Carolina an exasperated Colonel Keat pulls three Confederate infantry and two Confederate Cavalry companies to stop runaways it doesn't do much good some slaveholders Resort to hiring professional slave catchers to serve as patrollers but as the confederacy's currency becomes worthless any pay becomes meaningless not only the value of currency but also two centuries of Illusions are being destroyed on the Oakley Plantation in upperville Virginia the Mistress of the plantation wrote to her husband that she was hurt and deceived that Uncle Billy a trusted elderly slave had gone off to the Yankees you find letters accounts by former slaveholders who are apparently shocked that their former slaves leave the plantation and they say this my people are deserting me my servants are walking away from the plantation I mean it is as if these people are detached from reality in 18 63 Abraham Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation slaveholders are certain that Lincoln is inciting the bloodbath they have feared for Generations one mistress left alone on her North Carolina Plantation laments my God the women and children it will be murder and ruin there are many of the black people and they only want a chance the Revolt never happens the former slaves want freedom more than revenge as Union forces Advance slaves capitalize on the chaos of war and lack of patrols and emancipate themselves as the Union Army moves into the southern states slaves will certainly be aware of whether where that Army is going and will reach for that opportunity to escape slaves hear the Roar of cannons filling the air and take that as a sign to run many even join the Union Army when Union forces take control of the western Confederate states and estimated 100 black men and women escape from Missouri into Kansas every day General Sherman marches across Georgia to the Sea and thousands of slaves follow in his wake as many as 15,000 slaves flee during the first 9 months of the Union occupation of Georgia in town after town whites plead with Community leaders to appoint more patrols as the war comes to a close defeated Confederate soldiers begin to return home but their society has already broken down the system that the South had carefully built up over generations to control its slaves has [Applause] crumbled but that system would soon be reborn in an even more violent form the Civil War has ended the South and its economy lay in Ruins and with emancipation the system used for centuries to control slaves is also in Ruins they worked to create a system that that they could pass on to their children they were ruthless in the way they imposed this system and it takes the exploding powder keg of the Civil War to finally blow it apart slave patrols are shut down by occupying Union armies those that aren't are soon outlawed by state and federal laws slave catchers are put out of business by the emancipation of slaves some drift into lives of odd jobs others into Petty crimes the structure that 10 generations of slaveholders had built is finally coming apart African-Americans eager to make themselves self-sufficient occupy plantations and build new communities with as many as 800 people they open their own businesses construct churches and hoping to give their children the education forbidden to them for centuries they build new schools Independence at last seems attainable but not for long when black people set up their own communities when they become independent Farmers when they do the things that independent people do they are not only irritating those people who don't want to see blacks do well that's the right the system itself in South Carolina African-Americans hired for railroad construction gangs are Whi to force them to return to the plantations but the growing independence of African-Americans isn't the only thing threatening the white Community after the Civil War ends white slave owners and former non-slave owners alike watch in horror as freed slaves acquire weapons in ever increasing numbers slaves obviously turn to acquiring weapons because for them it's not just a measure of personal freedom it's a way to express that they now too are citizens and have the ability to protect themselves in Memphis Tennessee thousands of freed African-Americans stream in from the countryside after the war Memphis is also a Depot for black Union Soldiers some are officers they armed and they offer protection to the African-American Community tension smolder in me off until on May 1st 1866 a fight breaks out between white policemen and black soldiers it flares into a full-blown Riot over the course of 3 days whites roam the streets killing 46 African-Americans and targeting black churches and schools the Memphis daily paper celebrates a restoration of the old order of things and adds thank heaven the white race are once more the rulers in Memphis so just as their ancestors had done nearly 200 years before many in the white population begin to experiment with a new system of racial control returning Confederate soldiers form vigilante groups to Rob and intimidate freed men some wealthier whites start Agricultural and police clubs as part of they say a systematic plan with respect to the regulation of our colored population hundreds of rifle clubs are also formed in Charleston South Carolina members boast that they can mobilize several thousand white men to attack freed men at a moment's notice but no group excels at intimidation like the one based on the old slave patrols that calls itself the cou Klux Clan the clan is an extension of slave Patrols in most direct obvious ways it's white men on Horseback who go out typically at night to terrorize African-Americans it is racial oppression continued from one generation to the next they've changed the names from patrols to Clan they've put on sheets but the activities and the purpose remains pretty much the same like the patrols the clan rides in small groups of men like the patrols the clan sets arbitrary curfews for African-Americans and forces them to carry passes to bind them and their labor to the plantations and like the patrols the KKK uses violence to enforce its rule the implementation of racial control is still the primary objective so that the C Clan often manned by the same people in terms of place in the society becomes as useful to the landh holder as the slave patrols and the militias and the slave catchers had been to the slave holders before the Civil War the clan also forces Freedman back onto the plantations and like the old patrols all social class is ride in the KKK as a reporter for North Carolina's RF for Star observes the plan is not a gang of poor trash but men of property respectable citizens but unlike the slave patrols the clan rides outside the law and now their tactics can be even more brutal as the noted African-American educator Booker T Washington observed the qlux clan was more cruel than the patrollers their object was to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes but they did not confine themselves to this because school houses as well as churches were burned by them and many innocent persons were made to suffer once slavery no longer exists as an institution members of the clan are free to exercise their most violent fantasies against African-Americans and carry it to The Logical extreme which is in some cases murder terror is key as it has always been slavery has died but a new generation is once again putting together the pieces of repression that will control the South's black population just as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had done it had started with the brutality of the militia and slave patrols and grown into a structure of slave catchers for hire then been interrupted by the Civil War but now that system of racial dominance has been reborn in a new Crucible of violence history has come full circle for those who terrorize and for those who continue to resist [Music] [Music]