By the beginning of the 17th century, Bloodhounds became super popular, and some individuals even managed to cross the Atlantic and consolidate their positions in the New World. True, in contrast to Europe, obsessed with hunting, a different mission awaited hounds in America. They began to be used to search for people, or rather, to catch slaves fleeing from fierce masters, and then to pursue fugitive convicts. It was thanks to this imposed specialization that the animals gained a reputation as ruthless detectives, because of which the breed was almost completely exterminated during the civil war. By the way, modern researchers believe that slaves in the USA were “hunted” not with purebred bloodhounds, but with their mestizos.