know as slave codes. Patrollers' duties Slave patrollers had their own characteristics, duties, and benefits, apart from slave owners and overseers. Patrollers were often equipped with guns and whips and would exert force in order to bring slaves back to their owners. At times, black people developed many methods of challenging slave patrolling, occasionally fighting back violently. The American Civil War developed more opportunities for resistance against slave patrols and made it easier for enslaved people to escape. Slave patrol duties started as breaking up slave meetings. These slave meetings occurred on holidays, in which they would plan revolts and uprisings. Eventually, slave patrols expanded to be year-round, not just on holidays. Slowly, new duties and rights of patrollers became permitted, including: "apprehending runaways, monitoring the rigid pass requirements for Blacks traversing the countryside, breaking up large gatherings and assemblies of blacks, visiting and searching slave quarters randomly, inflicting impromptu punishments, and as occasion arose, suppressing insurrections." Slave patrols consisted mostly of white citizens. Most people in slave patrols came from working and middle-class conditions. In some southern states, the militia and army served as slave patrols. In other southern states, slave patrols came about from colonial or state government legislation. Slave patrols typically rode on horseback in groups of four or five, sometimes even in family groups. They often worked sun-up to sun-down and varied their times and locations of patrol, to lower the chances of slaves escaping. They used no special equipment. Their chief tools, instead, were whips and intimidation.. Some states required every white man to arrest and chastise any slave found away from his home without proper authorization. In colonial South Carolina, failure to do so incurred a fine of forty shillings. Recaptured slaves were returned to their masters. In some instances, white men encouraged slaves to escape in order to collect rewards for catching them. In some areas, killing a slave was not considered a crime by the courts or community. Slave patrollers were compensated in several ways, including exemption from public, county, and parish taxes and fees during their terms of service. In addition, some patrollers were paid additional sums with surplus money. Also, regardless of the power patrollers held, they had limitations. For example, although whippings and beatings were permitted, a deterrent also existed. This was the fact that, if whipped or beaten too severely, the slave was then of no use to