Grits publishes "Tulia" zine for 25th anniversary: Preorder now!

Until Jeff Frazier and the good folks at Mano Amiga in San Marcos reached out about their event Monday night, I had not realized it was the 25th anniversary of the Tulia drug busts, which occurred in July of 1999. Long-time readers may recall that 46 people, mostly black, were hauled out of their homes, many in their underwear, during 6 a.m. raids the local drug task force held with a local TV news crew in tow; 39 were eventually convicted. My wife and I were deeply involved in the political response, led by ACLU of Texas.

After Jeff reached out, I asked myself, "Do I have anything to say about that episode? So I sat down, began writing, and it turned out the answer was, "Yes." I plan to publish the results of this recollection in a standalone zine called "Tulia+25,"  in a few weeks. I wanted to give Grits readers an opportunity to preorder this limited-run zine, which you can do here. 

I have no plans right now for a followup, so if you're interested, buy a zine! (Even better, buy a bunch: They make great stocking stuffers for all the justice advocates on your list.)

The Tulia busts and the political campaign in response both predated this blog, which launched in 2004. When they happened,  I was publishing what amounted to a proto-blog (sans comments) on a website I hand-coded in html called the "Texas Police Reform Center," launched in 1997 as the "Austin Police Department Hall of Shame."

Even so, long-time readers may recall that Grits was part of a 7-year political campaign organized in response to the Tulia drug busts that resulted in passage of several major pieces of legislation and, eventually, the abolition of all 51 of Texas' drug task forces, which collectively employed more than 700 undercover narcotics officers.

Arguably, it was the most successful "defund the police" campaign in American history, though that term hadn't been coined at the time. And the coup de grace was performed by a GOP governor with bipartisan support.

Nate Blakeslee wrote the definitive book documenting the legal cases. Rev. Alan Bean wrote a book telling the stories of the affected families. This zine fills in never-told history about how this all-too-common story of Drug-War overreach led to a radically uncommon outcome: Abolition of the state's drug-task force system and the rise of the state's 21st century criminal-justice reform movement. Order your copy today.

Near race war in 1868 Houston led to ban on carrying firearms for self-protection

I.C. Lord was the City Marshal in Houston following the Civil War who is credited with turning the Houston Police Department into a modern police agency, with uniforms, ranks, and patrol beats. I'd seen references to him being shot in 1868 in an episode of civil unrest by Houston freedmen, but until today hadn't ever seen the backstory. 

It turns out, if this contemporary press account is to be believed, Lord's injuries resulted from unusual episode involved a black lynch mob trying to break a black alleged murderer out of jail to hang him. This resulted in a tense standoff between armed black and white mobs that apparently, nearly led to a literal, violent race war in Houston. And it led the Mayor and Marshal Lord to enact a ban on carrying weapons in public, requiring that Houstonians "disarm themselves and place their entire reliance upon the execution of the laws by the officers thereof."

Today, this incident has been all but forgotten. This article was published in the Dallas Daily Herald, June 27, 1868 under the headline, "Disturbance in Houston." On Sunday, the 14th of June, 1868: 

A very serious disturbance took place in the city of Houston ... which it was at one time feared would result in much bloodshed and other riotous acts. 

A colored man, named Geo. Noble, and another colored man, named Bob Henrick, were at a colored dance, or ball, on Saturday night, in the suburbs of the city, near the "Old Grave Yard," at a place kept by a colored man named Bias. An altercation ensued between Bob Henrick and another colored man, whose name we have not learned. George Noble interfered and endeavored to stop the difficulty in an amicable manner. Bob Henrick took offense at this, and resenting it, put his hand upon his pistol, drew it, and fired, missing his aim. George Noble drew his pistol at the moment he saw the action of the other, and also fired, hitting Henricks in the neck, the ball coming out at the back of the shoulder. Henrick, however, is not dangerously wounded.

From the statement of Marshall I.C. Lord and Deputy Marshall J.N. Lord, we glean the following particulars of the subsequent event. Geo. Nobles immediately after the above occurrence went to Deputy Marshall Lord and stated his difficulty and delivered himself up, and was placed in confinement at the Bell Tower on Market Square. About 4 o'clock the next (Sunday) morning a number of freedmen, armed with guns, came to the calaboose and said they wanted Nobles. Of course, he was not given up to them. The negroes insisted that he should be given up -- and they believed he was not in confinement but at liberty.

One freedman, Ned Lockhart, offered to lead his companion to the calaboose, take him out and hang him. Marshall Lord went up to Lockhart and attempted to arrest him, but he broke away, but Lord succeeded in getting to him and struck him with his cane when a general melee resulted in which Marshall Lord was bruised and shot in the back of the head, and Lockhart was shot in the thigh, another freedman, who had shot at Marshall Lord, was pursued and after being disabled by a shot was also arrested and sent to the lock up. Immediately after these occurrences the colored people began to pour into the Market Square from all parts of the city, a large number of them being armed. Vengeance on the prisoner Nobles, was the generally expressed object, and bitter hostility and threats toward the white people were generally manifested and uttered. The Telegraph adds:

At this time the city bell began to ring to call the citizens together and they came pouring in, a great many of them armed, and as the two races mingled together and expressed their feelings according by the temper of the occasion, a bloody collision seemed for a while unavoidable.

After a time, however, the negroes dispersed, and in a little while the news spread rapidly that over five hundred of them were assembled at the colored Methodist Church, and that they openly proposed to march down Main street, seize all the arms they could, arm the black population generally, attack the whites, and  that the unarmed ones among them would assist by firing the city. This turned out to have been very nearly correct. But better counsels at length prevailed. Several of our prominent white citizens, who were either sent for or were of their own motion, together with the Mayor, made addresses to them, and they decided to abide by the decisions of the courts in all matters involved. At the same time, however, colored couriers were seen going in all directions, mounted and on foot, to summon their brethren from near and far.

While all this had been going on, the citizens had been rapidly organizing and arming both in independent companies and as a special police force. This work continued the whole day, and until after dark. The whole city was full of armed men and men arming. In addition to the large police force organized, the various fire companies were armed and ready to turn out at a moment's warning, besides the temporary organizations of citizens, each company being under the command of officers selected for the occasion. Signals were agreed upon to which every man was to respond instantly. Scouts and couriers were sent out, and the armed citizens not in the companies were generally agreed to turn out should a general fight ensue at any one place.

Thus was the evening and the night passed, until the next morning dawned on the city. The patrol went through every part of the city during the night, and strange to say hardly any colored men could be found. The women and children were all alone. The men had evacuated the city entirely. The most of them, however, returned in the morning.

The following was the arrangement agreed upon under the auspices of the Mayor:

"In the matter of the killing of a colored man by George Noble (colored) by which a serious public riot was imminent, His Honor, Mayor McGowan, appointed the following persons, to wit: C.S. Longcope, B. A. Shepherd, W.R. Baker, John Shearn, T.W. House, Elias Dibble, Charles Chatman, Sandy Parker, Dick Allen and John Sessums, a committee to concoct such measures as would tend to allay the excitement and prevent like occurrences in the future. And among other things, after appointing C.S. Longcope Chairman, and W.R. Baker Secretary, the committee unanimously adopted the following resolutions.

"Resolved, As the sense of this committee that while deploring the occurrences of this morning, that it is deemed proper that a thorough investigation should be had into the conduct of the persons who assumed the initiative in it, to ascertain if there was any partiality in the proceeding whereby the city was seriously endangered in its peace and in the preservation of property. If it be ascertained that there has been any wrongdoing on the part of any one, that steps be taken to appropriately punish any such party or parties.

"Also, Resolved, That the trouble in this community which was caused by the death of a fellow human being, and the wounding of several others, which threatened a general riot, grew out of the pernicious habit of carrying concealed weapons, and that the Mayor and Aldermen of this city be requested to pass an ordinance with sufficient penalties prohibiting the carrying on the person of all concealed weapons; and that the Council memorialize the State Convention to make a Constitutional provision of the sme import for the State at large."

                                                C.S. Loncope, Chairman

Subsequently to the above the Mayor of the city issued the following proclamation.

                                                Mayor's Office, Houston, June 16, 1868 

Notice is hereby given, that, in order to allay all feeling and excitement occasioned by the unfortunate occurrences of Sunday last:

It is hereby ordered that all citizens disarm themselves and place their entire reliance upon the execution of the laws by the officers thereof.

All parties who have been called upon to act, and were sworn as special police, are required to leave their arms at home and are relieved of active duty until called upon to prevent disturbances, regardless of the quarter from whence they arise.

I call upon all good citizens to assist in carrying out the laws, for upon the execution of them alone can we rest safely. 

And I earnestly request of all that they pursue their usual avocations, that all disquietude and feeling may be suppressed.

    A. McGowan,

    Mayor City of Houston

UPDATE: Another, contemporary story adds that the shooter was a black conservative sympathetic to the white establishment who had killed someone several months before and been acquitted. That article says that Marshal I.C. Lord had not taken the shooter to jail but was sheltering him elsewhere, and the mob demanded he either be jailed or hung. They dispersed when he was taken to the county lockup. He was convicted in 1869 and sentenced to two years in prison.

Reimagining History at the Austin Police Academy

For the past year, Austin has deployed a group of community folks and city staff to analyze the curriculum at the police academy and suggest reforms: It's not going well.

The community reviews material, makes recommendations, but little gets implemented. It seems at this point like the goal is to stall until interest dies down and no one notices that nothing ever got changed.

A case in point is a section on constitutional history that Grits wrote about last year. It turned out, the instructor largely based the curriculum on a book by a John Birch Society propagandist who authored a nutball history called "The 5,000 Year Leap" which was popularized after his death by right-wing broadcaster Glen Beck.

This text makes a variety of unusual claims, pretending the Founding Fathers intended to create a Bible-based government (no "separation of church and state" here) and that the Jamestown settlement represented the birth of free markets and private enterprise. Jamestown, of course, was a company town, the company was owned by a king, and the economy was built on slavery and indentured servitude. But the author, Cleon Skousen, was never one to let facts get in the way of a good, neo-fascist narrative.

My wife is on the review committee and she asked your correspondent to assess this section when it first came up in 2021. Grits quickly discovered that some of the weird, faux history came from the Skousen book, including various jingoistic graphics that I located via a Google Image search.

Grits purchased a copy of  "The 5,000 Year Leap" and it's a piece of work. Much of it was just strange, fundamentalist rambling and little of it is relevant to policing. Skousen concocted 28 "principles" he claimed the Founding Fathers adhered to, but they're his creation, and more a reflection of the views of the hard-right edge of modern religious conservatives than any consensus held by the founders.

The latest version of the Austin police academy training eliminated much of the most explicit, ideological aspects from the book but kept the focus on pre-Constitutional history Skousen promoted, leaving the new version an odd and decontextualized shell of its former self.

The city staffer assigned to lead the review, Anne Kringen, pulled this course from the committee's review list last year, saying they wanted to make changes and come back with a better version. But before the review could occur, the same instructor taught this similar but stripped down version to cadets. 

Cadets were once again taught obscure details about colonial history, starting with the birth of free markets in Jamestown and emphasizing selected aspects of the Articles of Confederation and the Connecticut Compromise, but not the aspects you might expect. The lesson plan and power point contained no mention of slavery, the 3/5ths Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act, gender-and-property-requirements for voting, or any discussion of the interests of southern slave owners which dominated that document's formulation. 

Just before the curriculum was taught this summer, they asked a UT law prof, Andrea Marsh, to assist. She was called in at the last minute and not in any way involved in developing the history section taught to cadets. Andrea taught the final part of the constitution section, which is quite straightforward, accurate, and easily the only useful or valid part of any training cadets received on this topic. 

Kringen did not inform Andrea why she was brought in, did not tell her about concerns with the John-Birch-Society-themed historiography, and never mentioned Cleon Skousen or "The 5,000 Year Leap." Andrea told my wife she found the history "weird" and didn't understand why it was being taught to cadets.

When Kringen was asked why this was still going on, her response bordered on gaslighting. She claimed Andrea had performed an "evaluation" of the APD instructor's teaching, which was patently false. Andrea sat in on the class the day he taught, but had no input into the content and did not perform any kind of "evaluation." Moreover, because she wasn't told about the concerns with sourcing or the Bircher orientation of the instruction material, she had no context to understand what she was hearing, though she certainly could tell it had little to do with policing.

Kringen told the group it was "unfair to disregard Andrea’s evaluation and my decision to get her perspective and share it with the committee by characterizing it as being an attempt to validate anything." But again, Andrea made no "evaluation." She just sat through a "weird" lecture that seemed irrelevant and inappropriate to teach to cadets.

Kringen tacitly acknowledged this, saying Andrea thought, "some of the time spent on history could be better utilized. Her suggestion to improve the class would be to reduce the time spent on pre-Constitutional history and focus more on the [state-licensing-agency-required] bullet points." Of course, getting rid of the "weird" history rooted in Bircher ideology and focusing on actual police training was what the committee asked for a year ago. But that was not done.

Kringen still insists the same instructor should continue to teach the class and, in practice, completely defers to instructors as to what changes should be made to the curriculum. At this point, it's fair to say nothing substantive can or will change as long as that's the process.

I don't know Kringen so Grits cannot say whether this is an example of overt bad faith on her part or if she is simply disempowered in the process and police-department brass won't let her fix what's wrong. But it doesn't really matter which it is, the results are the same.

If the curriculum review can't get this fixed, it's hard to imagine anything will change regarding police training in Austin.

Clearly, that's exactly how the Austin PD brass wants it.

Custodians of History: Old prosecutor files include marginalized voices usually excluded from public media and discourse

Conversations about crime data and police and prosecutor files most frequently pertain to the news of the moment: Did bail reform cause crime to increase? Was this or that police officer held accountable? Are black folks disproportionately stopped for traffic offenses?

But lately your correspondent has undertaken a research project reminding me that these records have much greater value than just informing policy debates of the moment. In many cases, they're the only records available involving important historical people and events. District Attorney and police agencies are among the earliest, continuously operating government departments, and case files are a rich source of detailed, local information.

This is especially important when mainstream information sources about marginalized people are scarce. For example, in New York City, prosecutor records were used to document the early 20th century exploits of an undercover policewoman investigating abortion doctors. Wrote one of the authors of that investigation:

These files record the lives of marginalized populations, often silenced in the historical record. Poor New Yorkers, women, immigrants, queer residents, and people of color, whose lives might have evaded contemporary published material but whose voices appear -- albeit refracted through the justice system -- in these archives.

We're finding that's true in the historical stories I'm researching centered in East Austin. Researching black history in Texas from the 1920s and '30s is a tremendous slog: only a few editions of the main black newspapers remain, and the white press largely ignored black news, sports, and culture. But many of these same people interacted all too frequently with the justice system. To the extent their voices can still be discovered at all, often it's only "refracted" through that ignominious but invaluable lens.

After 75 years, Texas state law eliminates most confidentiality restrictions and discretionary authority to withhold release on criminal records, making them technically public. But most DA's offices don't treat them that way. Here in Travis County, my wife and I recently filed an open records request for files from the early 1940s. The Travis County DAO initially replied that they intended to deny disclosure under all the "discretionary" exceptions they could identify. 

We appealed the matter, pointing out that the Public Information Act doesn't afford them any of those discretionary exceptions. The DA agreed, and supposedly we'll get those records soon. But what's really needed is for prosecutors to develop written policies about record retention and release, then to migrate files to local archivists better trained to handle and preserve them. 

What kind of records are we talking about? Certainly, it differs case by case. But we have lots of examples because, in 2009, then-Travis-County-District-Attorney Ronnie Earle transferred 35 boxes of records, mostly from the 1940s and 1970s, to the Travis County Archivist, which also retains old records for the constables offices, the probation department, and other county law enforcement agencies.

The transfer of these 35 boxes appears to have been a one off. The archivist said there was something in the database about concerns that the files were deteriorating wherever the DAO stored them before. Regardless, they're now all sitting on a shelf at the archivist's office on Airport Blvd.

Kathy and I went to review several of these boxes to see if they contained files related to the now-long-deceased people I was researching. They did not. But Kathy noticed these documents in an unrelated case in which prosecutors adamantly struck black jurors in red pen:

Here's another example:

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure these aren't Batson-approved jury-selection practices. After I posted these photos on Twitter, I got an email from the Travis County DA's first assistant saying she'd referred it to their Conviction Integrity Unit! Bully for them.

This naturally spurred my curiosity. This was a case I was neither looking for nor familiar with, but I'd snapped a photo of the caption and cause number:

It turned out to involve a man named Arthur Raven and a codefendant, Audrey McDonald, and would have been an extremely high-profile case. (Long-time readers will recognize a pattern: the higher-profile the case, the more likely somebody cuts corners to secure a conviction, as with this jury-selection process.)

Raven, a white man, was the first football coach at Reagan High School when it opened in 1965 and from the beginning was highly successful, winning three 4A state championships in 1967, '68, and '70. Reagan was a predominantly black high school, built to replace the old L.C. Anderson HS, which closed in 1971. After his third state title, Austin ISD elevated Raven to become athletic director district-wide.

His son, Arthur Jr., was a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper. In 1972, he  attempted to capitalize on name recognition from his father's success to run for Sheriff against 20-year incumbent T.O. Lang. Lang was a "Shivercrat," a conservative Democrat who'd spent World War II as Austin PD's liaison with the FBI hunting subversives. After the war in the late '40s, he was an APD homicide detective before running for office.

To this day, no one ever held that position longer and, after two decades, lots of people thought it was someone else's turn.

Also running against Lang in 1972 was Raymond Frank, a leftie reformer attempting to capitalize on the same momentum that ousted a wave of right-wing Texas Democrats at the Legislature following the Sharpstown banking scandal. Insiders blamed Raven, Jr., when he split the traditional law-enforcement vote, allowing Frank to push Lang into a runoff. Lang lost. And his allies were furious.

Once in office, District Attorney Robert O. Smith almost immediately turned his sights on Frank. A grand jury under his direction issued a report critical of the new Sheriff. Frank turned around and accused Smith of corruption and manipulating the grand jury.

Arthur Raven, Sr., was accused of coercing prostitution while all this was going on, but convicted of a lesser, misdemeanor charge while the jury acquitted his codefendant. We didn't read the whole prosecutor's file, just this portion concerning jury selection. But news accounts say Raven took the stand in his own defense, testifying most of the day as the defense's only witness. Your correspondent hasn't done enough research to form an independent opinion, but Raven certainly thought he was being railroaded.

Was Smith retaliating against the old ball coach because his son's campaign helped the DA's nemesis get into power? Grits has no first-hand knowledge. But I bet I'm not the first person to imagine so.

To be clear: I haven't read the file and just snapped a few photos and read a few news clips. I don't know who was in the right in these controversies, whether Arthur Raven, Sr., was guilty, or if his prosecution was politically motivated. But this glimpse into the historical record shows how important these old files can be to interpreting past events. Knowing prosecutors went to unethical lengths to exclude black people from Raven's jury is an important part of that story that would remain hidden if one relied only on news accounts.

In 2009, Ronnie Earle (God rest his soul) thought it was fine to make records from the 1970s public at the Travis County Archivist. That policy should be formalized. It's a waste of scarce resources at the District Attorney's office for lawyers to review every request. Better to pass that task along to library-science professionals employed precisely to perform these tasks.

I'm looking forward to receiving the records we requested, which I have no doubt will answer a long list of nagging questions surrounding the historical research Grits has been working on.

Once we get them, the next step is for the DA's office -- eventually, for every DA's office -- to develop written policies for retention and release of historical records. We hear a lot about police and prosecutors as custodians of public safety. They should also be recognized as custodians of history, and behave as such.

Crime, Bail, and the Media: A century-old recipe for error and injustice

Grits readers have seen me complain about sensationalist, de-contextualized media coverage of crime and punishment nearly since this humble blog's inception. Turns out, if your correspondent had been transported in a time machine to the early 1920s, the problem would be even worse and Grits may well have gone clean out of my mind.

Recently, I ran across what appears to be the earliest quantitative analysis of media crime coverage in America in a massive, 700+-page document titled, "Criminal Justice in Cleveland: Reports of the Cleveland Foundation Survey of the Administration of Justice in Cleveland Ohio." On p. 544 of this behemoth, we find this remarkable assessment of a media driven crime panic over the course of one month in Cleveland and the predictable, and current-day-relevant policy results from this brand of journalistic malpractice.

The Cleveland Foundation summarized its criticisms of local media coverage thusly: 

Further:

The same sort of misguided attacks were made on parole decisions, focusing on high-profile recidivists while ignoring more numerous, less-attention-grabbing success stories.

The Cleveland Foundation wrote this near the height of a massive, media-driven crime-wave panic. Google has a search function to see how often a word or phrase was used in books they've scanned that were published that year. Here's the graph for the phrase "crime wave."

I've read more than a few historians and critics over the years trace the American media's crime obsession to the cases of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger in the 1930s, when such outlaws became well-known anti-heroes in the eyes of huge swaths of the public. But this graph and the Cleveland survey tell us that compulsion was in full flower - and perhaps even more intense - more than a decade earlier.

Perhaps most telling was their depiction of an episode in 1919 Cleveland which could have been taken straight from 2019 Houston: 

During January and February, 1919, there occurred what was known as the 'bail bond expose.' ... It became known that a number of persons suspected or actually arrested and charged with crimes had been previously under arrest and released on bail. Special newspaper attention was given to the fact that bail was fixed by judges on the recommendation of the prosecutor, and in view of this power of fixing bail by recommendation the prosecutor was urged to demand higher bail.

The over-the-top language was totally out of proportion with all data and designed to mislead and rile up the public. For example: "The toll of pillage and murder increases. Gangsters scoff at law and courts. And peaceful citizens shudder."

This is reminiscent of a litany of overhyped commentary in Houston - most of it in TV news stories quoting Andy Kahan at CrimeStoppers or Houston police Chief Art Acevedo - criticizing judges for lenient bail practices. So this is at least a century-old trope: You could use the same time machine to transport those two back to the 1920s (indeed, I wish you would) and their quotes would blend right in with the rest of the media landscape. In fact, the results of their advocacy in Houston have been similar to the unintended (but predictable) consequences in Cleveland: Jails full of low-level offenders who needn't be there. From the report:

Many of those locked up were liquor law violators who couldn't pay fines; some who couldn't pay were sent to "the workhouse." Even so, the Cleveland Foundation lamented that "the work of individual judges receives special but wholly erroneous interest" in the press, and that demagoguery against judges became so intense that one judge received personal death threats. Even more concerning to judges, however, were the day-to-day practical problems it created:

Houston judges are in the same boat. The jail is currently overcrowded as a result of some combination of regressive media influence, COVID-driven court backlogs, and the governor's executive order limiting bail. The COVID delays are exogenous to this question, but media pressure on judges and the governor's executive order are directly analogous to the judges' and prosecutors' actions in response to media coverage in Cleveland. Here's the lede to a recent Houston Chronicle story about overcrowding at the Harris County Jail:

Preston Chaney died of COVID-19 after more than three months at the Harris County Jail on allegations he stole lawn equipment and frozen meat. Two days later, Chaney’s court-appointed lawyer, who’d logged just two hours on his case, billed for additional work.

Chaney had a hold and was rejected for personal bail under Gov. Greg Abbott’s pandemic order banning the release of anyone with violent charges or prior arrests. Had the 64-year-old been able to scrape together $100, he could have waited for trial away from the packed downtown lockup.

This was an avoidable death. Tuff on crime demagoguery has consequences. Local media, particularly in TV news, deserve a share of the blame for it.

Slave patrols as apartheid enforcers in addition to chasing runaways

When your correspondent began researching the history of Texas slave patrols, I considered them mainly a way the government collaborated with slave owners to control black people and punish them for violating rules. But it turns out, slave patrols were as much about enforcing apartheid as protecting property rights, and they were empowered to arrest white folks for various co-mingling considered inappropriate.

Grits' slave-patrol research homed in on Guadalupe County, in large part because records there have been preserved. I'm not the only one to take advantage of that serendipity. In Mark Gretchen's remarkable 2009 genealogical volume, "Slave Transactions of Guadalupe County, Texas," he included a comprehensive list of slavery-related criminal charges from Guadalupe County criminal court records. Almost all (20 out of 28) involved white defendants, not black ones.

To an extent, this should come as no surprise. Slave patrols were empowered to punish black people without judicial oversight. State law authorized them to give slaves up to 25 lashes for violations, and in some places like San Antonio or Indianola, the law authorized slave patrollers to give up to 39 lashes. Indeed, noted Gretchen, "by 1860, the only two sentences provided for convicted slaves in the Texas penal code were death and whipping." White folks, however, had to be taken before a judge.

Most of the slavery-related indictments against white folks in Guadalupe County were eventually dismissed or resulted in an acquittal. Even so, then, as today, you might beat the rap but you couldn't beat the ride. Those folks were still arrested by the patrol and conveyed to authorities, even if formal punishment seldom followed.

For example, Joel E. White was indicted in 1850 for purchasing a horse for $20 from a slave named Lawrence without receiving permission from his owner, Manuel Flores, who fought in the Battle of San Jacinto and was a brother-in-law of the town's namesake, Juan Seguin. The case was dismissed. 

Ernst Schram was indicted for purchasing a cowhide from a slave without written consent of his owner, Samuel Millet, one of the larger slave owners in town who would later perish in the Civil War. 

Otto Wupperman was indicted for purchasing a bushel of potatoes for a dollar from a "copper colored" negro named Henry who belonged to Andew Herron, a wealthy Presbyterian minister and one of the town's larger slaveholders. Herron owned 22 slaves at the time of the incident. 

Gustav Thiessen and Louis Hipp were both indicted for selling spirits to slaves, with charges later dismissed.

Thomas Wilson stood trial for allegedly harboring a runaway slave named Maria, the only slave owned by a local named William A. Farris. The jury returned a Not Guilty verdict in May 1856.

A couple of cases against white folks resulted in convictions and a $50 fine: James W. Fennell was indicted in 1863 for "Placing Slaves in Charge of a Farm or Stocke Ranch," while Thomas J. Perryman that same year was indicted for "Keeping Slaves on a Farm Detached From His House." In both cases, the slaveholder failed to keep a free white man on the premises to govern them. Ironically, the law forbidding slaves from living in a detached dwelling was passed in 1858 by H.E. McCullough, the state senator from Guadalupe County.

That these are the only two cases against white people resulting in a final conviction and punishment tells us that allowing black people to live and work independently was taken especially seriously by authorities.

However, the most common charges against white folks were things like "Permitting Slave To Hire Time" and "Hiring Slaves To Slaves." The law allowed slaves to work for wages only in a limited way. Grits was unaware of this limited proletarianism afforded slaves in Texas and have never seen it discussed before. Turns out, after 1846, slaves could hire out their own time one day per week or a full week during the Christmas holidays. Beyond that, their owners could theoretically be prosecuted for letting them earn their own money.

The year 1856 saw seven such cases. In the only instance resulting in a conviction, John M. Anderson was convicted and fined one cent: He appealed and the Texas Supreme Court overturned the conviction and dismissed the case. Apparently, prosecutors took this as a sign that all such cases were doomed. No more charges for "Permitting Slave To Hire Time" were recorded  in Guadalupe County after that episode.

Only one case in the records involved a white man accused of abusing a slave. Clinton DeWitt was the son of Green DeWitt, empressario of the famous DeWitt Colony, and a well-known sadist. In 1847 he was indicted for "Unreasonably Abusing a Slave," though charges were eventually dismissed. Dewitt was later killed by his brother in law, shot to death while he was beating his wife with a bullwhip. 

The brother-in-law, Tom Frazier, escaped but was later brought to trial for the murder in 1886. An unnamed former slave testified he was not the killer: "No, this man is not Tom Frazier. The Tom Frazier I knew is much younger and if the Tom Frazier I knew had not killed Clinton E. DeWitt, I was going to kill him." The jury acquitted Mr. Frazier.

All of the slaves indicted were for either assault or murder, including a slave named Dina indicted for throwing a rock at a white woman. If she'd been convicted, it would have resulted in a death sentence, but a jury found her "Not Guilty" in December 1859.

A slave named Jack was convicted of murder for killing his pregnant wife with an axe because she had informed on Jack to his master regarding some transgression, for which the master intended to beat him. Jack was considered a well-liked, gentle person known for making wooden toys for children in exchange for food, and his crime produced quite the local scandal. Some 1,500 people attended his hanging on the banks of the Guadalupe River and his owner was paid a portion of his $1,200 value to compensate for his lost property.

Except for these few criminal charges involving violence, the record remains silent on punishments issued to black folks, most of which were almost certainly imposed by the patrols without judicial oversight. Across the street from the courthouse in Seguin stands an old tree dubbed "The Whipping Oak" with a metal ring embedded in the wood for attaching the shackles of the person to be lashed. After the Texas Legislature ended corporal punishment for white people in 1848, only black folks would have been beaten there. We can only guess at the volume and intensity of those events: The historical record remains silent on the matter.

These records expand our understanding of Texas slave patrols by emphasizing their authority over white people as well as slaves. Maintaining racial separation and preventing black people from living independently were as much goals of the patrol as preventing runaways.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Racism and the origins of Austin policing: A history lesson for the governor
• Slave catching the dominant, early Texas law-enforcement apparatus
• Houton's early police chiefs: the thief, the Chief who wouldn't be fired (sound familiar?), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot
• Early Texans couldn't get enough slave patrols but didn't want to pay for them
• Republic of Texas passed law against being free and black
• Slave Patrol Research Update and Request for Research Advice
• A Texan Huck Finn, Proletarian Slaves, Dreaming of Mexico, and the Habeas Revelation: Lessons from runaway slave stories
• Can police patrol functions be separated from racist slaver legacy? Maybe not

Can police patrol function be separated from racist slaver legacy? Maybe not

Did early policing begin with slave patrols?

In Texas, slave patrols were established (just) after the creation of more traditional law enforcement offices like Sheriffs, Constables, and City Marshals (the early Texan name for what would become municipal police chiefs). But slavery began late here and lasted less than 50 years. In other states, particularly in the Carolinas, patrols preceded those forms. That's why you hear people say American policing originated with slave patrols. Some places, it did.

Here, though, the two systems were originally separate: parallel but intertwined. Patrols captured slaves and arrested white folks who interacted with them (they were authorized by state law to give the slaves up to 25 lashes; white folks were taken before a magistrate). Patrols took people they arrested, black or white, to the Sheriff to be held and either returned to their owner or made to stand trial. Runaways might even find themselves sold at auction in a "foreign market," though I haven't yet figured out exactly what that means. Sheriffs were in charge of that process.

After the Civil War, municipal police departments (then called City Marshals) began undertaking their own patrols, starting in Austin and Houston. It was at this point that historians attribute those cities with first adopting the practices of a "modern" police department, by which they appear to mean the combination of patrols, distinctive uniforms, and a military-style hierarchy (e.g., sergeants, lieutenants, captains, etc.).

Before then, Sheriffs and City Marshals operated more under what I've dubbed a "customer service" model: Waiting for victims to complain about crimes then investigating rather than combing the streets proactively. So adopting patrol practices was the biggest change in what officers actually did with their time day to day, leaving aside what they wore or how management was organized.

This is the next element Grits needs to research and it's turning out to be more difficult than one might expect. I've found a formula for researching Texas slave patrols: At least for counties with intact, early commissioners court minutes, it's possible to identify the number of districts and the names of patrolmen appointed, then research those individuals for more detail. But I've yet to find a similarly simple, one-stop approach for early police departments, which leaves one with reading early newspaper accounts.

My central hypothesis bubbling up from this research (with a bit more evidence, it will graduate to "theory"): Patrol practices grafted onto policing after the Civil War are a holdover of slave patrol methods and both were aimed at suppressing black people and enforcing apartheid. The discriminatory parts of policing mostly stem from this patrol function, with traffic and drug enforcement being the most glaring, modern examples.

In Grits' experience, black folks' biggest complaint with police isn't that, when they report crime, cops investigate. In fact, the opposite is true. Murders and rapes are too often downplayed in black neighborhoods by police departments seeking to avoid a reputation for crime. (The TV show The Wire offered exceptional portrayals of this sort of stat manipulation.)

IRL, black communities in America are both over-policed and under-policed: Over-policed on petty stuff, on traffic violations, stop and frisk, unpaid fines, vagrancy, etc., but also abandoned by police when more serious crimes arise. That's particularly true for crimes of murder, where clearance rates have plummeted over the decades and cases linger for years, not to mention sexual assault, which historically have been under-enforced everywhere.

To me, this dynamic is the legacy of law enforcement's historical reliance on patrols, which in Texas date back to an 1846 statute passed during the first legislative session after becoming a state. Under the patrol model, policing on behalf of victims gave way to an institutional agenda of enforcing petty statutes, limiting freedom, and projecting an implicit message reinforcing central state power over the individual. That led to abuses then and arguably still does today.

So, abolish police? Grits isn't quite there yet. But abolishing patrol? (Or even deploying short-term patrols tactically as opposed to making them the central, organizing principle underlying police departments?) That might be an idea whose time has come.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Racism and the origins of Austin policing: A history lesson for the governor
• Slave catching the dominant, early Texas law-enforcement apparatus
• Houton's early police chiefs: the thief, the Chief who wouldn't be fired (sound familiar?), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot
• Early Texans couldn't get enough slave patrols but didn't want to pay for them
• Republic of Texas passed law against being free and black
• Slave Patrol Research Update and Request for Research Advice
• A Texan Huck Finn, Proletarian Slaves, Dreaming of Mexico, and the Habeas Revelation: Lessons from runaway slave stories

A Texan Huck Finn, Proletarian Slaves, Dreaming of Mexico, and the Habeas Revelation: Lessons from runaway slave stories

One of the items on my research checklist regarding slave patrols and early Texas policing was to examine newspaper items on runaway slaves from Guadalupe County (and perhaps others going forward) in order to identify anecdotes that a) humanize the history I'm reading in old commissioners court records and b) clarify the role and functions of slave patrols in Texas vis a vis the more traditional law enforcement apparatus, like Sheriffs or City Marshals (Texas' precursors to modern police departments). Luckily, some of this legwork has been done by Kyle Ainsworth and his students at the Runaway Slave Project at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches. Let's go through the notices they've compiled from Guadalupe County both to record the stories and see if they provide further research avenues. You're basically just seeing my raw notes here, but it's as good a place to put them as any.

A Texan Huck Finn

My favorite of these stories I think of as Texas' Huck Finn. According to The Texan Mercury, a paper out of Seguin, in 1853 a young German boy stole a horse and apparently helped a runaway slave to escape. They were captured, likely by the slave patrol, and brought to the Sheriff to be held. But they broke free and fled again, possibly together headed to Mexico. The short article was published on 10/8/1853 and used the incident to editorialize in favor of the county constructing a proper jail less prone to escapes. Research followups: Check district court for "German boy's" horse thieving case. Also: Find out when the first Guadalupe County Jail was constructed and look at public debate surrounding it. 

Dreams of Mexico: The Destination

According to the 9/9/1854 Texas State Gazette, one runaway slave from Guadalupe County drowned and three more were captured trying to cross the Rio Grande. The Austin paper blamed the existence of Mexicans living in white people's midst: "It is daily becoming more difficult for the slaves to get into Mexico, and by a little timely exertion in clearing our country of rascally peons, we think the planter in Texas will be more secure in his slave property than most other Southern states." Research angle: Perhaps border sheriff records on captured slaves could be fruitful? Were there patrols in border counties? Was there pressure from slave holding counties to enforce south-bound border and what was local law enforcement's enthusiasm level? Idk. For that matter, I want to know more about free, black communities in Mexico. Hoping this item on the reading list will fill in some of the gaps.

Anti-Mexican sentiment among slavers

The same issue of the Texas State Gazette reported on a public meeting in which locals agreed to collectively offer $250 reward for capture of escaped slaves. Slave owners were so obsessed with the idea that their property might flee to Mexico, the group voted to recommend banning "peons," by which they mean vagrant or unemployed Mexicans, from Guadalupe County outright. Presumably they believed black people couldn't walk south without a guide, though there is evidence that Mexicans near the border helped runaway slaves survive the desert and get across the river, typically for a fee. Sometimes passage across the river was exchanged for indentured servitude with Mexican hacendados. Finally, and most ominously, the group in Guadalupe County "provide[d] for a standing committee of twenty discreet men to enforce the resolution." To me, that sounds like people planning for vigilante violence against Mexicans. Reported the Gazette:

The peons, to which this meeting refers, have no reference to the permanent Mexican citizens, many of whom are worthy men and generally esteemed, but to a vagrant class--a lazy, thievish horde of lazaroni (editors note: OMG!! most original homeless slur I've heard in months!), who in many instances are fugitives from justice in Mexico, highway robbers, horse and cattle thieves, and idle vagabonds, who prowl about our western country with but little visible occupation or pursuit. Indeed, many of the robberies and murders attributed to Indians have been the work of this class of men. A new trade has been opened up to them, in aiding the escape of slaves. They scruple at nothing, and a few dollars from a negro is sufficient to secure their services. If a summary punishment is visited upon them, it is certainly what they may well expect from our incensed countrymen; and in the absence of a prompt and efficient remedy through the laws, this abuse will be corrected by the citizens themselves as a matter of self-preservation. 

Guadalupe County's resolutions inspired similar ones in Bexar County, and a statewide slaveholder convention was announced for Oct. 2, 1854 in Gonzales to discuss the matter. Runaway slaves were treated like they required quarantine: "All slaves brought back from Mexico are to be sent off to a foreign market and disposed of, and up to that time, they are to be closely guarded and not permitted to associate or converse with other negroes."  Research notes: Need to find out more about this slaveholder gathering: Check newsclips, secondary sources. Also, are there records of runaways disposed of in "foreign markets"? How would one research this? Idk. 

Proletarian slaves in Texas

On 7/1/1854, the Texan Mercury mocked the notion that a slave named Alfred belonging to a local "mercantile firm," was caught in public in possession of hundreds of dollars and his employer said it was his. As an aside, Alfred may have been an example of black folks working in an economic scenario I'd never considered before launching this research: Slaves who hired themselves out for pay and gave master a cut, but lived independently like a proletarian. Newspapers complained of this practice in every large Texas town (see, e.g., this Austin case study), so it was as widespread as it was scorned by white supremacist absolutists. They thought  it would give other black folks ideas and foster an inappropriate sense of equality and independence among them. In 1856, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in a Guadalupe County case that slave owners could not be prosecuted for allowing their slaves to accept employment. In my estimation, this practice arose because slavery as a business model didn't work as well in the cities as on the plantations. The economic incentives to let slaves hire themselves out probably drove the decision more than some urban libertarianism. More money with less hassle and responsibility? I'm guessing some urban slaveowners said "Sign me up!"

More runaway examples

On July 11, 1859, a slave named Oben belonging to Guadalupe County slave owner James George was reported captured in Bexar County, likely by the patrol, and taken to the Sheriff to be held. Followup: Check George in GC Slave Transactions book.

On January 25, 1862, a slave named George, reportedly belonging to a slave owner who'd left town the prior year, was captured by the patrol and incarcerated in the Guadalupe County Jail.

Habeas! Of course!

As Bexar County is next on the list, I was interested to discover this habeas corpus case which may be instructive: A dark-skinned Mexican woman was captured by a slave patrol and accused of being a runaway without evidence, though witnesses supported her story. Research notes: How hadn't I considered habeas corpus cases as a source for anecdotes? I love 19th century habeas cases! Will have to consider how to identify those. Maybe a start is this database of black Texans with cases before the Texas Supreme Court in that era. Another tedious but potentially fruitful research path.

Charity Ashley: Free but for (a terrible, horrific) choice

Finally, a bit more detail on the story of Charity Ashley, the free black woman with five children who chose to re-enter slavery and take on a new master in the late 1850s. (Texas banned free blacks during the Republic and as a state passed coercive legislation aimed at forcing them back into slavery.) I found a brief mention of her decision in the commissioners court minutes, which referenced a District Court hearing I still need to research. Anyway, according to the 1850 census, Ms. Ashley was born in South Carolina and at that time was 36 years old, making her roughly 44 when she reportedly sought out a local patroller as her new master for her and her five kids. Though it doesn't mention her or her family, the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise in 1996 ran an historical profile of George Holloman, the slaver and patrolman who became her new master. 

Ashley and her children were listed in 1850 as living at the same dwelling as the families of John A.M. Boyd and William King, but separately under their own name, not as property. I wondered on Twitter, "What arrangement led her to be staying there? How did she make a living? How did she come to be free and why was she living in Texas w/o a husband? When the state decided to coerce free blacks back into slavery, why didn't she choose Boyd or King as masters?" If she was already in Seguin with five kids by 1850, Ms. Ashley was a relatively long-time resident by the time she chose a master, and probably one of the few free, black people in town. So many questions! I can't wait to see the district court file in her case, assuming it still exists 170+ years later.

A Forgotten Precursor to Secession

Professor Ainsworth from SFA tells me slave patrols ramped up following the little-known "Texas Troubles" in 1860. Certainly, in 1862, the Legislature expanded the patrol requirement to mandate weekly rather than monthly outings, according to Randolph Campbell's "Empire for Slavery." But  some Texas cities may also have created patrols, if sometimes short-term. Occasionally, antebellum Texas witnessed the activation of informal, pre-Klan vigilante networks. There's no way to know the overlap, if any, between those mobs/posses and patrol membership. But things could erupt quickly. 

The all-but-forgotten episode referenced by Prof. Ainsworth involved white Texans misinterpreting a series of fires caused by a faulty batch of matches as evidence of Negro insurrection and arson. This was false, but up to 100 or more black folks and several white (alleged) abolitionists were lynched or otherwise murdered in the aftermath. Dubbed the "Texas Troubles," the incident with the faulty matches was a more important, proximate cause of Southern insurrection fears when they seceded than Nat Turner's rebellion decades prior. But today they're mostly forgotten.

Slaves foraged for food during Civil War shortages

I haven't yet found Texas slave narratives that mentioned patrols. But I did see a passage that presented the hardships facing slaves in Texas during the Civil War period.

During the Civil War time were very hard. I have known slaves to pull up tobacco stalks and smoke chip them and use okra seed for coffee; [to] build pens in the woods and catch turkeys. [They would] lay poles on top, dig a hole under the bottom of the pen, and drop corn fifty steps leading up to the pen. The turkeys would go in. After they eat they would never look down. Deer would have a regular place to jump in the filed. Slaves would set a stob and sharpening [the] upper end and sometimes catch a deer. Father did the weaving during the Civil War. I imagine seeing him dashing the sickle right and left, the women carding and spinning.

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Racism and the origins of Austin policing: A history lesson for the governor
• Slave catching the dominant, early Texas law-enforcement apparatus
• Houton's early police chiefs: the thief, the Chief who wouldn't be fired (sound familiar), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot
• Early Texans couldn't get enough slave patrols but didn't want to pay for them
• Republic of Texas passed law against being free and black
• Slave Patrol Research Update and Request for Research Advice

Slave Patrol Research Update and Request for Research Advice

Just a quick update on my Guadalupe County slave-patrol research. Many thanks to Kyle Ainsworth of the Runaway Slave Project at Stephen F. Austin University for the tip. This is the first time I've been able to see primary source material regarding IRL slave patrols in Texas.

Grits found in commissioners court minutes that slave patrol members were being appointed at least twice per year with individual appointees' names listed (albeit in hard-to-read, handwritten script). At first there were three districts covering Guadalupe County, each with a "captain" and four privates. Eventually, there were as many as 13 districts and 65 patrolmen. I went through and copied all references I could find for patrol appointments from 1847 through 1865.

I also discovered an amazing book on Slave Transactions in Guadalupe County, Texas by Mark Gretchen which identifies all the slaveholders from Guadalupe County, includes short bios for some of them, and vetted court records from all of them. I took phone pics of entries for about three dozen patrollers while I was there. When I got home, I found the book online and ordered it, overpaying for a very out of print and unavailable volume. (Still cheaper than traveling out of town and paying courthouse rates for copies.)

So here are my next research steps: 1) Transcribe data from slaver charts from my phone photos, 2) Make a comprehensive list of Guadalupe-County slave-patrol participants from handwritten commissioners court minutes, 3) Cross reference slave patrol list with Slave Transactions book for leads and spell checks for names, 4) Review runaway slave notices related to Guadalupe County, 5) Search slave-patrol name list on Google, Confederate soldier databases, and early Texas newspapers, and 6) make one more trip to Seguin to research people on the slave-patrol list in other county records, and to perform more informed library work.

All this may take a country minute.

It looks like Bexar County has similar records, so I'll head down there as soon as they let me and we'll try to repeat the process. Montgomery County is another place where a) I have reason to believe patrols existed and b) they appear to have extant and available commissioners court records. So that could be the next stop if this continues. Pam Colloff wants me to make a book of it; we'll see if I take the project that far.

Regardless, my working theory behind this research is that finding data and facts, while important, aren't as useful as identifying stories that resonate.

It's one thing to say the Guadalupe County patrol increased in size from three districts of five men each in 1847 to 13 such districts in 1857. It's another to consider the story of Charity Ashley, a free black woman with five children, and the coercive state legislation that caused her to choose 32-year-old George B. Hollamon - a patrolman and himself already owner of three slaves who would later become conscript officer for the Confederate Army - as master of her and her five children. What caused her to make that decision rather than, say, heading down to Mexico and living free with thousands of other black expats?

I don't know the answer to that question. But it's a more interesting one than how many patrolmen were there, how much and how often were they paid, etc.. 

Similarly, consider the story of a German boy who, like Huck Finn in Mark Twain's fiction two decades later, helped a runaway slave steal a horse and escape. They were captured, possibly by the county patrol, but then escaped the Guadalupe County Sheriff's custody and were last seen on their way toward the Rio Grande. I'm dying to know what happened to them. (Following up on court records for this case, Charity Ashley, and maybe others is the reason I'll probably need one, final research trip to Seguin before wrapping up.)

Individual, stories will always be a more reliable source of human interest than just analyzing pay slips. So finding lists of names gives the opportunity to tap into individual stories that help bring the research to life. That's the hope, anyway. The process can feel like searching for needles in haystacks.

Regardless, that's where I'm at with this project, gentle readers. I tell you in this much detail because I'm asking y'all for advice: Based on the records described, do folks have advice for sources that might help flesh out anecdotes about people involved? Except for rare instances like Charity Ashley (who had a district court case I still need to review), stories from black folks' perspective are incredibly rare. So is detail about exactly what happened out in the field when the slave patrols rode. How can I find more?

Help me think about how to research this. All of the slave narratives from Texas I've seen involved people who were slaves as children, usually interviewed by the Works Project Administration decades later in the 1930s or '40s. Not much detail about patrols from that perspective.

I haven't completely run into dead ends yet, but am starting to do so based mainly on the paucity of available records. Step up, Grits readers, and help me craft a path to tell these stories!

Until then, here's a Twitter feed encapsulating research so far on slave patrols and early Texas policing. And here are links to everything else I've written on this topic so far:

• Racism and the origins of Austin policing: A history lesson for the governor
• Slave catching the dominant, early Texas law-enforcement apparatus
• Houton's early police chiefs: the thief, the Chief who wouldn't be fired (sound familiar), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot
• Early Texans couldn't get enough slave patrols but didn't want to pay for them

Texas 'poor farm' history

Just compiling this in one place so I can find it all again. 

The Portal to Texas History has a copy of records from a "Poor Farm" in Travis County from 1890-1900; see 2015 Statesman coverage here. Also, this index of early Travis County Commissioner Court records includes numerous references to the county poor farm. The commissioners court records indexed are here.

See this prior Grits post for more background on Texas poor farms, and this longer, academic analysis from Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 

Here's a 2011 account of poor farms in Anderson County.  In Denton County, the poor farm didn't close until after World War II. Weatherford College leases the old Parker County poor farm for agricultural purposes. Collin County had one in McKinney. Hunt County had one as well. A poor farm operated in Erath County until a tornado destroyed it in 1935. In Grayson County, the poor-farm population was dominated by the mentally infirm.

In Kaufman County, the poor farm "also provided barracks for jail inmates" and once housed an "epidemic camp." It was the last of its kind. The final residents didn't leave that facility until the 1970s.

Anachronistic constitutional language authorizing Texas poor farms was removed from the state constitution in 2017.

Early Texans couldn't get enough slave patrols, but didn't want to pay for them.

A bit more on slave patrols, which county commissioners courts were authorized to enact in the 1st Texas Legislature in 1846, the year after Texas became a state. We've discussed these antebellum slave-catcher patrol operations briefly: Created by county commissioners courts, comprised of local districts, sometimes many of them, with 4-6 officers in each. But I wanted to know more about them. Here are some related anecdotes from early Texas newspapers in the 1840s and '50s, found online at the University of North Texas' excellent "Portal to Texas History" site.

In 1858, during a legislative debate, state Representative Powell from Montgomery County implied some Texans felt the slave patrollers weren't doing much on the job. He attributed this to slave catchers for whom the work was just a paycheck but who had no connection to slave-owner culture and values: "Heretofore patrols have been appointed by the County Courts, and they have frequently been men who felt no responsibility resting on them, who rode when it suited their convenience and who, when it did not, did not know their duties or if they ever knew, did not perform them." He thought volunteers from slave owning families would be better connected to the slave systems and thus more effective at their duties. (State Gazette, May 1, 1858)

At the same time, and somewhat contradictory to his earlier holding, Mr. Powell argued against giving slave patrollers minimum work requirements: "[W]hen there is no occasion, why force a man to serve 12 hours in the week? Why compel a man who lives in the beat on which he serves, and who knows every plantation and negro in it, to take an oath to perform certain duties when he is satisfied that there is no necessity in it?" Why shouldn't the cop hang out all morning in the donut shop? He knows his beat best! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The concern that layabouts and loafers might draw a paycheck was a whitewashed version of the bigger fear over staffing slave patrols: their brutality and cruelty. One of the main arguments against them in the first place had been the caliber of men drawn to the profession.

Mr. Jones of Galveston hoped the bill would not pass. He had lived in slave-holding country, and had seen the evil of such a law. he said that persons who made application to act as patrols under the law, who availed themselves of the powers granted to them to maraud about the country and commit such outrages as would make him blush to name in the House. He said that owners of negroes could take care of themselves and if they were required to be answerable for the damages committed by them, there would be little need of patrols under such a law as this. (Austin Daily Bulletin, January 17, 1842)

Debates over creating slave patrols sometimes mirrored modern crime debates: in particular, the issues of runaway slaves and crime were openly conflated when there was no logical link, using fear of crime to gin up fear of black people and vice versa. For instance, on April 9, 1856, the Houston Weekly Telegraph editorialized on behalf of local patrols, blaming a supposed rise in burglaries on unsupervised black people:

It has become a notorious and patent fact that burglaries are becoming more and more frequent  in our city, and as it is almost next to impossible to detect the guilty parties after the commission of the offence, we propose to call attention to such portions of our statute law as seem best calculated to serve as preventives.

The first thing that strikes an attentive observer on his arrival in Houston is the immense latitude allowed to the negroes. No matter what time of night you pass through the streets, you are sure to meet parties of negroes who go where they please, unquestioned and irresponsible. Such a thing as a "pass" is unheard of and we doubt if they are even furnished. In certain quarters of the city there are large congregations of negroes, who hire their own time, and who live entirely free from the supervision of any white man. Speaking candidly and impartially, there is more insolence among the negroes of Houston and more careless conduct than in any other city or town South of Mason and Dixon's line.

Of course, this state of affairs, this immunity from all question, affords the negroes great opportunities for theft, and in many instances, familiar to our citizens,they have not been backward in taking advantage of it. If the negroes are made sure of, if we are certain that it is not our slaves who are engaged in these burglarious practices, it then greatly reduces the number of persons liable to suspicion, and affords greater opportunity for detecting the robber.

We have laws enough on this subject but they have become a dead letter. It is a mockery of legislation to enact and re-enact but to do nothing towards enforcing. The law is sufficiently stringent and efficient - the 2653 article of Hartley's Digest, under the 'act to provide for the appointment of patrol,' says 'that whenever a detachment, or part of one, may find any slave or slaves off the plantation or other premises of his, her, or their master, mistress, or employer, strolling about without written permission from some person authorized to give the same, said detachment or part thereof may give to every slave so offending any number of lashes not exceeding twenty five.' The first section of the act provides for the appointment of the patrol by the County Court 'upon application.'

Something must be done in this matter. Our property is not safe and it naturally suggests itself: are not our persons in danger? We trust the matter of allowing negroes to be about the streets without permission will receive the serious attention of our citizens.

While I'm loving the use of the word "burglarious," Grits cannot endorse the totalitarian calculus being performed here. The assumption is that "We suspect all black people and some white people of being thieves. If we suppress all black people and keep them off the streets, then if thefts continue, we'll know it's white people doing it and our list of suspects will get smaller." Such thinking cannot survive any thoughtful moral assessment, much less cost-benefit analysis, but the logic seemed inescapable to the writer, and no doubt many of his readers.

Slave patrols were designed to enforce apartheid and thwart the Underground Railroad to Mexico, not for general crime prevention. Using tools created for the one problem to apply to the other lies at the root of many 21st century criminal-justice conundrums

For most white Texans, patrols were controversial not because of their brutality but because they were expensive. In 1851, Bexar County employed 108 people covering 18 districts across the county. Grits has yet to find records of slave patrol districts from other counties, so I have no idea to estimate a statewide count, much less how much they were paid. But if Bexar County's numbers are indicative, these were easily the largest local law enforcement outfits in the state during the 1840s and '50s. No Sheriff or Constable had that many staff.

Sometimes people wanted cities to create their own patrols, expanding capacity beyond the county system. However, paying so many people became a political barrier to patrol deployment. Many thought the work should be left to professionals. Others considered the expense an excuse for not doing it and called for volunteer-driven patrols, though these seemed to have often been short-term projects, for a month or two. The May 1, 1856 edition of The San Antonio Texan described a meeting debating creation of a volunteer city patrol in addition to the county patrol

The ordinance concerning the organization of a city patrol was passed near a month ago and thus far it has had a charming effect; for since its passages, but two thefts, during the night, have come to our knowledge, and in both instances the malefactors were apprehended and the property recovered. 

Some are opposed to the system and express a desire for the city to tax the citizens and hire a patrol; but most of these persons have little or no taxable property. 

The intention of the city council was, to try this plan for a month, and if it seemed not to answer the purpose intended, or if there should be need for it no longer, to stop it for the present. 

We believe at the end of the month it will not be needed longer, for the present - such has already been its effect in removing rowdies and quieting our city.

Some jurisdictions gave the City Marshal's office the slave patrol job. But they don't appear to have staffed them as liberally, relying instead on volunteers and the cooperation of the public. The Indianola City Council in 1859 created a 9 o'clock curfew for any negro or slave, requiring a written permit from a master, owner or employer to be off their premises, reported the August 13, 1859 Indianola Courier. Instead of patrol officers, though, the City Marshal was charged with apprehending and jailing "any negro or slave offending against" this ordinance, although "it shall also be lawful for any free white person so take up or apprehend any such negro or slave so offending, and to deliver any such negro or slave into the custody of the marshal."

Black folks caught by the patrol in Indianola received between 10 and 39 lashes, for which the master had to pay the City Marshal a fee of $2. The same 39-lash/$2 punishment would be applied to "each and every negro and slave caught playing cards or any gambling game" in Indianola.

It would be too strong to say Texas law enforcement originated with slave patrols. County Sheriffs were around during the Republic and mandated in the new 1845 state constitution one year before patrols were authorized. Plus, both Sheriffs and early City Marshals had broader duties (often related to fee collection) than patrol officers, which was generally a part-time job.

But I think it's fair to say that 1) slave patrols were the largest law enforcement systems in antebellum Texas, bigger than Sheriffs or any local police force, 2) prior to the Civil War, slave patrols were the only law-enforcement officers reported to perform patrol functions in any jurisdiction, and 3) antebellum law enforcement was deeply intertwined with the slave-patrol apparatus, with contemporary media commonly conflating crime prevention and suppression of black people.

This post is part of an ongoing series, see related Grits coverage:

• Racism and the origins of Austin policing: A history lesson for the governor
• Slave catching the dominant, early Texas law-enforcement apparatus
• Houton's early police chiefs: the thief, the Chief who wouldn't be fired (sound familiar), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot

Houston's early police chiefs: The Thief, the Chief Who Wouldn't Be Fired (sound familiar?), and the Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot

Here's an update on my search for the history of early Texas police chiefs. As it turns out, there is a book-length history of the Houston Police Department, a high-end vanity piece commissioned by the Houston Police Officers Union, written by Mitchel Roth and Tom Kennedy. On the questions I've been asking - what is the relationship between slave catching and antebellum policing or Jim Crow enforcement after the war? - it's of scarce little use. But it gives us a few more details about these early characters.

Houston's first "police chief": The head of the entity that became today's Houston police department was originally called the City Marshal. The first one was Daniel Busby, twice elected to the position beginning in 1841. But in 1843, he was investigated by city officials and found to have stolen fee money ($317.52) he was charged with collecting. Busby "acceded to the request for his resignation" but was not prosecuted. As a nod to their union patrons, Roth and Kennedy observed that "this was the first official evidence of a disciplinary action in HPD history."

Also as a result of this disgraceful launch, and in light of the complexities of the fee-gathering functions inherent in law-enforcement's mid-19th century role, later City Marshals were required to post a $2,500 bond when assuming the job to indemnify the city.

Stay Icy: I'd wanted to know more about Isaac C. Lord (or possibly Irvin Capers Lord), who went by his awesome initials, I.C. Lord (I love this name. Can he see the Lord? Is the Lord cold? Is the Lord unruffled during high pressure situations? You can take it so many ways!). Lord is the person credited with turning HPD into a "proper" police force patrolling the streets in recognizable uniforms. Reportedly, "it was Lord’s proudest boast that he never carried a gun while acting as a peace officer."

The Mysterious Disappearance of John Proudfoot: But in the process I should mention another early Houston law enforcement stalwart with an amazingly great name who's going on my research list: John Proudfoot. He was elected City Marshal in 1860 and left in 1863 to go fight for the Confederate army, leaving I.C. Lord with the job. After the war, Proudfoot did not challenge his protege, who'd been reelected already as City Marshal in his own right. Proudfoot instead ran for Sheriff and won in 1866. Then, I.C. Lord was appointed interim Sheriff after Proudfoot "mysteriously disappeared, most probably as a result of foul play." Other online sources I could find gave no additional information beyond saying he disappeared. A 154-year old Unsolved Mystery! I knew nothing about John Proudfoot before the last week, and now I want to know everything about him.

Making Friends: Anyway, Lord returned to his City Marshal's post in 1867, and here's where things get interesting. He had already, for reasons unknown, pissed off the local black population. The authors tell us Lord was shot in the head during a "racial disturbance" which "reflected the hostility and confusion that existed between newly freed slaves and the populace." Whatever that means.

Showdown with the Union military: Then, Brevet Major General J.J. Reynolds became military commander of Texas and ordered I.C. Lord, along with a half dozen aldermen and several other officials, to leave their jobs so he could appoint their replacements. This wasn't happening just in Houston, but also to Confederate loyalists across the South who remained in pivotal public posts.

Lord at first declined to go. Finally, Reynolds named A.K. Taylor City Marshal and formally relieved Lord of his duties. Lord's refusal to abide by this order caused a near-race war! Roth and Kennedy report that "'the loyal League Negroes' openly threatened to attack, sack, and burn the city" if he did not step down, "But this threat was turned back after a mob of armed whites came forward to protect the city." This inspired Lord to tell newspaper reporters of his "determination not to give up until the Board of Aldermen ordered him."

The authors don't tell us who the "League Negroes" were (I'm going to assume bowling league), nor reference them any other time throughout the book, so for the moment we'll have to leave that intriguing episode there. But it sounds like the town nearly erupted over Lord's refusal to leave.

Awkward! A local newspaper observed that this left police "in a quandary. They have two police chiefs." He eventually relented, but his temporary standoff with the Union military commander earned Lord, who as far as I can tell did not serve in the Confederate Army, the admiration and approbation of Reconstruction opponents and Lost-Cause revanchists for the rest of his lengthy political career. In 1875, the first local election after Richard Coke's disputed ascension to governor signaled the end of Reconstruction in Texas, I.C. Lord was elected Houston Mayor, capping a long career during which he also found time to sire 16 children!

Regardless, these events tell us that the man credited with turning HPD into a "proper" police force suffered an incredibly hostile, occasionally violent relationship with the black community in Houston in the years following the Civil War. Keep in mind, we're talking about a very small town, roughly the size of Dalhart, today. Houston had fewer than 10,000 people in the 1870 census, up from just under 5,000 in 1860. So this was an up-close-and-personal sort of dislike.

I'm sure there are more to these stories but I'm writing them up bit by bit as I run across sources. More soon on the next installment of "Early Texas Police Chiefs."