Bidspirit auction | Large English Bowie Knife Etched

Large English Bowie Knife Etched ”1847 MACON SLAVE - Large English Bowie Knife Etched ”1847 MACON SLAVE PATROL” Georgia Confederate usedVery large knife English made for the American market, with etched department name of a patrol unit hunting down runaway slaves in Georgia, and lower dated 1847 to one side of the long clip point blade. Good condition with rich patina and wear consistent with the age, most likely used by Confederate soldier or officer in the later war era. Total length including scabbard ( when scabbard is present) - 17.5”. Length of the blade - 11”.Beginning in 1757 Georgia's colonial assembly required white landowners and residents to serve as slave patrols. A woodcut depicts the capture of a fugitive slave by a slave patrol. Slave patrols were common in Georgia from 1757 until the end of the Civil War in 1865.Asserting that slave insurrections must be prevented, the legislature stipulated in ”An Act for Establishing and Regulating of Patrols” that groups ”not exceeding seven” would work in districts twelve miles square. The statute, modeled on South Carolina's earlier patrol law, ordered white adults to ride the roads at night, stopping all slaves they encountered and making them prove that they were engaged in lawful activities. Patrollers required slaves to produce a pass, which stated their owner's name as well as where and when they were allowed to be away from the plantation and for how long. Patrols operated in Georgia until slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War (1861-65).Whites could hire substitutes to patrol for them; absentees were fined. Much of the burden of patrol duty fell to nonslaveholders, who often resented what they sometimes saw as service to the planter class. The Chatham County grand jury complained in the mid-1790s about the difficulty it faced in enforcing the patrol requirement. By the early nineteenth century it became necessary to pay people to perform what had been voluntary unpaid service. In 1819 Savannah's city watch received one dollar for every evening they served and shared in any reward for the forced return of fugitive slaves.