[adolph]

Did you post these under a different username? I see no evidence here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sangnoir

Again, if evidence was as plentiful as you claim, a person would add a link instead of typing about examples and links elsewhere.

[sangnoir]

What sort of falsifiable evidence would be sufficient to convince you? That specific named individuals who were on slave patrols later became sheriffs?

[adolph]

I’ve been thinking about it since asking for evidence. I studied 17-1800’s US history a long time ago and was oriented toward drawing insight from census and other quantifiable records and plugging them into SPSS.

Post-Belesiles [0], I would want to see a body of relatively objective records that can be independently verified in the form of adversarial cooperation. Say some significant number of individuals of slave oriented occupations moving into net new police-specific occupations.

Your use of the word “sheriff” is significant here because sheriff and constable are occupation terms that predate the Atlantic slave trade. These were civil enforcers for what represented law and justice in the English system. They still exist today in name and function. Moving from slave patrol to sheriff doesn’t necessarily support the thesis since sheriff and constable are not net new police forces.

0. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.016/--why-foo...