The good citizens of South Carolina had no idea that they were treating a disease that wouldn’t be discovered for more than a quarter century. Twenty-eight years before a bunk physician discovered the “disease causing slaves to run away,” and fifteen years before the General Court of Boston passed a law to organize its Day Patrol,25 the newly formed “Standing Committee” simultaneously came up with the cure for the diseased freedom-thirsters and an official name for its Forest Joe apprehension commission. The slave-hunting squad’s name would eventually serve as a prescription for drapetomaniacs
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