Читать книгу Police in America - Steven G. Brandl - Страница 47

The first explorers crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the late 1400s, and the first Europeans settled permanently in America in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The most prominent settlers were the British, who created the thirteen colonies in what eventually became the United States of America. Many of the colonists had fled their homeland because they wanted religious freedom; thus, freedom became a central feature of the new government when it was created.

The colonists had a difficult time in the new land. The economy of the colonies was based almost entirely on the land and farming. Without the benefit of any modern equipment, the work was hard. Starvation and diseases were rampant. Medical care was primitive. As laborers were needed to work the land, indentured servants were first used. Many of these people were poor teenagers from England who received a free boat ride to the new colonies in exchange for years of labor.

In colonial America during the 1600s and 1700s, there were four primary policing entities: constables, watches, slave patrols, and sheriffs.