Captain Slick

Sept. 1, 1830 | Various counties in Alabama

One of the results of the Redstick War of 1813- 1814, was the cession of the middle portion of "Alabama Territory" to the U.S. by the defeated Creek Indians. Ceded by the Treaty of Fort Jackson, the new territory was isolated from neighboring Georgia by a strip of land still in the hands of the Creeks. This isolation produced many problems for settlers coming into the new area, foremost of which was the lack of Law and Order. As we have seen with both North and South Carolina previously, these types of problems gave rise to companies of vigilantes. Alabama was no different, creating what has become known and copied all over the south and west at the time as "Captain Slick's company of regulators".

There has not been any evidence in the literature that anyone by the name of Captain Slick ever really existed. It is more likely a name given to any leader of a group of vigilantes offering to "slick" horse thieves or other malcontents in the frontier areas of America. To combat the excesses of "pony clubs" and other criminal ventures, the company of locals would capture a suspect, give him lashes with a hickory rod, and send him out of the country. In Lauderdale, Madison, Blount, Cherokee, Dekalb and Chambers Counties companies of slicks enforced the law. In Huntsville they were called "slicks", but in Montgomery they were "the regulating horn", meaning its vigilant members blew horns to call others to action.

In many instances the slicks got out of hand. Many believe the Pony Club that operated in Alabama began as a company of slicks. At any rate, by 1836 all Creek lands between Georgia and Alabama were ceded and as more stable elements moved into these areas law and order overturned the authority of the slicks and in some cases slicks were prosecuted. The vigilante movement continued on in many states and occurred again in the wild west, resulting in lynch mobs and other excesses.

(from: History of the Pony Club, unpublished)

Captain Slick, mythical leader of frontier regulators