The first slave catchers in the Americas were active in European colonies in the West Indies during the sixteenth century. In colonial Virginia and Carolina, slave catchers (as part of the slave patrol system) were recruited by Southern planters beginning in the eighteenth century to return fugitive slaves; the concept quickly spread to the rest of the Thirteen Colonies.
During the sixteenth century, the first slave catchers worked in European colonies in the West Indies. In colonial Virginia and Carolina, slave hunters (part of a patrol system) were employed by Southern plantation owners beginning in the eighteenth century to recapture escaped slaves; this practice quickly expanded across all Thirteen Colonies.