[enslaved] Tactics of Surveillance and Resistance in Virginia
VENTURE INTO THE BUSH:
A literal, theoretical, and conceptual space where freedom is fought for and realized.
Life as an enslaved person in Virginia was marked by various forms of surveillance and control as many aspects of their day-to-day movement were determined by outside forces. In 1680, the Virginia General Assembly passed “An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections,” which forbade enslaved people to possess weapons, travel without their owner’s permission, or gather for feasts and burials. While enslavers and overseers surveilled enslaved people’s movements in the daytime, a unit of armed men known as slave patrollers stalked and constrained their movement at night.
Patrollers eventually became responsible for violently enforcing the regulations and restrictions outlined in the State’s Slave Codes, which authorized the murder of any enslaved person who resisted patrollers and corporeal punishment for those who possessed forbidden items or were caught traveling without a written pass. Forbidden items ranged from weapons to stolen goods and also included any sign of literacy such as books, papers, and pens (Victor B. Stolberg). While South Carolina was the first North American state to authorize slave patrollers in 1704, slave patrol occurred as early as the 1530s in Cuba where armed Spanish bands known as hermandades hunted runaways (Jill Lepore). Virginia authorized its first slave patrol in 1726, and patrol enforcement thus became yet another barrier to freedom for enslaved peoples in the state.
Nevertheless, enslaved people’s testimonies in Weevils in the Wheat, an anthology of interviews from formerly enslaved peoples, indicate that they were adept at resisting slave patrollers’ attempts to regulate their lives.
At night, patrollers’ primary function was to prevent enslaved people from unauthorized gatherings and travel, but as West Turner (b. circa 1842-?) of Nansemond County, Virginia proudly tells interviewers: “There was ways of beating the [patrollers]” (290). Tactics ranged from preventative to defensive. One preventative tactic was assigning a lookout person while the meeting was in session. West recalls being a lookout boy during one of the secret meetings enslaved people held to pray and worship on their own terms. Assigning a lookout person was similar to what Beverly Jones (b. 1848-?) of Gloucester, Virginia called a “raid fox” (181) as both positions required someone to distract patrollers and prevent the meeting from being discovered.
Both West and Beverly described how the lookout or raid fox’s job was to meet patrollers on the path as they neared the meeting in order to initiate a diversion. The person would get the patrollers’ attention, deceive them into a chase, and lead them into a premeditated trap—which, as both West and Beverly indicated, usually involved laying grapevines along the path so that the patrollers’ horses would be tripped. This defensive measure provided the people meeting illegally an opportunity to run back to their quarters or hide out in the bushes. West and others in his community apparently found great humor in this as West recalled how people laid in the bushes “[and held their] sides a-laughing” at the sight of patrollers stumbling into their trap (290).
Beverly’s narrative, however, suggested that the grapevine tactic was a last resort measure as the raid fox’s first effort involved leading patrollers in the wrong direction. Beverly told interviewers that his Uncle Jackson was usually assigned as the raid fox because he was favored by the plantation’s owner and, as such, was never lashed. Though Uncle Jackson was the first diversion, he wasn’t the only lookout. Beverly reported that people would be stationed in relays from the trail to the site where the meeting was occurring, and Jackson was “always the one farthest out” (182). If Uncle Jackson noticed patrollers, he “would whistle like a bob-cat to warn the others” (182-3). Beverly stated that grapevines were usually set if there was a particularly important meeting. This grapevine defense tactic was undoubtedly a dangerous ploy for enslaved people as it injured patrollers and their horses. Minnie Folks (b. 1860-?) of Petersburg, Virginia recalled stories her mother told her about the patrollers and/or their horses breaking their legs and mentioned one instance of a man who was dragged to death by his horse after his neck became tangled in the vines (93). Hence, as Beverly stated, if a patroller had been baited into the grapevine trap, everybody “would rush home [and get in bed] ‘cause a powerful whippin’ was comin’ to [anyone] caught out after that” (183).
Similar to the pervasive mention of using grapevines to trip patrollers, interviewees in Weevils in the Wheat also commonly mentioned the strategy of placing pots in the doorway of a meeting site to prevent their voices from being heard by outsiders. Editors of the book argue that this practice was “clearly related to West African religious practices” (93), which might therefore explain why it was mentioned in various narratives by people from different counties and plantations. Sister Robinson (b. 1836) of Hampton, VA. recalled that laborers on her plantation were not allowed to attend Sunday School regularly but would occasionally hold secret meetings at their own houses. Sister recalled how the men and women would slip into the meeting one by one, and once all were in attendance, someone would “turn a big pot down” at the doorsill to “catch the noise” (242). For Katie Blackwell Johnson (b. circa 1860) of Washington County, VA, seeing adults place the pots became her sign that there would be a meeting: “I always knew when they was goin’ to have meetin’ cause I would see the [sic] ‘turn down the pots’ to keep the folks at the big-house from hearin’ them” (161). So pervasive was this technique that even those who did not necessarily have cause for it mentioned it in their narratives. Garland Monroe (b. 1848) recollected stories from his father and brother about meetings held in the mountains of Monticello where patrollers usually did not traverse. Due to the meeting’s location, Garland explained that no one “bothered to build a hut an’ put pots all roun’ like dey did in some places” (214). Despite not seeing cause to conceal their sound, people of Garland’s community did have other defensive measures which involved retreating to secluded paths down the mountainside that patrollers “didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout” (214). On one occasion, Garland’s brother Henry led patrollers on a chase toward Hardware Creek at the foot of the mountain, which had a log laid across the creek so that people could get across. Henry made it across the creek, “stuck a slice-bar under one end of [the] log” and hid behind bushes while patrollers pursued him. As they attempted to cross the creek on the log, Garland reported that Henry “pried up [the log and threw them] all in [the] water” (215).
These narratives reveal that enslaved people indeed had their own knowledge and strategies for resisting the restrictions imposed on their lives. They drew from inherited knowledges with their use of pots to conceal sound and also adapted to create new forms of resistance through their method of initiating a chase in order to divert patrollers, setting grapevine traps, or meeting in places where they knew the landscape better than patrollers. These stories remind us that neither patrollers nor the legislations that authorized them had the power to fully delimit the autonomies of the people they enslaved. Enslaved people willfully held gatherings against the wishes of patrollers, lawmakers, and enslavers. Many scholars cite the end of the Civil War as the end of slave patrollers, but as Victor B. Stolberg asserts, “the sentiments that led to the formation and maintenance of slave patrols led to the emergence of groups like the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction as well as to the evolution of modern policing” (5).
These biographies were written and researched by Jada Similton for her 2022-23 appointment as research assistant for Enslaved.org. Jada is a Solidarity Fellow and PhD student studying Black and Indigenous American Literature at Michigan State University. Reach her at Similto1@msu.edu.
ONLINE RESOURCES:
Encyclopedia Virginia.
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/an-act-for-preventing-negroes-insurrections-1680/
Jill Leopore.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
https://nleomf.org/slave-patrols-an-early-form-of-american-policing/
Victor B. Stolberg.
https://edge.sagepub.com/system/files/Ch4RennisonSlavePatrols.pdf
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hadden, Sally E. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Harvard University Press, 2003.
Perdue, Charles L., Robert K. Phillips, and Thomas E. Barden eds. Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves. University of Virginia Press, 1992.
IMAGES:
Frederic B. Schell. Depiction of Slave Patrol. 1863. Accessed: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slave_Patrol.jpg
