A law in South Carolina stated “If any slave shall be out of the house or plantation where they live, ... without some white person in company with such slave, shall refuse to submit to undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for any white person to pursue,n apprehend, and moderately correct such a slavel; and if such a slave shall assault and strike such a white person, such a slave may be lawfully killed”.  This law was created in 1740, and was still in effect in 1836.  Laws like these had a huge effect in how white people perceived themselves and black people.  These perceptions can also be seen in the illustration.  White people believed themselves to be socially, physically and economically superior to other races.  In the law, white people are responsible for escorting, monitoring, and punishing slaves, and in the illustration the white men have nice clothes, sit on horses, and physically wrangle the slave for control.  Whiteness was seen as a status that allowed white people to control others and to exercise at their will.

"A slave caught without a pass"