[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...