Chapter IV.. Freedom and Slavery.

Freedom And Slavery.

Section LXVII.

The Origin Of Slavery.

An institution like that of personal bondage, which, it can be shown, has existed, among all nations of which history gives us information, at one time or another, must have very general causes. Among these may be mentioned especially subjection through war. It is not possible to calculate how much the principle, that it was proper to reduce the man to slavery whom it was considered right to kill, contributed to make war less bloody in an uncivilized age.(396) A nation of hunters is almost compelled to grant no quarter; the conqueror would be obliged either to feed his prisoner or to put arms in his hands. It is certainly a great humanitarian advance, when this state of things is superseded by slavery among nomadic nations.(397)

In times of peace, economic dependence is the result of poverty, excessive debt etc.(398) Where there is no division of labor, the individual has no means of supplying his wants, except by cultivating a spot of ground. But, how can the poor wretch who has neither capital(399) nor land exchange anything of value for either? Such an advance, where there is no security in law, can be made only on the credit of a very important pledge. But the man who is destitute of all property can offer nothing but the productive power of himself or of his family.(400) And so it is with the small landed proprietor who has lost all his capital;(401) for, considering the superabundance of land, the part which he possesses has value in exchange only to the extent that it is joined with the certainty of being cultivated; and here is the origin of the glebæ adscriptio. The hereditary transmission of the relation to the children seems to be equally useful to them; or who, were this not the case, would think of providing them with food? It also frequently happens that poor parents prefer to sell their children to seeing them starve.(402) Hence the strange fact that most nations have the most rigid system of slavery precisely at the time that the soil produces food most readily. We need only cite the instance of the South Sea Islands, at the time of their discovery. In many negro countries, where the people have not yet learned to use animals for transportation, the lowest classes, although they enjoy a nominal liberty, are used as beasts of burden.(403)