Chapter 3 Summary

In chapter three there is a lot of information about slavery and violence in the South. Slaves and violence were definitely two important things to citizens living in the South. Something created for these citizens was slave patrol. This concept pleased the South a lot. Slave patrol was influenced very much. The amount of violence in the South was another key idea that was talked about a lot in chapter three. The South lived for violence. The different types of violence that occurred are very horrifying. What they allowed to happen in the South is terrible. This was definitely a very dangerous part of the country looking back in history. In the text it states “Included in the list of laws enforced by developing Southern police departments was a substantial number of criminal violations directly supporting slavery, enumerated in slave codes adopted by colonial, and later state, legislature”(Wadman and Allison, pg. 31). Slavery was well supported and influenced in the South. They even created a concept called slave patrols where law enforcement would make sure that codes were enforced and so that the southern economic mechanism of slavery was preserved. Citizens in the south feared that slavery would end because they would have too much power if they all began to run away and get away with it. The South also called their slaves their “property” which is disturbing. Slaves were not even seen as humans. They were seen more as an object to the Southern citizens. The punishments for the slaves were very brutal also. The South was known to be very violent. The South was actually believed to be if not the most, one of the most violent regions in the United States. This was not just the white against the African Americans, it was also white against white and African American against African American. Violence was part of the Southern culture.