User:Queen of Hearts/Drafts/Baltimore Police Department

The Baltimore Police Department

Colonial and early post-colonial law enforcement (1659–1784)

Baltimore County, Maryland, was founded in 1659, including what is now the independent city of Baltimore; early land patents were issued the same year. The county was governed by a group of commissioners, also known as justices of the peace, who were appointed by the lord proprietor and formed a court. The initial commissioners – Thomas Howell, Thomas Stockett, Henry Stockett, and John Taylor – held their first court, clerked by John Collett, at Howell's house on July 20, 1661. Most early courts were held on individual plantations.

And the said sheriff shall choose one of his servants for the execution of all corporal correction, shame or other punishment to be inflicted on the body or person of any one; and if the person so chosen and appointed by the Lieutenant-General and Council shall refuse to execute the said office, the Lieutenant-General, upon complaint thereof made unto him, shall or may censure the person so refusing by corporal shame or correction as he shall think fit.

A document outlining the appointment of the executioner

The chief commissioner appointed a coroner and sheriff, the latter of which appointed a public executioner. People who refused to serve as coroner or sheriff were required to forefit 2,000 pounds (910 kg) of tobacco. The office of public executioner was described in Folsom (1888) as "the least desirable office within the county", citing holding the position being used as punishment against John Dandie, whose death sentence was commutated to three years serving the lord proprietor and three years as the executioner in St. Mary's County. He also cited the harsh punishments imposed against criminals. Below the sheriff, constables were appointed by a hundred commander to perform precepts and warrants within the hundred. Petty constables, known as tithingmen, were appointed by the lord of the manor to patrol their manor.

Under the 1639 Act for Felonies, minor crimes were punished by the commissioners: "withdrawing one's self out of an English plantation to inhabit or reside among any Indians not christened" was punishable by imprisonment until the perpetrator found "security to perform the order of the Judge therein"; profanity was punishable with a one-shilling fine or being required to forfeit 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of tobacco; and excessive drinking was punishable with a five-shilling fine or forfeiting 30 pounds (14 kg) of tobacco. The following felonies were punishable by death:

Punishable by hanging

• Homicide
• "Bloodshed, committed by assault upon the person of the Lieutenant-General"
• "To shed the blood of any Judge sitting in Court"
• Burglary
• Robbery
• Polygamy
• Sacrilege
• Rape
• "to sell, give, or deliver to any Indian, or to any other declared or professed enemy of the province, any gun, pistol, powder or shot, without the knowledge or license of the Lieutenant-General, or to teach any Indian or other declared enemy of the province the use of the said arms or the making thereof"

Punishable by burning

• Sorcery
• Idolatry
• Blasphemy, "a cursed or wicked speaking of God"

Punishable by hanging for men; burning for women

• Petit treason

Common instruments of punishment in colonial Maryland

Pillory and whipping post

Ducking stool

The Maryland General Assembly passed an act in 1663 providing branding irons and building a pillory, stocks, and ducking stool in every county. While the ducking stools were abandoned in 1676, the other methods remained in use by 1770, and the pillories remained in use until around 1810, when it was replaced with prison. Flagellation was also used; the most common form of it, known as "flogging at the cart's tail", involved a person being flogged while tied to the back of a cart moving through the nearby area. Criminals were paraded through busy streets, and punishments included cutting off the criminal's ears, boring their tongue, sliting their nose, or branding them. Branding marks included:

Branding marks

Marking	Location	Meaning
M	—	Manslaughter
P	Forehead	Perjury
R	Shoulder	Rogueness/vagrancy
S. L.	Cheek	Seditious libel
T	Left hand	Theft

References

Primary sources

In the text these references are preceded by "BPD":

Works cited

• Folsom, De Francias (1888). Our Police: A History of the Baltimore Force from the First Watchman to the Latest Appointee. J. D. Ehlers & Company. ISBN 9780788437779. LCCN 10022234. IA ourpolicehistory00fols. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• McCabe, Clinton (1907). History of the Baltimore Police Department, 1774–1907 (PDF). Fleet-McGinley Company. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 10, 2024 – via the Maryland State Archives.