Chapter VI: Slavery (1)

Origin and motives.--Slavery taught steady labor.--Servitude of
group to group.--Slavery and polygamy.--Some men serve
others.--Freedom and equality.--Figurative use of "slave."--
Ethnography of slavery.--Family slavery.--Slavery amongst North
American savages.--Slavery in South America.--Slavery in
Polynesia and Melanesia.--Slavery in the East Indies.--Slavery
in Asia.--Slavery in Japan.--Slavery in higher civilization.--
Slavery amongst Jews.--Slavery in the classical states.--
Slavery at Rome.--Slave revolts.--Later Roman slavery.--Slaves
in the civil wars; clientage.--Manumission. Natural liberty.--
Slavery as represented in the inscriptions.--Rise of freedom in
industry.--Freedmen in the state.--Philosophers opponents of
slavery.--The industrial colleges.--Laws changed in favor of
slaves.--Christianity and slavery.--The colonate.--
Depopulation.--Summary view of Roman slavery.--The
Therapeuts.--Slavery amongst the Germanic nations.--The sale of
children.--Slavery and the state.--Slavery in Europe. Italy in
the Middle Ages.--Slavery in France.--Slavery in Islam.--
Review of slavery in Islam.--Slavery in England.--Slavery in
America.--Colonial slavery.--Slavery preferred by slaves.--The
future of slavery.--Relation of slavery to the mores and to
ethics.

+270. Origin and motives.+ Slavery is a thing in the mores which
is not well covered by our definition. Slavery does not arise in
the folkways from the unconscious experimentation of individuals
who have the same need which they desire to satisfy, and who try
in separate acts to do it as well as they can. It is rather due
to ill feeling towards members of an out-group, to desire to get
something for nothing, to the love of dominion which belongs to
vanity, and to hatred of labor. "The simple wish to use the
bodily powers of another person, as a means of ministering to
one's own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the foundation of
slavery, and as old as human nature."[625] "There is an
extraordinary power of tyranny invested in the chiefs of tribes
and nations of men that so vastly outweighs the analogous power
possessed by the leaders of animal herds as to rank as a special
attribute of human society, eminently conducive to
slavishness."[626] The desire to get ease or other good by the
labor of another, and the incidental gratification to vanity,
seem to be the fundamental principles in slavery, when
philosophically regarded, after the rule of one man over others
has become established. The whole group, however, must approve of
the custom and must enforce it; otherwise it cannot exist. It
appears that slavery began historically with the war captive, if
he or she was not put to death, as he was liable to be by the
laws of war. Those laws put the defeated, with his wife,
children, and property, at the mercy of the victors. The defeated
might be tortured to death, as was done amongst the North
American Indians, or they might be saved from death by the women.
Then they were put to help the women and were rated as women.
Slavery, therefore, in its origin, was a humanitarian improvement
in the laws of war, and an alleviation of the status of women. It
seems to be established that it began where the economic system
was such that there was a gain in making a slave of a war captive
instead of killing him. It follows that slavery, wherever it has
existed, has affected all the mores of the society. It promised
great results gratis. It will appear below that it has been a
terrible afrit, a demon which promised service but which became a
master. When adopted into the folkways it has dominated and given
tone and color to them all. That is the reason for giving it a
place here.

+271. Slavery taught steady labor.+ It seems to be also right to
understand that slavery proved to be a great schoolmaster to
teach men steady work. If that view is correct, we must
understand that no men would do any hard, persistent work if they
could help it. The defeated were forced to it, and learned to
submit to it. Then they helped the whole society up to a higher
status, in which they also shared.[627] Von Götzen gives some
proof of this when he states that he and his troop of carriers
sat by the camp fire evenings and that one after another told his
life. "Nearly all had been, as children, brought from the inner
country to the coast by slave dealers. Now they were proud of
this slavery, proud of belonging to the 'cultivated' and of not
being any longer 'wild' men."[628] In that view slavery is a part
of the discipline by which the human race has learned how to
carry on the industrial organization. There are some tasks which
have been very hard and very disagreeable. Comrades in an
in-group have never forced these on each other. It seemed to be
good fun, as well as wise policy, to make members of a rival
out-group do these tasks, after defeating them in war. For women
the grinding of seeds (grain) always was a heavy burden until
modern machinery brought natural powers to do it. For men the
rowing of boats (galleys) has been a very hard kind of work.[629]
After slavery came to exist it was extended to other cases, even
to some classes of cases in the in-group. Of these cases the
first was that of debt. Amongst the Eveans a debtor who cannot
pay is put to death. This, however, is a very exceptional
rule.[630] The course of thought is, that a debtor has used
another man's product and is bound to replace it. He therefore
falls into servitude to his creditor in fact, whether it is so
expressed or not. He must live on and work for the creditor.
Another case in which slavery was introduced was that of crime.
The criminal fell under obligations of restitution of value to an
individual or to the whole (chief). Other cases of extension of
slavery will appear below. We have many cases of groups exploited
by other groups. The former are then inferior and despised groups
who are tyrannized over by others who have beaten them in war or
easily could do so.

+272. Servitude of group to group.+ Agriculture is a peaceful
occupation, the pursuit of which breeds out the physical strength
of nomadism. The cases in which nomads rule over tillers belong,
in general, under this head, more especially because such a
difference in the economy of life produces mutual contempt and
hatred. The Israelites entered Canaan as nomads, and their
relation to the Canaanites was that which is here described.
Another case is presented by the smiths, who generally appear as
the earliest handicraftsmen, but are regarded with doubt and
suspicion. They are not slaves, but they are treated as outcasts.
Very often, in case of conquest by an invading tribe, the smiths
remain under the invaders as a subject and despised caste. The
Masarva are descendants of Betchuanas and Bushmen. They stand in
a relation of slaves to the Betchuanas, Matabele, and Marutse, in
whose land they dwell, except that they may not be sold.[631] The
Vaganda are subject to the Vahuma.[632] The latter keep out of
sight, being inferior in civilization but greater in power. Von
Götzen also met with the Vahuma as rulers over the Vahuta, i.e.
"belongers," as they called them.[633] The Arabs hold the negroes
of Borku in subjection and rob them of the date harvest.[634] In
other parts of the same district a nomad section rules over a
settled section of the same population.[635] Nomads hold
themselves to be the proper ones to rule.[636] The Hyksos's
invasion of Egypt is a case of the subjection of tillers by
nomads, attended by all the contempt of men on one grade of
civilized effort for those on another.[637] The combination of
the two, the nomads forming the ruling caste of military nobles,
forms a strong state.[638] The Tuaregs of the Sahara do not allow
the inhabitants of Kauar to raise vegetables or grains, but force
them to buy the same of them (the Tuaregs), which they bring to
them from the Sudan to buy salt, which the Kauar dwellers must
have ready.[639] The Akarnanians, in 1350, sold themselves to the
barbarians, in a body, in order to escape want.[640] The Masai
are another group of warriors and raiders. The Varombutta do
their hunting and tilling for them.[641] The Makololo hold the
Makalaka in similar serfdom, but the subjection is easy and the
servitude light, because the subject individuals can easily run
away.[642] The Hupa of California hold their neighbors in similar
subjection and in tributary servitude.[643] Other cases are
furnished by the Vanyambo, west of the Victoria Nyassa,[644] and
the Djur, who long served the Nubians as smiths.[645] It gives us
pleasure to learn that, about sixty years ago, the inferior
tribes on Uvea (Tai), of the Loyalty group, revolted against the
dominant tribe and nearly exterminated it.[646]

+273. Slavery and polygamy.+ Such instances show us the existence
in human nature of a tendency of stronger groups to exploit
weaker ones in the struggle for existence; in other words,
slavery or forced labor is one way in which, in elementary
civilization, the survival of the fittest group is brought about.
The slavery of individuals has not the same definite result on
the competition of life. "We find polygamy and slavery
continually at work dissolving the cohesion of old political
institutions in the old civilized races of Asia and Africa. In an
uncivilized society, like that of Zululand, they prevent such
cohesion ever taking place. They help to keep the Kaffir tribes
in perpetual unrest and barbarism, by destroying the germs of
civilization and preventing its growth."[647] That the two have
this effect in common may very probably be true, but in many
respects they are antagonistic to each other. Slavery meets the
necessity for many laborers which may otherwise be a cause for
polygamy. Wherever slavery exists it affords striking
illustrations of the tendency of the mores towards consistency
with each other, and that means, of course, their tendency to
cluster around some one or two leading ones. Africa now furnishes
the leading proofs of this. The negro society is one in which
physical force is the chief deciding element. The negroes have
enslaved each other for thousands of years. Very few of them have
ever become slaves to whites without having been previously
slaves to other negroes. In 1875 it was reckoned that twenty
thousand persons, chiefly women and children whose male relatives
had generally been killed, were taken into slavery from around
Lake Nyassa. The difficulties and expense of the slave trade in
that region became so great that it could not be carried on
except by alliance with one tribe which defeated and enslaved
another and sold the survivors. The Arabs opened paths for ivory
hunting. The slave dealers used these means of communication.
They established garrisons in order to exploit the territory, and
ended by depopulating it.[648] Junker argues earnestly against
the impression which has been established in Europe that Arabs
are chiefly to blame for slavery. "There are places in Africa
where three men cannot be sent on a journey together for fear
two of them may combine and sell the third."[649]

+274. Some men serving others. Freedom and equality. Figurative
use of "slavery."+ Must we infer, then, that there is a social
necessity that some men must serve others? In the New Testament
it is taught that willing and voluntary service of others is the
highest duty and glory of human life. If one man's strength is
spent on another man's struggle for existence, the survival of
the former in the competition of life is impaired. The men of
talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the
discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books,
and produce the works of art. The benefit and enjoyment go to the
whole. There are those who joyfully order their own lives so that
they may serve the welfare of mankind. The whole problem of
mutual service is the great problem of societal organization. Is
it a dream, then, that all men should ever be free and equal? It
is at least evident that here ethical notions have been
interjected into social relations, with the result that we have
been taught to think of free and equal units willingly serving
each other. That, at least, is an idealistic dream. Yet it no
more follows from the fact that slavery has done good work in the
history of civilization that slavery should forever endure than
it follows from the fact that war has done good work in the
history of civilization that war is, in itself, a good thing.
Slavery alleviated the status of women; the domestication of
beasts of draft and burden alleviated the status of slaves; we
shall see below that serfs got freedom when wind, falling water,
and steam were loaded with the heavy tasks. Just now the heavy
burdens are borne by steam; electricity is just coming into use
to help bear them. Steam and electricity at last mean coal, and
the amount of coal in the globe is an arithmetical fact. When the
coal is used up will slavery once more begin? One thing only can
be affirmed with confidence; that is, that as no philosophical
dogmas caused slavery to be abolished, so no philosophical dogmas
can prevent its reintroduction if economic changes should make
it fit and suitable again. As steam has had put upon it the hard
work of life during the last two hundred years, the men have been
emancipated from ancient hard conditions and burdens, and the
generalities of the philosophers about liberty have easily won
greater and greater faith and currency. However, the mass of
mankind, taught to believe that they ought to have easy and
pleasant times here, begin to complain again about "wages
slavery," "debt slavery," "rent slavery," "sin slavery," "war
slavery," "marriage slavery," etc. What men do not like they call
"slavery," and so prove that it ought not to be. It appears to be
still in their experience that a free man is oppressed by
contracts of wages, debt, rent, and marriage, and that the cost
of making ready for war and of warding off sin are very heavy.
Political institutions readjust and redistribute the burdens of
life over a population, and they change the form of the same
perhaps, but the burdens are in the conditions of human life.
They are always present, and political institutions never can do
away with them at all. Therefore slavery, if we mean by it
subjection to the conditions of human life, never can be
abolished.

+275. Ethnographical illustrations of slavery.+ In Togo male
slaves work in the fields where yams are cultivated. Each carries
a basket in which he has a chicken, which will live on worms and
insects in the field. The slave is soon married. He has two days
in the week to work for himself. One of his grown boys can
replace him on the other four. He can buy a slave to replace him.
Thus they often attain to wealth, freedom, and power. A female
slave, if married to a free man, becomes free. This form of
slavery is only a mode of service. The slave lives with the
family, and enjoys domestic consideration. There is also debt
slavery, the whole family being responsible for the debt of a
member.[650] Klose, however, describes the ruin wrought by slave
raids. "Murder and incendiarism are the orders in this business.
Great villages and districts are made deserts and are depopulated
by the raids." "It is not in negro nature to subject one's self
voluntarily to labor. The negro wants to be compelled to work."
The fetich priest gives him a harmless drink, which is to be
fatal to him if he tries to run away.[651] The Ngumba in south
Kamerun hold their slaves in huts near their own houses. A
mishandled slave can leave his master and demand the protection
of another. A debtor who cannot pay becomes slave of his creditor
until the debt is paid in value, but this does not free him. He
can pay also by his wife or daughter.[652] Amongst the
Ewe-speaking tribes a woman who is condemned to a fine may sell
or pawn her children, if her husband will not give her the amount
to be paid. The husbands often hold back until the women pawn the
children to them, whereby they obtain complete control of the
children.[653] Their slaves are criminals and debtors, or, if
foreigners, are victims of war or of kidnapping. They are not
regarded with contempt, are well treated, do not have as hard a
lot as an English agricultural laborer, and often attain to
wealth and honor. The master-owner may not kill a slave.[654] In
Bornu the women slaves find favor in the eyes of their masters,
and by amiability win affection. If they have children they win a
firm position, "for only the most stringent circumstances could
compel a Moslem, whose ideas are reasonably correct, to sell the
mother of his children."[655] The Somal and Afar do not deal much
in slaves. They use women and a pariah class. A Somal is never
slave to a Somal, and war captives are not made slaves. Also
amongst the Galla it appears that debtor slavery does not exist.
Criminal slavery does, however, exist, and is used by the chiefs.
It is honorable to treat slaves well. In Kaffa the slaves are
lazy and pretentious, because they know that their owners do not
look to them for labor, but speculate on their children, whom
they will sell.[656] In general, in East Africa, the master-owner
has not the power of life and death, and the slave has a right of
property. "A headman (of a village) in debt sells first his
slaves, then his sisters, then his mother, and lastly his free
wives, after which he has nothing left."[657] Stuhlmann[658] says
that slaves in Uganda are well treated, as members of the family.
Brunache[659] says the same of the Congo tribes so far as they
have not been contaminated by contact with whites. This may be
regarded as characteristic of African slavery. The Vanika of
eastern Africa are herding nomads. They cannot use slaves, and
make war only to steal cattle.[660] Bushmen love liberty. They
submit to no slavery. They are hunters of a low grade. They hate
cattle, as the basis of a life which is different from (higher
than) their own. They massacre cattle which they cannot steal or
carry away.[661] Mungo Park described free negroes reduced to
slavery by famine.[662] In Ashanti a man and a woman discovered
in the act in the bush, or in the open air, are slaves of him who
discovered them, but they are redeemable by their families.[663]
Ashanti slavery is domestic and very mild. The slave marries his
master's daughter and plays with the master. He also eats from
the same dish.[664] Slavery of this form is never cruel or
harsh. Debt slavery is harder, for the services of the pawn count
for nothing on the debt.[665] The effect of the abolition of
slavery in Algeria was stupor amongst master-owners and grief
amongst slaves. The former wondered how it could be wrong to care
for persons who would have been eaten by their fellow-countrymen
if they had succumbed to the hard struggle for existence at home.
The latter saw themselves free--really free--in the desert, with
no supply of food, clothing, or other supplies, and no human
ties.[666] In all families of well-to-do people little negroes
are found. The author saw one who told her that the lady of the
house had suckled him.[667] It is reported from eastern Borneo
that a white man could hire no natives for wages. They thought it
degrading to work for wages, but if he would buy them they would
work for him.[668] In spite of what has been said above about
slavery on the west coast of Africa it is to be remembered that
the master-owner has the power of life and death and that he
often uses it. If he is condemned to death for a crime, he can
give a slave to be executed in his place.[669] In eastern Angola,
if a woman dies in childbirth, her husband has to pay her
parents. If he cannot, he becomes their slave.[670] In South
Africa Holub found that the fiercest slave chasers were blacks,
who had slaves at home and treated them worse than Mohammedans
ever did.[671] Formerly a Kaffir would work in the diamond mines
for three marks a day until he got money enough to buy cattle and
to buy a woman at home, a European suit, a kettle, and a rifle.
Then he went home and set up an establishment. Then he would
return to earn more and buy more wives, who would support him to
his life's end.[672] The stronger Hottentot tribes hold classes
of their own population, or mountain Damara and Bushmen, in
servitude, although no law defines a "slave." Those people hold
the treatment they receive to be due to their origin. Amongst all
South African tribes the rich exert their power to subjugate the
poor, who hang upon them in a kind of clientage, hoping to
receive something. Cruelty and even murder are not punished by
the judges.[673]

+276. Family slavery.+ The savage form of slavery in Africa furnishes us one generalization which may be adopted with confidence. Whenever slaves live in a family, sharing in the family life and associating freely with the male members of it in work, religion, play, etc., the slavery is of a very light type and implies no hardship for the slave.

+277. Slavery in North America among savages.+ Slavery is
believed to have existed amongst the Indians of Virginia. "They
made war, not for land or goods, but for women and children, whom
they put not to death, but made them do service."[674] The young
men and slaves worked in the fields of the Mississippi valley.
The latter were not overworked.[675] The Algonquins made slaves
of their prisoners, especially of the women and children.[676]
The Illinois are represented as an intermediate party who got
slaves in the South and sold them in the West.[677] The Wisconsin
tribes used to make captives of Pawnees, Osages, Missouris, and
Mandans. When Pawnees were such captives (slaves) they were
treated with severity.[678] In the Gulf region of North America
slavery was common from the earliest times. That slaves might not
escape, a sinew in the leg was cut, by the Six Nations.[679] On
the northwestern coast of North America slavery was far more
developed than east of the Rocky Mountains. In Oregon and
Washington slavery was interwoven with the social polity. Slaves
were also harshly treated, as property, not within the limits of
humanity. For a man to kill a half dozen of his own slaves was a
sign of generous magnanimity on his part. One tribe stole
captives from its weaker neighbors. Hence the slave trade is an
important part of the commerce of all the tribes up to
Alaska.[680] In 1841 it was reckoned that one third of the entire
population from northern British Columbia to southern Alaska were
"slaves of the most helpless and abject description." "The great
supply was obtained by trade with the southern Indians, in which
the Tsimshian acted as middlemen. They were kidnapped or captured
by the southern Indians from their own adjacent tribes and sold
to the Tsimshian, who traded them to the northern Thlinkit and
interior Tinné tribes for furs." "Slaves did all the drudgery,
fished for their owner, strengthened his force in war, were not
allowed to hold property or to marry, and when old and worthless
were killed. The master's power was unlimited." The slave must
commit any crime at the command of the master. The slaves were
set free at some ceremonies, but they were put to death at the
funerals of chiefs, or as foundation sacrifices, or in reparation
for insults or wrongs. The northern Indians were more warlike and
would not make good slaves. The Oregon flatheads were docile and
industrious.[681] The Chinooks became the wealthiest tribe in the
region by acting as middlemen to sell war captives taken inland
as far from home as possible.[682] Amongst the Thlinkits slaves
are forbidden to wear the labret, and sex intercourse with a
slave woman disgraces a free man.[683] "Amongst the early Central
Americans the slave who achieved any feat of valor in war
received his liberty and was adopted by the Capulli, or
clan."[684] In Mexico there were slaves of three
classes,--criminals, war captives, and persons who had
voluntarily sold themselves or had been sold by their parents.
The captor generally sacrificed a prisoner, but might hold him as
a slave. Those who sold themselves did so to get a fund for
gambling. There was a public slave mart at Azcapuzalco. The
system is described as kind, but slaves might lose their lives
through the act of the master at feasts or funerals.[685] "Actual
slavery of the Indians in Mexico continued as late as the middle
of the seventeenth century."[686] It is evident that slavery
existed all over North and Central America, but was more
developed on the Pacific coast than in the Mississippi valley.
The meat eaters of the buffalo region had less opportunity to use
the institution.[687]

+278. Slavery in South America.+ In South America we also meet
with at least one case of a tribe, or part of a tribe, which is
in clientage to another tribe. This is a subdivision of the third
rank of the Mbaya, who voluntarily entered into a relation of
clientage to the Mbaya, giving them service under arms, and in
house and field, without being their slaves, being protected in
return by the powerful and feared tribe.[688] The Guykurus carry
on frequent wars to get captives, whom they keep in stringent
servitude. "There is, perhaps, no tribe of South American
Indians, among whom the state of slavery is so distinctly marked
as among them." Slaves and free do not intermarry, lest marriage
be profaned. There is no way in which a slave may become
free.[689] The Guykurus are the strongest tribe in the valley of
the Paraguay. They have horses and were called by the Portuguese
Cavalleiros.[690] In Brazil it was thought that the cultivation
of the country was impossible unless the Indians were made
slaves. The early laws and orders of the kings of Portugal seem
to reveal a sincere desire to control greed and cruelty. In 1570
private slave raids were forbidden and slavery was confined to
those captured in public and just war. Lisbon, however, became a
great slave mart by the law that slaves passing from one colony
(Africa) to another (America) must pass through Lisbon and pay a
tax there. Peter Martyr is quoted that slavery was necessary for
Indians who, if they had no master, would go on with their old
customs and idolatry. Slavery killed them, however. It did not
make them laborers.[691] In general, in the valley of the Yapura,
in the first half of the nineteenth century, slaves were war
captives who were very unkindly treated.[692] The aborigines
began to sell their war captives to Europeans soon after the
latter arrived. They wanted rosewood especially, and they took
Indians to Africa as slaves.[693] Boggiani[694] expresses the
opinion in regard to the savages of the Chaco, as the meadow
region on the Paraguay river is called, that slavery amongst a
people of more civilized mores, is, for them, "an incalculable
benefit," and that "to hinder slavery, in such circumstances,
would be a capital error." "It is necessary to force them to come
out of their brutelike condition, and to awaken their
intelligence, which is not wanting, if they receive practical and
energetic direction." Bridges[695] says that one Fuegian is
thrown into clientage to another by their mode of life. "For a
young man, with no wife and few relatives, must live with some
one who can protect him, and with whom he can live in comfort,
whose wife or wives can catch fish for him, etc."

+279. Slavery in Polynesia and Melanesia.+ Polynesia, Melanesia,
and the East Indies, especially the last, present us pictures of
a society which is old and whose mores have been worn threadbare,
while their stage of civilization is still very low.
Codrington[696] says: "There is no such thing as slavery,
properly so called. In head-hunting expeditions prisoners are
made for the sake of their heads, to be used when occasion
requires, and such persons live with their captors in a condition
very different from that of freedom, but they are not taken or
maintained for the purposes of slaves." Ratzel[697] says:
"Slavery prevailed everywhere in Melanesia, originating either in
war or debt. Sometimes it was hard; sometimes not." Somerville
says that "slaves are kept chiefly for their heads, which are
demanded whenever any occasion necessitates them, such as the
death of the owner." He is speaking of the Solomon Islands.[698]
What Finsch says of the Melanesians may be extended to all the
inhabitants of the South Sea islands.[699] They will not work
because they do not need to. They have few wants. Pfeil wants to
make the people of German Melanesia work, in order that they may
contribute to the tasks of the human race. The problem presents
one of the great reasons for slavery in history.

+280. Slavery in the East Indies.+ The chief of Chittagong[700]
wrote to the English governor, in 1774, that slavery in his
district was due to the sale of himself by any person who was
destitute, and had no friends or position. He and his wife must
serve the master and his wife in any desired way, including
services which a free servant would not perform, "through fear of
demeaning himself and disgracing his family." Abolition of this
slavery would produce complaints by the masters, and would not
please the servants who are used to it. "Until lately the
universal custom prevailed in the hills of having debtor slaves."
The debtor gave one of his children or a female relative to serve
as a menial until the debt should be paid. The pawned persons
"were treated as members of the creditor's family and never
exposed to harsh usage." The effect of interference by the
English was that the wives and daughters of the great men
suddenly had to do all the housework. "Debtor and creditor lost
confidence in each other."[701] "There is a detestable and actual
slavery in these hills, which is now only carried on by
independent tribes, beyond English jurisdiction. This is the
captivity to the bow and spear,--men and women taken prisoners by
force in war, and sold from master to master. The origin of this
custom was the want of women."[702] In the Chin hills there are
slaves who are war captives, or criminals, or debtors, and others
who are voluntary slaves, or slaves by birth. The master had full
power of life and death, but, in fact, slaves were well treated.
The people made raids on the Burmese lowlands and seized captives
who were held for ransom. A slave man cohabits with a slave woman
and brings up his children with affection "in the same humble,
but not necessarily unhappy, position as his own."[703] In Ceylon
there were slave persons of all ranks. Those of royal rank were
princes who were prisoners or criminals. Any one might obtain
slaves by purchase, or accept voluntary slaves who looked to him
for good support.[704] A Malay will buy of a chief a number of
war captives whom he takes to an island. Then he goes to a
Chinaman and tells him that the slaves want to work on that
island, but still owe the speaker the cost of transportation. The
Chinaman pays this and gives to the slaves, on credit, clothes,
etc., including money with which to gamble. Wages are low and
interest high. They never can pay their debts and get their
freedom again. This kind of slave trade has depopulated northern
Nias.[705] On Sumatra, when a debtor is called upon to pay and
cannot, or when he dies and does not leave enough property to pay
his debts, his children fall into semi-slavery. They can perhaps
persuade some one to pay their debts and accept their services.
If their master formally three times demands payment of them
which they cannot give, they fall into full slavery. Slavery
exists in the Malay seaport towns, but not in the rural
districts, where life is too simple.[706] In times of famine and
want parents sell their children into slavery for a little rice.
Children, especially daughters, constitute a large part of the
fortune of a house father.[707]

At Koetei, on the Mahakkam in Borneo, all well-to-do people have
debtors in pawn, whose position is somewhat better than that of
slaves. The debtors seem content and submissive. Captives taken
on head-hunting expeditions are held as slaves until human
sacrifices are wanted.[708] The souls of all those who are put to
death at the death of a Dyak rajah become his servants in the
other world. In this world the killer can command, as his fetich,
the soul of the killed. On the death of a great man his debtor
slaves are bound to the carved village post, which indicates the
glory of head-hunting, and are tortured to death.[709] "Slavery
is greatly practiced" on Timorlaut. A thief, debtor, slanderer,
or defamer may become the slave of the one he has wronged. The
slave trade is also active between the islands.[710] The slaves
of the sea Dyaks adopt their customs and become contented.
Sometimes they win affection and are adopted, freed, and married
to free women. Slaves and masters eat together the same food in
the rural villages.[711] Among the land Dyaks slaves, by
destitution and debt, "are just as happy as if perfectly free,
enjoying all the liberty of their masters, who never think of
ill-using them."[712] In old times one who set a house on fire
was liable to become the slave of any one who was burned
out.[713] Slaves on Timor do not seem to care for liberty. Their
livelihood would not be so certain. There is a kind of slavery to
the kingdom, not to any individual, but the slave cannot be sold
by the king.[714] In the Barito valley a debtor slave has to do
any kind of work. He may be punished by blows, or fines added to
his debt, which may also be increased by any breaches of customs,
or by the value of broken tools or vessels. A month after a child
is born to him ten gulden are added, also expenses of education
when the child is ready to go to work. He may be slain at a feast
of the dead by his master. The owner can torment the debtor by
new fines, and keep up the debt or even increase it.[715] In the
Katingan valley there are no debtor slaves, because after three
years a debtor who cannot pay becomes an hereditary slave, and
cannot get his liberty even if he should get the means to pay his
debt.[716] If he ever gets the means to pay and attempts to free
himself he is compelled to pay fees, taxes, and customary dues to
the "spirits of the house," etc. When he leaves his master's
house he must not return to it for a year or two, nor eat
anything brought from it--"to prove his independence." Then he
gives a feast and becomes free.[717] "Slavery and pawnship are,
in the nature of the case, the same."[718] The Dyaks put their
Eden on a cloud island. They have a myth that the daughters of
the great Being let down seven times seven hundred cords of gold
thread in order to lower mortals upon a mountain, but the mortals
were overhasty and tried to lower themselves by bamboos and
rattans. The god, angry at this, condemned them to slavery. The
myth, therefore, accounts for a caste of slaves. Formerly also
war captives and criminals who could not pay fines became slaves.
Debts cause men to fall into pawnship. Extravagant living, and
gambling, lead to this condition. If a man becomes pawn for a
debt his whole household goes with him. All have to work very
hard to try to satisfy a greedy master. The pawn is entitled to
one tenth of the harvest, or of the gain by trade. Free men
despise pawns.[719] Wilken[720] says of the Bataks that a slave,
by diligence and thrift, can always buy himself. In addition to
all the ill chances of gambling, extravagance, making love to
another man's wife, etc., by which a man may become a debtor
slave, customs exist which are traps for the unwary. Sago and
rice are left in the woods, in some islands, until wanted. If a
man passes the store, he is supposed to take away the spirit of
the goods. If caught, he and all his family become slaves. If a
man dies who was wont to fish at a certain place, the place
becomes taboo to his ghost. Any one who fishes there becomes a
slave to his family. Also, if a district is in mourning, any one
who breaks the mourning customs is made a slave.[721] The
education of the Chinese in ethical doctrines has made slavery
amongst them slight and mild. It is attributed to poverty, which
forces parents to sell their daughters.[722] The owners must
provide female slaves with husbands, and the law forbids the
separation of husband and wife, or of parents and little
children.[723] It appears that slavery is forbidden by law, but
is tolerated in the case where the parents are poor. Boys once
enslaved continue in bondage and their children follow them, but
there is no legal possession. Girls become free at marriage.[724]

+281. Slavery in Asia.+ Slavery in Asia is of a kind which puts the slave largely at the mercy of his owner, but the mores have taught the slave owner to use his power with consideration. This is generally, not universally, true. Nivedita says[725] that "slavery in Asia, under the régime of great religious systems, has never meant what Europe and America have made of it.... It is a curious consequence of this humanity of custom [or rather, of the judgment in the mores as to the wisest course of conduct in a class of cases] that the word 'slave' cannot be made to sting the Asiatic consciousness as it does the European."

+282. Slavery in Japan.+ In Japan slavery was a common punishment, in early times, for crime. Debtors unable to pay became slaves of their creditors, and thieves were made slaves of those whom they had robbed. The attempt to introduce Christianity into Japan and the resistance to it led to the slavery of many Christian converts, if they refused after torture to recant. This was an alternative to death. Slaves were tattooed with marks to show ownership. "Slaves were bought and sold like cattle in early times, or presented as tribute by their owners,--a practice constantly referred to in the ancient records." Their sex unions were not recognized. "In the seventh century, however, private slaves were declared state property, and great numbers were then emancipated, including nearly all,--probably all, who were artisans, or followed useful callings. Gradually a large class of freedmen came into existence, but until modern times the great mass of the common people appear to have remained in a condition analogous to serfdom."[726]

+283. Slavery in higher civilization.+ It appears quite clear that men in savagery and barbarism used each other, if they could, to serve their interests, and slavery resulted. The hardships of life caused it. The rules of war were "Woe to the vanquished!" and "To the victors the spoils." Debt was a relation which might come about between two men from incidents in the struggle for existence, or from loans of money and goods. All mischance might be converted into lack of resources (money and goods), and he who borrowed fell into dependence and servitude. All violations of custom and law led to fines; all need of civil authority made it necessary to pay fees. The debtor pledged his future working time. His relation to his creditor was personal. That he was a borrower proved that he had nothing which could form a property security. The laws of Hammurabi provide that a debtor may give his wife and children as pawn slaves, but only for three years. In the fourth year the creditor was to set them free. The pawn persons were to be well treated. A slave given in pawn might be sold, but not if it was a female slave with children.[727] To aid or conceal a fugitive slave was a capital offense.[728] Many Chaldean contracts have been found in which the debtor bound himself to work for the creditor until he should pay the debt.[729] It appears that the Babylonian slaves could form a _peculium_ and carry on business with it as a capital, paying their owners a tax upon it.[730]

+284. Slavery amongst Jews.+ The Jewish law had a provision like that in the law of Hammurabi, except that the limit was six years instead of three. A debtor was not to be a slave, but to give service until the year of jubilee.[731] In 2 Kings iv. 1 the widow tells Elisha that her husband's creditors will come and take her two sons to be bondmen. The creditors of some of the Jews who returned from exile threatened to make them debtor slaves. Nehemiah appealed to them not to do so.[732] In Matt. xviii. 25 the man who could not pay was to be sold with his wife and children. Kidnapping was punishable by death.[733] In Job xxxi. 15 we find the ultimate philosophico-religious reason for repudiating slavery: "Has not He who made me made him [the slave] also in his mother's womb?" The laws of the "Book of Covenants" begin with laws about slaves.[734] A male slave, with his wife, is to be freed in the seventh year, unless he prefers to remain a slave. A man may sell his daughter into slavery, i.e. to be a concubine. There was no difference in principle between a daughter given to wife and one sold to be a concubine. In Deut. xv. 12 the female slave is also set free in the seventh year, and persons so freed are to be given gifts when they depart. The slaves were war captives, or bought persons, or criminals.[735] The lot of slaves was not hard. The owners had not the power of life and death. The slave could acquire property.[736] If the slave was an Israelite he was protected by especial restrictions on the master in behalf of fellow-countrymen.[737]

+285. Slavery in the classical states.+ Slavery came to the two great classical states from the antecedent facts of savage and barbaric life. When Aristotle came to study slavery he could not find a time when it was not. We have seen how it had become one of the leading institutions of uncivilized society, and how it had been developed in different forms and degrees. The two great classical states, more especially Rome, built their power on slavery. Both states pursued their interests with little care for the pain they might inflict on others, or the cost in the happiness of others. The Roman state began by subjugating its nearest neighbors. It used its war captives as slaves, increased its power, conquered more, and repeated the process until it used up all the known world. The Phoenicians were merchants, who kidnapped men, women, and children, if they found opportunity, and sold them into slavery far from home. The Ionians, who grew rich by commerce, bought slaves and organized states in which slaves did all the productive work. In both Greece and Rome productive work came to be despised. One is amazed to find how easily any one who went on a journey might fall into slavery, or how recklessly the democracy of one city voted to sell the people of a defeated city into slavery, yet how unhesitatingly everybody accepted and repeated the current opinions about the baseness of slave character. Homer says that a slave has only half the soul of a man.[738] The love stories in the _Scriptores Erotici_ very often contain an incident of kidnapping. The story of Eumæus must have been that of many a slave.[739] It is also only rarely and very incidentally that the classical writers show any pity for slaves, although they often speak of the sadness of slavery.[740] If any man, especially a merchant, who went on a journey incurred a great risk of slavery, why was not slavery a familiar danger of every man, and therefore a matter for pity and sympathy? In the great tragedies the woes of slavery, especially the contrasts for princes and princesses, heroes and heroines, are often presented. Polyxena, in Euripides's _Hekuba_, 360, bewails her anticipated lot as a slave. A fierce master will buy her. She will have to knead bread for him, to sweep and weave, leading a miserable life, given as wife to some base slave. She prefers to be sacrificed at Achilles's tomb. When the Greeks were going to kill her, she asked them to keep their hands off. She would submit. Let her die free. "It would be a shame to me, royal, to be called a slave amongst the dead." In the _Trojan Women_ the screams of the Trojan women are heard, as they are distributed by lot to their new Greek masters. The play is full of the woes of slavery. At Athens slaves enjoyed great freedom of manners and conduct. They dressed like the poorest freedmen. No one dare misuse the slave of another simply because he was a slave. If the master abused a slave, the latter had an asylum in the temple and could demand to be sold. Slaves could pursue any trade which they knew, paying a stipulated sum to their owners, and could thus buy their manumission. Their happiness, however, depended on the will of another.[741] In the law they were owned as things were, and could be given, lent, sold, and bequeathed. They could not possess property, nor have wives in assured exclusive possession against masters. Their children belonged to their masters. Plato thought that nature had made some to command, others to serve.[742] He thought the soul of a slave base, incapable of good, unworthy of confidence.[743] Aristotle thought that every well-appointed house needs animate and inanimate tools. The animate tools are slaves, who have souls, but not like those of their masters. They lack will. Slaves are like members of the master, ruled by his will. Their virtue is obedience.[744] He says that there were men in his time who said that slavery was an injustice due to violence and established by law.[745]

+286. Slavery at Rome.+ It is in ancient Rome that we find slavery most thoroughly developed. Any civilization which accomplishes any great results must do so by virtue of force which it has at its disposal. The Romans conquered and enslaved their nearest neighbors. By virtue of their increased power they extended their conquests. They repeated this process until they had consumed all the known world. The city of Rome was a center towards which all the wealth of the world was drawn. There was no reverse current of goods. What went out from Rome was government,--peace, order, and security. The provinces probably for a time made a good bargain, although the price was high. In the earliest times slaves were used for housework, but were few in number per household. In 150 B.C. a patrician left to his son only ten. Crassus had more than five hundred. C. Caec. Claudius, in the time of Augustus, had 4116.[746] In the early days a father and his sons cultivated a holding together. Slaves were used when more help was needed. There was one slave to three sons and they lived in constant association of work and play. When conquest rendered slaves numerous and cheap, free laborers disappeared.[747] Ti. Semp. Gracchus, in 177 B.C., after the war in Sardinia, sold so many Sardinian slaves that "cheap as a Sardinian" became a proverb.[748] His son Tiberius is reported to have been led into his agrarian enterprise by noticing that the lands of Etruria were populated only by a few slaves of foreign birth.[749] Bücher[750] puts together the following statistics of persons reduced to slavery about 200 B.C.: after the capture of Tarentum (209 B.C.), 30,000; in 207 B.C., 5400; in 200 B.C., 15,000.[751] Roman slaves were not allowed to marry until a late date. They were systematically worked as hard as it was possible to make them work, and were sold or exposed to perish when too old to work. Such was the policy taught by the older Cato.[752] The number on the market was always great; the price was low; it was more advantageous to work them so hard that they had no time or strength to plot revolts. This is the most cynical refusal to regard slaves as human beings which can be found in history. They were liable to be tortured in their owners' cases in court. They might be given over to the gladiatorial shows and set to fight each other, or wild beasts. Seventy-eight gladiators condemned to fight to the death revolted in 74 B.C. under Spartacus, who defeated five armies. Crassus was sent against him with eight legions. Lucullus was recalled from Thrace and Pompey from Spain. Spartacus was cut to pieces in his last battle. Crassus crucified six thousand prisoners along the road from Capua to Rome.[753]

+287. Slave revolts.+ The severity of the Roman system of slavery
is shown by the number of revolts and the severe proceedings in
each of them. There was such a revolt in 499 B.C. The guilty were
crucified. The following year there was another.[754] In 416
there was another. The aim always was to take the citadel and
burn the city.[755] Sicily was covered with a swarm of slaves at
the beginning of the second century B.C. They were especially
Syrians, very tough and patient. They were managed under Cato's
plan: "Work or sleep!" In 196 B.C. the slaves in Etruria revolted
and were suppressed with great severity.[756] In 104 those of
Sicily revolted. They were subdued four years later and the last
remnant were sent to Rome to fight beasts. They killed themselves
in the arena.[757] The later Roman system was that the mob of the
city put the world in the hands of one or another, and he gave
them bread and games as their part of the plunder. The
_frumentaria_ were the permanent and steady pay of the "world
conquerors." They made herding the best use of Italian land.
"Where before industrious peasants prospered in glad contentment,
now unfree herdsmen, in wide wastes, drove the immense herds of
Roman senators and knights."[758] The Sicilian landowners left
their shepherds to steal what they needed, so that they were
educated to brigandage. The greatest sufferer was the small
freeman.[759] There is a story in Diodorus,[760] of Damophilos,
an owner of great _latifundia_, whose slaves came to him to beg
clothes. He replied: "Do the travelers, then, go naked through
the country? Are they not bound to pay toll to him who needs
clothes?" He caused them to be flogged and sent them back to
work. The misery of the slave population seems to have reached
its acme at Enna where two roads across the island cross each
other. The town lies 3000 feet high. It was a great fortress down
into the Middle Ages.[761] At this place began a slave revolt,
led by a Syrian skilled in sorcery. The slaves took the city and
engaged in rapine and murder. A band was sent to capture
Damophilos. The men killed him, and the women his wife. Their
daughter was sent in security to her relatives.[762] It was ten
years before peace was restored to the island.