Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to secure, to lay hold of, to seize, to capture, to ‘collar’.

1859		Calif. Police Gazette 20 Mar. 2/1: Mr. Miller [i.e a saloon keeper] ‘corrals’ the passing crowd and they go away well satisfied.
1869		F. Whymper Travel and Adventure in Alaska 311: It is then the business of his opponent to ‘corral’ him in a corner – a term taken from the Spanish for catching and shutting up cattle in an enclosure. This last phrase is used in a variety of ways. A police officer ‘corrals’ an offender, a greedy man at table ‘corrals’ all the delicacies, and a broker ‘corrals’ all the stock of a company, and controls the market, and so on.
1890		Sporting Times 5 Apr. 1/3: [He] Quit Smiling and Coralled In that Vulpine Quadruped’s brush.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 119: They had corraled his Goat, so he had to play the Part himself.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 174: Many an Inland Town looked up to the local Croesus who had corralled One Hundred Thousand. He was supposed to be Fixed.
1927		V Samuels ‘Baseball Sl.’ in AS II:5 255: To ‘corral’ a ball is to catch or field it accurately.
1934		C.S. Johnson Shadow of the Plantation 201: The health officer has corralled sixty-seven of these midwives and has been talking to them about cleanliness .
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.