Virginia Mandates Slave Patrols in Every County Militia

In 1727, the Virginia colonial legislature enacted a law requiring every county militia to organize and maintain slave patrols, imposing stiff fines on white men who refused to serve. The patrols were authorized to stop and question any enslaved person found off their enslaver's property without a written pass, to enter enslaved people's quarters at will to search for weapons or signs of conspiracy, to break up gatherings, and to administer corporal punishment on the spot. The law formalized what had been informal enforcement of the 1705 Slave Codes. Virginia's patrol system, following South Carolina's 1704 model, created a colony-wide apparatus of surveillance and summary punishment that made daily life for enslaved people in Virginia subject to random violent inspection.