CHAPTER XXVII. Slavery

SLAVERY

SLAVERY is essentially an industrial institution, which implies compulsory labour beyond the limits of family relations. The master has a right to avail himself of the working power of his slave, without previous agreement on the part of the latter. This I take to be the essence of slavery; but connected with such a right there are others which hardly admit of a strict definition, or which belong to the master in some cases though not in all. He is entitled to claim obedience and to enforce this claim with more or less severity, but his authority is not necessarily absolute, and the restrictions imposed on it are not everywhere the same. According to a common definition of slavery, the slave is the property of his master, but this definition is hardly accurate. It is true that even in the case of inanimate property the notion of ownership does not involve that the owner of a thing is always entitled to do with it whatever he likes; a person may own a thing and yet be prohibited by law from destroying it. But it seems that the owner's right over his property, even when not absolute, is at all events exclusive, that is, that nobody but the owner has a right to the disposal of it. Now the master's right of disposing of his slave is not necessarily {671} exclusive; custom or law may grant the latter a certain amount of liberty, and in such a case his condition differs essentially from that of a piece of property. The chief characteristic of slavery is the compulsory nature of the slave's relation to his master. Voluntary slavery, as when a person sells himself as a slave, is only an imitation of slavery true and proper; the person who gives up his liberty confers upon another, by contract, either for a limited period or for ever, the same rights over himself as a master possesses over his slave. If slavery proper could be based upon a contract between the parties concerned, I fail to see how to distinguish between a servant and a slave.

Dr. Nieboer has recently with much minuteness examined the distribution of slavery and its causes among savage races. It appears from his work that slavery is unknown in Australia, and in Oceania restricted to certain islands. In the Malay Archipelago, on the other hand, it prevails very extensively. Among the aboriginal tribes of India and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula it is fairly common, whereas no certain traces of it are found among the lower races of Central Asia and Siberia, with the exception of the Kamchadales. In North America it exists along the Pacific Coast from Behring Strait to the northern boundary of California, but beyond this district it seems to be unknown. In Central and South America there are at any rate several scattered cases of it, and if our knowledge of the South American Indians were less fragmentary, many other instances might perhaps be added. In savage Africa there are only one or two districts where no certain cases of slavery are encountered, whilst large agglomerations of slave-keeping tribes occur on the Coast of Guinea and in the district formed by Lower Guinea and the territories bordering the Congo.

Slaves are kept only where there is employment for them, and where the circumstances are otherwise favourable to the growth of slavery. Its existence or non-existence {672} in a tribe largely depends on the manner in which that tribe lives. Among hunters it hardly occurs at all. Mr. Spencer justly observes that, "in the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food." Moreover, they would have to be procured from foreign tribes, and to prevent such slaves from running away would be almost impossible for hunters who roam over vast tracts of land in pursuit of game, especially if the slaves also were engaged in hunting. For a small community of hunters--and their communities generally are small--it might even be dangerous to keep foreign slaves in their midst. Among fishing tribes, on the other hand, slavery is much more common, attaining a special importance among those who live on or near the Pacific Coast of North-Western America. These tribes have an abundance of food, they have fixed habitations, they live in comparatively large groups, and trade and industry, property and wealth, are well developed among them. In consequence, they find the services of slaves useful, and, at the same time, the slaves have little chance of making their escape.

Of the pastoral tribes referred to in Dr. Nieboer's list only one half keep slaves, and among some of these slave-keeping is said to be a mere luxury. To pastoral peoples, as such, slave labour is of little moment. Among them subsistence depends much more on capital than on labour, and for the small amount of work which is required free labourers are easily procured. As Dr. Nieboer observes, "among people who live upon the produce of their cattle, a man who owns no cattle, i.e. no capital, has no means of subsistence. Accordingly, among pastoral tribes we find rich and poor men; and the poor often offer themselves as labourers to the rich." Pastoral peoples have thus no strong motives for making slaves, but at the same {673} time "there are no causes preventing them from keeping slaves. These tribes are, so to speak, in a state of equilibrium; a small additional cause on either side turns the balance. One such additional cause is the slave-trade; another is the neighbourhood of inferior races." All those pastoral peoples who keep slaves live in districts where an extensive slave-trade has for a long time been carried on. The slaves are often purchased from slave-traders, and in several cases they belong to an inferior race.

Among agricultural peoples slavery prevails more extensively; further, it is more common among such tribes as subsist chiefly by agriculture than among incipient agriculturists, who still depend on hunting or fishing for a large portion of their food. In primitive agricultural communities nobody voluntarily serves another, because subsistence is independent of capital and easy to procure. "All freemen in new countries," says Mr. Bagehot, "must be pretty equal; every one has labour, and every one has land; capital, at least in agricultural countries (for pastoral countries are very different), is of little use; it cannot hire labour; the labourers go and work for themselves." Hence in such countries, if a man wants another to work for him, he must compel him to do it--that is, he must make him his slave. This holds true of most savage countries, namely, of all those in which there is much more fertile land than is required to be cultivated for the support of the actual population; but it does not hold true of all. Where every piece of land fit for cultivation has been appropriated, a man who owns no land cannot earn his subsistence independently of a landlord; hence free labourers are available, slaves are not wanted, and slavery is not likely to exist. And even where there are no poor persons, but everybody has a share in the resources of the country, the use of slaves cannot be great, since a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity of land, can only employ a limited number of labourers. {674} For instance, the absence of slavery in many Oceanic islands may be accounted for by the fact that all land had been appropriated, which led to a state of things inconsistent with slavery as a social system.

These are the main conclusions at which Dr. Nieboer has arrived by means of much admirable and painstaking research. Most of them, I think, are undoubtedly correct; yet it seems to me that the influence of economic conditions upon the institution of slavery has perhaps been emphasised too much at the cost of other factors. The prevalence of slavery in a savage tribe and the extent to which it is practised must also depend upon the ability of the tribe to procure slaves from foreign communities and upon its willingness to allow its own members to be kept as slaves within the tribe. It may be very useful for a group of savages to have a certain number of slaves, and yet they may not have them, for the reason that no slaves are to be had. It is only in extraordinary cases that a person is allowed to enslave a member of his own community. Intra-tribal slavery is a question not only of economic but of moral concern, whilst extra-tribal slavery originally depends upon success in war.

We have reason to believe that the earliest source of slavery was war or conquest, and that slavery in many cases was a substitution for putting prisoners of war to death. Savages, who have little mercy on their enemies, naturally make no scruple in reducing them to slavery whenever they find their advantage in doing so. Among existing savages, in fact, prisoners of war are very frequently enslaved. They and their descendants, together {675} with persons kidnapped or purchased from foreign tribes, seem generally to form by far the majority of the slave population in uncivilised countries.

Whilst little regard is paid to the liberty of strangers, custom everywhere, as a rule, forbids the enslaving of tribesmen. Yet sometimes a father's power over his children, as also a husband's power over his wife, involves the right of selling them as slaves; and among various peoples a person may be reduced to slavery for committing a crime, or for insolvency. Among the tribes of Western {676} Washington and North-Western Oregon, if an Indian has wronged another and failed to make compensation, he may be taken as a slave. The Papuans of Dorey had a law according to which an incendiary with his family became the slave of the late proprietor of the burned house. Among the Line Islanders of Micronesia, if a man of low class stole some food from a person belonging to the "gentry," he became the slave of the latter and lost all his property. Sometimes a man is induced by great poverty to sell himself as a slave. But most intra-tribal slaves are born unfree, being the offspring of parents one or both of whom are slaves.

In descriptions of slave-holding savages it is often said that a master has absolute power over his slave. But even in such instances, when details are scrutinised, it frequently appears that custom or public opinion does not allow a person to treat his slave just as he pleases. We have noticed above that in many cases the master is expressly denied the right of killing him at his own discretion. More commonly than one would imagine the master has not {677} even an unlimited right to sell his slave. Among some peoples he may sell at will such slaves only as have been captured in war or purchased, not such as have been born in the house. In several instances a slave, and especially a domestic slave, cannot be sold unless he has been guilty of some crime or misdemeanour. Among the Banaka and Bapuku in the Cameroons the master may chastise or send away a slave who has behaved badly, but is not allowed to sell him. There are, moreover, instances in which the master is entitled not to all the services of his slave, but only to a limited portion of them. In some parts of Africa the slave is obliged to work for his master on certain days of the week or a certain number of hours, but has the rest of his time free. In the highlands of Palembang, Sumatra, a slave may carry on trade and hire himself out as a day labourer on his own behalf, and when he works in the field one-half of his harvesting belongs to him and the other half to his master. Where the slave is allowed to possess property of his own he may in some cases, though not in all, buy his freedom; and debtor-slaves are as a rule entitled to regain their liberty by paying off the debt. Many peoples even permit a dissatisfied slave to change his master. Among the Washambala, if a person does not fulfil his duties towards any of his slaves, the latter has a right to complain of him to the chief, and should the accusation prove true the chief buys the slave of his master for an ox and two cows, and keeps {678} him for himself. Among other peoples a slave, in order to get a new master, has only to cause a slight damage to somebody's property, or to commit some other trifling offence, in which case he must be given up to the person he "injured." It is astonishing to notice how readily, in many African countries, slaves are allowed by custom to rid themselves of tyrannical or neglectful masters. The Barea and Bazes have a law according to which a slave becomes free by simply leaving his lord. Among the Manipuris, in Further India, if a slave flies from one master and selects for himself another, it is presumed that he has been badly treated by the first one, and the fugitive can consequently not be reclaimed.

A slave among the lower races can thus by no means be described as a being destitute of all rights. As a rule, it seems, he is treated kindly, very commonly as an inferior member of the family. Among the Aleuts a slave suffering want would bring dishonour upon his master. The South American Mbayás, says Azara, {679} "aiment extraordinairement tous leurs esclaves; jamais ils ne leur commandent d'un ton imperieux; jamais ils ne les reprimandent, ni ne les châtient, ni ne les vendent, quand même ce seraient des prisonniers de guerre. . . . Quel contraste avec le traitement que les européens font éprouver aux africains!" In West Africa "the condition of slavery is not regarded as degrading, and a slave is not considered an inferior being." On the Gold Coast, with the exception of the unpleasant liability of being sent at any moment to serve his master in the other world, the lot of a slave is not generally one of hardship, but is on the whole far better than that of the agricultural labourer in England. The slave is generally considered a member of the family, and if native-born succeeds in some cases in default of an heir to the property of his master. In the Yoruba country it was quite common for a slave to be named by his master in his last will to be the factor or general manager of the estate, and to be left to take care of the entire establishment. Among the Kreis Kita, of the French Soudan, the master calls his domestic slaves his sons, and they call him their father; nay, the natural guardian of an heir who is not yet of age is not his mother, but the eldest domestic slave of the household. Speaking of the natives in the region of Lake Nyassa, Mr. Macdonald remarks that most Africans like to see their slaves become rich; "Are they not," they say, "our own children?" Among the Wabondei, "if a man buys a slave, he calls his own children and says, 'Behold your brother.' The slave is treated as a son, and is neither beaten nor tied." In Madagascar the slaves "are kindly treated by their masters, they are considered as a kind of inferior members of the family to whom they belong, and many of the slaves have a {680} practical freedom of action to which the free population are quite strangers." The slavery prevalent among the native races of the Malay Archipelago is generally mild. In Borneo, says Mr. Boyle, "we always found a difficulty in distinguishing the servile portion of a household from the freeborn population, and the honours and distinctions open to the latter class are likewise accessible to the former." The slave-debtors of the Dyaks are "just as happy in this state--living in their creditors' houses and working on their farms--as if perfectly free, enjoying all the liberty of their masters." Among the Chittagong Hill tribes the debtor-slaves were treated as members of the creditor's family, and were never exposed to harsh usage. Among the Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush slaves are sometimes chosen among the annually elected magistracy, and Sir Scott Robertson knew of a case in which a master and his slave went through the ceremony of brotherhood together.

It appears that intra-tribal slaves, especially such as are born in the house, are generally treated better than extra-tribal or purchased slaves, and that slaves are most oppressed by their masters when they belong to a different race. We are told that among the South American Guaycurus the two causes of slavery, captivity and birth, imply a certain difference of caste, which is maintained {681} with great rigour. Mungo Park observes that in Africa the domestic slaves or such as are born in their master's house are treated more leniently than those who are purchased. "I was told," he says, "that the Mandingo master can neither deprive his slave of life, nor sell him to a stranger, without first calling a palaver on his conduct, or, in other words, bringing him to a public trial; but this degree of protection is extended only to the native or domestic slave." Tuckey makes exactly the same observation as regards the natives of Congo. On the Gold Coast slaves are of three kinds--native-born, imported, and prisoners of war; and "a distinction is always made between the first and the two latter, who are treated with far less consideration." Speaking of the Central African tribes generally, Mr. Rowley states that slavery assumes a much severer character among the pastoral than among the agricultural tribes, because the slaves of the former are for the most part captives of war, whereas those of the latter have rarely been acquired by conquest but mostly by inheritance. Among the agricultural tribes, he adds, persons who are in bondage are not called slaves but children, and those to whom they are in bondage are not called masters but fathers. Among the Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush all slaves "are not of the same social position, for the house slave is said to be much higher in grade than the artisan slave. . . . The domestic slaves live with their masters."

Among the nations of archaic civilisation slavery presents essentially the same characteristics as among the lower races. In ancient Mexico there were various classes of slaves--prisoners of war, criminals condemned to lose their freedom, children sold by their parents, and persons who had sold themselves. The relations between master and slave are represented as friendly. "Slavery {682} in Mexico." says Mr. Bancroft, "was, according to all accounts, a moderate subjection, consisting merely of an obligation to render personal service, nor could that be exacted without allowing the slave a certain amount of time to labour for his own advantage." Masters could not sell their slaves without their consent, unless they were slaves with a collar, that is, runaway, rebellious, or vicious slaves, who in spite of two or three warnings did not mend their behaviour. Their children were invariably born free; and when their masters died they generally became free themselves.

In China the slave class is composed of prisoners of war, of persons who sell themselves or are sold by others, and of the children of slaves; and in former days public slavery was a punishment for crime. It is true that the penal code forbids the sale of free persons; according to the letter of the text even the father of a family must not sell his children, and persons who voluntarily submit themselves to be sold are punished by law. But these regulations are frequently transgressed; in times of distress children are often sold by their parents, and the kidnapping of children is an even more common source from which the supply of slaves is kept up. The master's power over his slave is not quite absolute, but it seems to be fully as great as the father's power over his child. A master who falsely accuses his slave suffers no punishment for it; on the other hand, a slave cannot complain in a court of justice of ill-treatment from his master. Yet the condition of slaves in China is generally easy enough. "In all Chinese families of 'the upper ten {683} thousand,' an intimacy exists between masters and men-servants on the one hand, and mistresses and female servants on the other. Servants not unfrequently make suggestions in reference to the well-being of the family, and in many instances, domestic matters of a grave nature are discussed before them." In Chinese novels the servant is the confidant of his master, and harsh behaviour towards slaves is only attributed to vicious persons; according to the Divine Panorama, he who beats or injures his slave without estimating the punishment by the fault is tormented in hell. Many travellers have pointed out the difference between the comparatively happy condition of slaves in China and the degraded position of the former negro slaves in European colonies and the United States of America. "In China," it is observed, "the identity of blood, colour, race, and habit between master and servant, operates as a restraint on the avarice, vices, and cruelty of the former, which would not be the case if they were of different races as in America."

It has been suggested that in ancient Egypt the aboriginal inhabitants of the country were made slaves by the conquering race. "Si nous consultons les monuments," says M. Amélineau, "nous remarquons dans les peintures qui ornent les parois des tombeaux de Saqqarah une certaine race d'hommes sur laquelle Mariette avait déjà appelé l'attention. . . . Je crois que ce sont là des esclaves, vieux restes des populations primitives soumises par les conquérants nouvellement arrivés dans la vallée du Nil, descendants des premières tribus humaines qui s'étaient installées en Égypt." During the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, which form the chief period of Egypt's foreign conquests, mention is frequently made of the employment of prisoners of war as slaves. Every Pharao of these dynasties recounts how he filled the god Amon's storehouses with male and female slaves from his {684} spoil. These slaves are occasionally represented in tombs; thus in the tomb of Rekhmere some slaves who are making bricks and building a wall are designated as "the spoil which his Majesty brought for the construction of the temple of Amon." M. Amélineau believes that slavery was in Egypt milder than in Greece and Rome. According to the Book of the Dead, the pity of the god extends to slaves; not only does he command that no one should ill-treat them himself, but he forbids that their masters should be led to ill-treat them.

In ancient Chaldæa, beneath the free Semite and Sumerian population, there was a class of slaves largely consisting of captives from foreign races and their descendants, but continually reinforced by individuals of the native race such as foundlings, women sold by their husbands, children sold by their fathers, and probably debtors whom their creditors had deprived of their liberty. Their position was evidently not one of excessive hardship. As a rule, they were permitted to marry and bring up a family; and it seems that masters, when selling their slaves, as much as possible avoided separating parents and children. The master often apprenticed the children of his slaves, and as soon as they knew a trade he set them up in business in his own name, allowing them a share in the profits. A slave could hire himself out for wages, and could himself acquire slaves to work for him. He was even entitled to purchase his freedom. "La loi babylonienne," says M. Oppert, "lassait aux esclaves sur quelques points {685} plus de prérogatives que le Code français n'en accorde à nos épouses."

Among the Hebrews the slave class consisted of captives taken in war; of persons bought with money from neighbouring nations or from foreign residents in the land; of children of slaves born in the house; of native Hebrews who had been sold by their fathers, or who either alone or with their wives and children had fallen into slavery in consequence of poverty, or who had been sold by the authorities as slaves on account of theft when unable to pay compensation for the stolen property. To deprive an Israelite of his freedom for any other reason, to steal him, use him as a slave, or sell him, was a crime punishable with death. And even the Israelite who lost his liberty because he had become poor on account of poverty was not to be treated in the same way as the slave of foreign origin. He could not be compelled to serve as a bondservant, only as a hired servant. He should not be ruled over with rigour. He might not only be redeemed at any time by his relatives, but if not redeemed he was bound to receive his freedom without payment in the seventh year, and then the master should not let him go away empty, but furnish him liberally out of his flock, his floor, and his wine-press. Slaves of foreign extraction, on the other hand, were not to be emancipated, but should remain slaves for ever, descending to children and children's children. But in no case had the master absolute power over his slave. Whether the latter was an Israelite or a foreigner, his life, and to some extent his body, were protected by law; and if a slave escaped from a hard master, he {686} should not be given up, but be allowed to live unmolested in the place which he should choose in one of the cities of Israel. From everything that we read about slaves among the Hebrews it appears that they were regarded as inferior members of the family, and that the house-father cared for their well-being hardly less than for that of his own children. In the Talmud masters are repeatedly admonished to treat their slaves with kindness; traffic in human beings is regarded as an occupation which incapacitates the dealer to sit as judge; and emancipation of slaves is practically encouraged in various ways, in spite of the dictum of certain rabbis that he who emancipates his slave transgresses the positive precept of Leviticus xxv. 46, "They shall be your bondmen for ever."

According to Islam, a Muhammedan who is born free can never become a slave. "The slave," says Mr. Lane, "is either a person taken captive in war or carried off by force from a foreign country, and being at the time of capture an infidel; or the offspring of a female slave by another slave, or by any man who is not her owner, or by her owner if he do not acknowledge himself to be the father." The slave should be treated with kindness; the Prophet said, "A man who behaves ill to his slave will not enter into Paradise." The master should give to his slaves of the food which he eats himself, and of the clothes with which he clothes himself. He should not {687} order them to do anything beyond their power, and in the hot season, during the hottest hours of the day, he should let them rest. He may marry them to whom he will, but he may not separate them when married. He may, generally, give them away or sell them as he pleases, but he must not separate a mother from her child. The Prophet said, "Whoever is the cause of separation between mother and child, by selling or giving, God will separate him from his friends on the day of resurrection." Nor is a master allowed to alienate a female slave who has borne to him a child which he recognises as his own; and at his death the mother is entitled to emancipation. To liberate a slave is regarded as an act highly acceptable to God, and as an expiation for certain sins. These rules, it should be added, are not only recognised in theory, but derive additional support from general usage. In the Muhammedan world the slave generally lives on easy terms with his master. He is often treated as a member of the family, and occasionally exercises much influence upon its affairs. In certain countries at least, it is held disreputable or disgraceful for a person to sell his slave, except perhaps in case of absolute necessity or in consequence of intolerable behaviour on the part of the slave. In Persia custom demands that on certain festive occasions, such as the birth of a child or a wedding, one {688} or several of the slaves of the family should be set free; and both there and in other Muhammedan countries testamentary manumissions are of frequent occurrence. In Morocco a slave is sometimes allowed a certain amount of liberty that he may earn enough to buy his freedom; whilst among the Bedouins of the Arabian Desert described by Burckhardt, slaves are always emancipated after a certain lapse of time. No stigma attaches to the emancipated slave. It has been truly said that in Islam slavery is regarded as an accident, not as a "constitution of nature," hence the freedman is socially on an equal footing with a free-born citizen. He may without discredit marry his former master's daughter, and become the head of the family. Emancipated slaves have repeatedly risen to the highest offices, they have ruled kingdoms and founded dynasties.

According to the Laws of Manu, the mythical legislator of ancient India, there are slaves of seven kinds, namely, "he who is made a captive under a standard, he who serves for his daily food, he who is born in the house, he who is bought and he who is given, he who is inherited from ancestors, and he who is enslaved by way of punishment." The last mentioned class consists of persons who have lost their freedom because they have been unable to pay a debt or a fine, or because they have left a religious order. The slave is not necessarily a Sûdra, or member of the lowest of the four Indian castes, but Kshatriyas may become the slaves of Brâhmanas and Vaisyas of Brâhmanas and Kshatriyas. On the other hand, the Sûdras as such were not slaves, though it was their duty to serve the other castes; they chose the persons to whom they would offer service, and claimed adequate compensation. {689} The power which a house-holder in India possessed over his slaves is not exactly defined; but he is admonished not to have quarrels with them, and if offended by any of them, to bear it without resentment. In Âpastamba's Aphorisms it is said that a person may at his pleasure stint himself, his wife, or his children, "but by no means a slave who does his work." Elphinstone wrote in 1839 in his 'History of India':--"Domestic slaves are treated exactly like servants, except that they are more regarded as belonging to the family. I doubt if they are ever sold; and they attract little observation, as there is nothing apparent to distinguish them from freemen." The priesthood of modern Buddhism teach that there are five ways in which a master ought to assist his slave:--"He must not appoint the work of children to men, or of men to children, but to each according to his strength; he must give each one his food and wages, according as they are required; when sick, he must free him from work, and provide him with proper medicine; when the master has any agreeable and savoury food, he must not consume the whole himself, but must impart a portion to others, even to his slaves; and if they work properly for a long period, or for a given period, they must be set free."

In Greece, especially in earlier times, capture in war, piracy, and kidnapping were common causes of slavery, and the condition was hereditary. Other legitimate sources were exposure of infants, except at Thebes, and sale of children by their parents. At Athens insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors up to the time of Solon; and metics--that is, resident aliens--who did not discharge the obligations imposed on them by the State, {690} were sold as slaves, as were also foreigners who had fraudulently possessed themselves of the rights of citizens. At least in a later age the majority of slaves seem to have been of barbarian origin; indeed, after the Peloponnesian war the principle that captives taken in wars between Greek states should be ransomed and not enslaved was commonly recognised, though not always followed in practice. As we have seen, the master had not the power of life and death over his slave. At sanctuaries the latter found a refuge from cruel oppression. If maltreated he could demand to be sold; and he could purchase his liberty with his peculium by agreement with his master. But by manumission he only entered into an intermediate condition between slavery and complete freedom; thus, at Athens the freedman was in relation to the State a metic and in relation to his master a client. Domestic slaves often lived on terms of intimacy with their masters, but as a class slaves were regarded with contempt even by men like Plato and Aristotle. The former, whilst warning his hearers against insolent and unjust behaviour towards slaves, observes that they should be treated with severity, not admonished as if they were freemen, but punished, and only addressed in words of command. Aristotle compares the relation of the master to his slave with that of the soul to the body and of the craftsman to his tool, and adds that there can be friendship between them only in so far as the slave is regarded not as a slave but as a fellow human being. But whilst the state of slavery always entailed disgrace, the question was raised whether the master's power over his slave was based on justice or {691} on force, and in Greece, for the first time, we meet with the opinion that the institution of slavery is contrary to Nature, and that it is the law which, unjustly, makes one man a slave and another free. However, Aristotle was no doubt in general agreement with his age when he declared that the barbarians, on account of their inferiority, are intended by Nature to be the slaves of the Greeks.

The Roman jurists held up slavery as a mitigation of the horrors of war: the capture and preservation of enemies, they said, was its sole and exclusive origin in the past. But in Rome as elsewhere, when once established, it contained in itself the germ of extension; all the children of a female slave followed the condition of the mother, according to the principle applicable to the offspring of the lower animals--"Partus sequitur ventrem." And sooner or later, when these sources proved insufficient to maintain the supply, a regular commerce in slaves was established, which was based on the systematically prosecuted hunting of men in foreign lands. To a much smaller extent the slave class was recruited by Roman citizens--by children sold by their fathers, by insolvent debtors, or by criminals condemned to servitude as a punishment for some heinous offence. The idea of a Roman becoming the slave of a fellow-citizen was never quite agreeable to the Roman mind. According to an ancient law the debtor, after being made over to the creditor, should be sold abroad or trans Tiberim. Subsequently, in 326 B.C., the creditor's lien was restricted to the goods of his debtor, if the latter was a Roman citizen; and during the Pagan Empire the sale of freeborn {692} children by their fathers was prohibited. The power, originally unlimited, which the master had over his slave was also, in the course of time, subjected to limitations. We have seen that since the days of Claudius and Antoninus Pius legal check was put on the master's right of killing his slave. The Lex Petronia, A.D. 61, forbade masters to compel their slaves to fight with wild beasts. In the time of Nero an official was appointed to hear complaints of the wrongs done by masters to their slaves. Antoninus Pius directed that slaves treated with excessive cruelty, who had taken refuge at an altar or imperial image, should be sold; and this provision was extended to cases in which the master had employed a slave in a way degrading to him or beneath his character. In public auctions of slaves regard was paid to the claims of relationship, and in the interpretation of testaments it was assumed that members of the same family were not to be separated by the division of the succession. In those days when Roman slavery had lost its original patriarchal and, to speak with Mommsen, "in some measure innocent" character, when the victories of Rome and the increasing slave trade had introduced into the city innumerable slaves, when those simpler habits of life which in early times somewhat mitigated the rigour of the law had changed--the lot of the Roman slave was often extremely hard, and numerous acts of shocking cruelty were committed. But we also hear, from the early days of the Empire, that masters who had been cruel to their slaves were pointed at with disgust in all parts of the city, and were hated and loathed. And with a fervour which can hardly be surpassed Seneca and other Stoics argued that the slave is a being with human dignity and human rights, born of the same race as ourselves, living the same life, {693} and dying the same death--in short, that our slaves "are also men, and friends, and our fellow-servants." Epictetus even went so far as to condemn altogether the keeping of slaves, a radicalism explicable from the history of his own life. "What you avoid suffering yourself," he says, "seek not to impose on others. You avoid slavery, for instance; take care not to enslave. For if you can bear to exact slavery from others, you appear to have been yourself a slave." These teachings could not fail to influence both legislation and public sentiment. Imbued with the Stoic philosophy, the jurists of the classical period declared that all men are originally free by the law of Nature, and that slavery is only "an institution of the Law of Nations, by which one man is made the property of another, in opposition to natural right."

Considering that Christianity has commonly been represented as almost the sole cause of the mitigation and final abolishment of slavery in Europe, it deserves special notice that the chief improvement in the condition of slaves at Rome took place at so early a period that Christianity could have absolutely no share in it. Nay, for about two hundred years after it was made the official religion of the Empire there was an almost complete pause in the legislation on the subject. Under Justinian certain reforms were introduced: --enfranchisement was facilitated in various ways; the rights of Roman citizens were granted to emancipated slaves, who had previously occupied an intermediate position between slavery and perfect freedom; and though the law still refused to recognise the marriages of slaves, Justinian gave them a legal value after emancipation in establishing rights of succession. But the inferior position of the slave was asserted as sternly as ever. He belonged to the {694} "corporeal" property of his master, he was reckoned among things which are tangible by their nature, like land, raiment, gold, and silver. The constitution of Antoninus Pius restraining excessive severity on the part of masters was enforced, but the motive for this was not evangelic humanity. It is said in the Institutes of Justinian, "This decision is a just one; for it greatly concerns the public weal, that no one be permitted to misuse even his own property."

It is curious to note that the inconsistency of slavery with the tenet, "Do to others as you would be done by," though emphasised by a pagan philosopher, never seems to have occurred to any of the early Christian writers. Christianity recognised slavery from the beginning. The principle that all men are spiritually equal in Christ does not imply that they should be socially equal in the world. Slavery does not prevent anybody from performing the duties incumbent on a Christian, it does not bar the way to heaven, it is an external affair only, nothing but a name. He only is really a slave who commits sin. Slavery is of course a burden, but a burden which has been laid upon the back of transgression. Man when created by God was free, and nobody was the slave of another until that just man Noah cursed Ham, his offending son; slavery, then, is a punishment sent by Him who best knows how to proportionate punishment to offence. The slave himself ought not to desire to become free, nay, if the master offers him freedom he ought not to accept it. Not one of the Fathers even {695} hints that slavery is unlawful or improper. In the early age martyrs possessed slaves, and so did abbots, bishops, popes, monasteries, and churches; Jews and pagans only were prohibited from acquiring Christian slaves. So little was the abolition of slavery thought of that a Council at Orleans, in the middle of the sixth century, expressly decreed the perpetuity of servitude among the descendants of slaves. On the other hand, the Church showed a zeal to prevent accessions to slavery from capture, but her exertions were restricted to Christian prisoners of war. As late as the nineteenth century the right of enslaving captives was defended by Bishop Bouvier.

The Apostles reminded slaves of their duties towards their masters and masters of their duties towards their slaves. The same was done by Councils and Popes. The Council of Gangra, about the year 324, pronounced its anathema on anyone who should teach a slave to despise his master on pretence of religion; and so much importance was attached to this decree that it was inserted in the epitome of canons which Hadrian I. in 773 presented to Charlemagne in Rome. But there are also many instances in which masters are recommended to show humanity to their slaves. According to Gregory IX. {696} "the slaves who were washed in the fountain of holy baptism should be more liberally treated in consideration of their having received so great a benefit." Slaves who had taken refuge from their masters in churches or monasteries were not to be given up until the master had sworn not to punish the fugitive; or they were never given up, but became slaves to the sanctuary. The Church, as we have seen, protected the life of the slave by excommunicating for a couple of years masters who killed their slaves. She prohibited the sale of Christian slaves to Jews and heathen nations. The Council of Chalons, in the middle of the seventh century, ordered that no Christians should be sold outside the kingdom of Clovis, so that they might not get into captivity or become the slaves of Jewish masters; and some Anglo-Saxon laws similarly forbade the sale of Christians out of the country, and especially into bondage to heathen, "that those souls perish not that Christ bought with his own life." The clergy sometimes remonstrated against slave markets; but their indignation never reached the trade in heathen slaves, nor was the master's right of selling any of his slaves whenever he pleased called in question at all. The assertion made by many writers that the Church exercised an extremely favourable influence upon slavery surely involves a great exaggeration. As late as the thirteenth century the master practically had the power of life and death over his slave. Throughout Christendom the purchase and {697} the sale of men, as property transferred from vendor to buyer, was recognised as a legal transaction of the same validity with the sale of other merchandise, land or cattle. Slaves had a title to nothing but subsistence and clothes from their masters, all the profits of their labour accruing to the latter; and if a master from indulgence gave his slaves any peculium, or fixed allowance for their subsistence, they had no right of property in what they saved out of that, but all that they accumulated belonged to their master. A slave or a freedman was not allowed to bring a criminal charge against a free person, except in the case of a crimen læsæ majestatis, and slaves were incapable of being received as witnesses against freemen. The old distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of the slave was long recognised by the Church: slaves could not marry, but had only a right of contubernium, and their unions did not receive the nuptial benediction of a priest. Subsequently, when conjunction between slaves came to be considered a lawful marriage, they were not permitted to marry without the consent of their master, and such as transgressed this rule were punished very severely, sometimes even with death.

The gradual disappearance of slavery in Europe during the latter part of the Middle Ages has also commonly been in the main attributed to the influence of the Church. But this opinion is hardly supported by facts. It is true that the Church in some degree encouraged the manumission of slaves. Though slavery was considered a {698} perfectly lawful institution, the enfranchisement of a fellow-Christian was deemed a meritorious act, and was sometimes strongly recommended on Christian principles. At the close of the sixth century it was affirmed that, as Christ had come to break the chain of our servitude and restore our primitive liberty, so it was well for us to imitate Him by making free those whom the law of nations had reduced to slavery; and the same doctrine was again proclaimed at various times down to the sixteenth century. In the Carlovingian period the abbot Smaragdus expressed the opinion that among other good and salutary works each one ought to let slaves go free, considering that not nature but sin had subjected them to their masters. In the latter part of the twelfth century the prelates of France, and in particular the Archbishop of Sens, pretended that it was an obligation of conscience to accord liberty to all Christians, relying on a decree of a Council held at Rome by Pope Alexander III. And in one of the later compilations of German mediæval law it was said that the Lord Jesus, by his injunction to render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's and unto God the things that are God's, indicated that no man is the property of another, but that every man belongs to God. Slaves were liberated "for God's love," or "for the remedy" or "ransom of the soul." In the formularies of manumission given by the monk Marculfus in the seventh century we read, for instance:--"He that releases his slave who is bound to him, may trust that God will recompense him in the next world"; "For the remission of my sins, I absolve thee"; "For the glory {699} of God's name and for my eternal retribution," &c. Too much importance, however, has often been attached to these phrases; the most trivial occurrences, such as giving a book to a monastery, are commonly accompanied by similar expressions, and it appears from certain formulas that slaves were not only liberated, but also bought and sold, "in the name of God." Nor can we suppose that it was from religious motives only that manumissions were encouraged by the clergy. It has been pointed out that, "as dying persons were frequently inclined to make considerable donations for pious uses, it was more immediately for the interest of churchmen, that people of inferior condition should be rendered capable of acquiring property, and should have the free disposal of what they had acquired." It also seems that those who obtained their liberty by the influence of the clergy had to reward their benefactors, and that the manumission should for this reason be confirmed by the Church. And whilst the Church favoured liberation of the slaves of laymen, she took care to prevent liberation of her own slaves; like a physician she did not herself swallow the medicine which she prescribed to others. She allowed alienation of such slaves only as showed a disposition to run away. The Council of Agatho, in 506, considered it unfair to enfranchise the slaves of monasteries, seeing that the monks themselves were daily compelled to labour; and, as a matter of fact, the slaves of monasteries were everywhere among the last who were manumitted. In the seventh century a Council at Toledo threatened with damnation any bishop who should liberate a slave belonging to the Church, without giving {700} due compensation from his own property, as it was thought impious to inflict a loss on the Church of Christ; and according to several ecclesiastical regulations no bishop or priest was allowed to manumit a slave in the patrimony of the Church unless he put in his place two slaves of equal value. Nay, the Church was anxious not only to prevent a reduction of her slaves, but to increase their number. She zealously encouraged people to give up themselves and their posterity to be the slaves of churches and monasteries, to enslave their bodies--as some of the charters put it--in order to procure the liberty of their souls. And in the middle of the seventh century a Council decreed that the children of incontinent priests should become the slaves of the churches where their fathers officiated.

The disappearance of mediæval slavery has further, to some extent, been attributed to the efforts of kings to weaken the power of the nobles. Thus Louis X. and Philip the Long of France issued ordinances declaring that, as all men were by nature free, and as their kingdom was called the kingdom of the Franks, they would have the fact to correspond with the name, and emancipated all persons in the royal domains upon paying a just compensation, as an example for other lords to follow. Muratori believes that in Italy the wars during the twelfth and following centuries contributed more than anything else to the decline of slavery, as there was a need of soldiers and soldiers must be freemen. According to others the disappearance of slavery was largely effected by the great famines and epidemics with which Europe was visited during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth {701} centuries. The number of slaves was also considerably reduced by the ancient usage of enslaving prisoners of war being replaced by the more humane practice of accepting ransom for them, which became the general rule in the later part of the Middle Ages, at least in the case of Christian captives. But it seems that the chief cause of the extinction of slavery in Europe was its transformation into serfdom.

This transformation has been traced to the diminished supply of slaves, which made it the interest of each family to preserve indefinitely its own hereditary slaves, and to keep up their number by the method of propagation. The existence and physical well-being of the slave became consequently an object of greater value to his master, and the latter found it most profitable to attach his slaves to certain pieces of land. Moreover, the cultivation of the ground required that the slaves should have a fixed residence in different parts of the master's estate, and when a slave had thus been for a long time engaged in a particular farm, he was so much the better qualified to continue in the management of it for the future. By degrees he therefore came to be regarded as belonging to the stock upon the ground, and was disposed of as a part of the estate which he had been accustomed to cultivate.

But serfdom itself was merely a transitory condition destined to lead up to a state of entire liberty. As the proprietor of a large estate could not oversee the behaviour of his villeins, scattered over a wide area of land, the only means of exciting their industry would be to offer them a reward for the work which they performed. Thus, besides the ordinary maintenance allotted {702} to them, they frequently obtained a part of the profits, and became capable of having separate property. In many cases this no doubt enabled the serf to purchase his liberty out of his earnings; whilst in others the master would have an interest in allowing him to pay a fixed rent and to retain the surplus for himself. The landlord was then freed from the hazard of accidental losses, and obtained not only a certain, but frequently an additional, revenue from his land, owing to the greater exertions of cultivators who worked for their own benefit; and at the same time the personal subjection of the peasants naturally came to an end, as it was of no consequence to the landlord how they conducted themselves provided that they punctually paid the rents. Nor was there any reason to insist that they should remain in the farm longer than they pleased; for the profits it afforded made them commonly not more willing to leave it than the proprietor was to put them away. Another factor which led to the disappearance of serfdom was the encouragement which Sovereigns, always jealous of the great lords, gave to the villeins to encroach upon their authority. We have convincing proof that in England, before the end of Edward III.'s reign, the villeins found themselves sufficiently powerful to protect one another, and to withhold their ancient and accustomed services from their lord. In Germany, again, the landlords sometimes furnished their villeins with arms to defend the cause of their master, and this undoubtedly tended to their enfranchisement, as persons who are taught to use and allowed to possess weapons will soon make {703} themselves respected. A great number of villeins also shook off the fetters of their servitude by fleeing for refuge to some chartered town, where they became free at once, or, more commonly, after a certain stipulated period--a year and a day, or more; and it seems, besides, that the rapid disappearance of serfdom in the prospering free towns indirectly, by way of example, promoted the enfranchisement of rural serfs. There are, further, instances of lords liberating their villeins at the intercession of their spiritual confessors, the clergy availing themselves of every opportunity to lessen the formidable power of their great rivals, the temporal nobility. But the influence which the Church exercised in favour of the enfranchisement of serfs was even less than her share in the abolition of slavery proper. She represented serfdom as a divine institution, as a school of humility, as a road to future glory. She was herself the greatest {704} serf-holder; and so strenuously did she persist in retaining her villeins, that after Voltaire had raised his powerful outcry in favour of liberty and Louis XVI. himself had been induced to abolish "the right of servitude" in consideration of "the love of humanity," the Church still refused to emancipate her serfs. But whilst the cause of freedom owes little to the Christian Church, it owes so much the more to the feelings of humanity and justice in some of her opponents.

* * * * *

Not long after serfdom had begun to disappear in the most advanced communities of Christendom a new kind of slavery was established in the colonies of European states. It grew up under circumstances particularly favourable to the employment of slaves. Whether slave labour or free labour is more profitable to the employer depends on the wages of the free labourer, and these again depend on the numbers of the labouring population compared with the capital and the land. In the rich and underpeopled soil of the West Indies and in the Southern States of America the balance of the profits between free and slave labour was on the side of slavery. Hence slavery was introduced there, and flourished, and could be abolished only with the greatest difficulty.

From a moral point of view negro slavery is interesting chiefly because it existed in the midst of a highly developed Christian civilisation, and nevertheless, at least in the British colonies and the United States, was the most brutal form of slavery ever known. It may be worth while to consider more closely some points of the legislation relating to it.

In America, as elsewhere, the state of slavery was hereditary. The child of a female slave was itself a slave and belonged to the owner of its mother even if its father was a freeman, whereas the child of a free woman was {705} free even if its father was a slave. When the slave-trade was prohibited, heredity remained the only legitimate source of slavery; but even then a freeborn negro was far from safe. In the British colonies and in all the Slave States except one, every negro was presumed to be a slave until he could prove the reverse. A man who, within the limits of a slave-holding State, could exhibit a person of African extraction in his custody was exempted from all necessity of making proof how he had obtained him or by what authority he claimed him as a slave. Nay more, through the direct action of Congress it became law that persons known to be free should be sold as slaves in order to cover the costs of imprisonment which they had suffered on account of the false suspicion that they were runaway slaves. This law was repeatedly put into effect. "How many crowned despots," says Professor von Hoist, "can be mentioned in the history of the old world who have done things which compare in accursedness with this law to which the democratic republic gave birth?"

Slaves were defined as "chattels personal in the hands of their respective owners or possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents and purposes whatsoever." In the British colonies and the American Slave States they were at all times liable to be sold or otherwise alienated at the will of their masters, as absolutely as cattle, or any other personal effects. They were {706} also liable to be sold by process of law for satisfaction of the debts of a living, or the debts or bequests of a deceased master, at the suit of creditors or legatees. They were transmitted by inheritance or by will to heirs at law or to legatees, and in the distribution of estates they were distributed like other property. No regard was paid to family ties. Except in Louisiana, where children under ten years of age could not be sold separately from their mothers, no law existed to prevent the violent separation of parents from their children or from each other. And what the law did not prevent, the slave-owners did not omit doing; thus Virginia was known as a breeding place out of which the members of one household were sold into every part of the country. All this, however, holds true of the British colonies and Slave States only. In the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies plantation slaves were real estate, attached to the soil they cultivated. They partook therewith of all the restraints upon voluntary alienation to which the possessor of the land was there liable, and they could not be seized or sold by creditors, for satisfaction of the debts of the owner. As regards the sale of members of the same family the Code Noir expressly says, "Ne pourront être saisis et vendus séparément, le mari et la femme, et leurs enfans impubéres, s'ils sont tous sous la puissance du même Maître." A slave could make no contract; he could not even contract marriage, in the juridical sense of the word. The association which took place among slaves and was called marriage was virtually the same as the Roman contubernium, a relation which had no sanctity and to which no civil rights were attached. The master could whenever {707} he liked separate the "husband" and "wife"; he could, if he pleased, commit "adultery" with the "wife," and was the absolute owner of all the children born by her. A slave had "no more legal authority over his child than a cow has over her calf." On the other hand, the common rules of sexual morality were not enforced on the slaves. They were not admonished for incontinence, nor punished for adultery, nor prosecuted for bigamy. Incontinence was rather thought a matter of course in the slave. We are told that even in Puritan New England female slaves in ministers' and magistrates' families bore children, black or yellow, without marriage, that no one inquired who their fathers were, and that nothing more was thought of it than of the breeding of sheep or swine. And concerning the "slave-quarters" connected with the plantations the universal testimony was that the sexes were there "herded together promiscuously, like beasts."

Yet though slaves were regarded as chattels, the master could not do with his slave exactly what he pleased. We have noticed that the life of the slave was in some degree, though very insufficiently, protected by law, and that a master who mutilated his slave was subject to a slight penalty. The law also took care to prohibit the master from doing things which were considered injurious to the community or the State. There was a great fear of teaching negroes to read and write. William Knox, in a tract addressed to "the venerable Society for propagation {708} of the Gospel in foreign parts" in the year 1768, remarks that "instruction renders them less fit or less willing to labour," and that, if they were universally taught to read, there would undoubtedly be a general insurrection of the negroes leading to the massacre of their owners. A similar fear underlies the laws on the subject which we meet with in the codes of some of the Slave States. According to the Negro Act of 1740 for South Carolina, any person who instructed a slave in writing was subject to a fine of one hundred pounds; but this enactment was later on considered too liberal. A law of 1834 placed under the ban all efforts to teach the coloured race either reading or writing, and the punishment was no longer a pecuniary fine only, but, besides, imprisonment for six months or a shorter time or, if the offender was a free person of colour, whipping not exceeding fifty lashes. In Georgia a law of 1770, which prohibited the instruction of slaves in reading and writing, was in 1833 followed by an act which extended the prohibition to free persons of colour. In Louisiana the teaching of slaves was punished with imprisonment for not less than one month nor more than twelve months. North Carolina allowed slaves to be made acquainted with arithmetical calculations, but sternly interdicted instruction in reading and writing; whilst Alabama warred with the rudiments of reading, forbidding any coloured persons, bond or free, to be taught not only reading and writing, but spelling. In all these States the prohibitions referred to the master of the slave as well as to other persons. In Virginia, on the other hand, the master might teach his slave whatever he liked, but others might not.

{709} There is yet another point in which the master's power was restricted in a most unusual way: in many cases he was not allowed to liberate his slave, or formidable obstacles were put in the way of manumission. Thus, in North Carolina a slave could formerly not be enfranchised except for meritorious services; but this enactment was altered by the Revised Statutes of 1836-1837, according to which any emancipation granted to any slave "shall be upon the express condition, that he, she or they will leave the State, within ninety days from the granting thereof, and never will return within the State afterwards." The Civil Code of Louisiana required that a slave, to be emancipated, should have attained the age of thirty years and behaved well at least for four years preceding the emancipation, unless, indeed, the slave had saved the life of his master or of one of his children, in which case he might be set free at any age; and, according to a statute of 1852, the emancipated slave should be sent out of the United States within twelve months after his emancipation. In several other States manumission was likewise hampered by various regulations; and throughout the British West Indies there were restraints on manumission prior to the Emancipation Act. By an act passed in Saint Christopher in the year 1802, a tax of £1,000 was imposed on the manumission of any slave who was not a native of, or had not resided for two years within, the island, whilst natives or residents might be enfranchised at half that price. But the authors of this act went further still. They considered that a master, though unwilling to pay £500 or £1,000 for the legal enfranchisement of a slave, might, during his own life, make him or her practically free by not exercising his own rights as master. Hence {710} they enacted "that if any proprietor of a slave should, by any contract in writing or otherwise, dispense with the slave's service, or should be proved before a justice of peace not to have exercised any right of ownership over such slave, and maintained him or her at his own expense, within a month, the slave should be publicly sold at vendue by the provost marshall; and should become the property of the purchaser, and the purchase-money should be paid into the colonial treasury." In St. Vincents one hundred pounds sterling was required to be paid into the treasury for each slave sought to be manumitted, whilst in Barbados a person minded to manumit a slave should pay £50 to the churchwarden of the parish in which he resided. Very different were the Spanish laws on the subject of manumission. According to a law of 1528 a negro slave who had served a certain length of time was entitled to his liberty upon the payment of a certain sum, not less than twenty marks of gold, the exact amount to be settled by the royal authorities. In 1540 a law was issued to the effect that "if any negro, or negress, or any other persons reputed slaves, should publicly demand their liberty, they should be heard, and justice be done to them, and care be taken that they should not on that account be maltreated by their masters." Nay, a slave who wished to change his master and could prevail on any other person to buy him by appraisement, could demand and compel such a transfer, and a master who treated his slaves inhumanly could be by the judge deprived of them. In most of the British colonies and American Slave States, on the other hand, the slave had no legal right to obtain a change of master when cruel treatment made it necessary for his relief or preservation. {711} The exceptions to this rule were few and of little practical value.

This system of slavery, which at least in the British colonies and the Slave States surpassed in cruelty the slavery of any pagan country ancient or modern, was not only recognised by Christian governments, but was supported by the large bulk of the clergy, Catholic and Protestant alike. In the beginning of the abolitionist movement the Churches acknowledged slavery to be a great evil, but with the making of this acknowledgment they believed that they had done their share, and denied that there was any obligation on them, or even that they had any right, to proceed against the slave-holders. But things did not stop here. The lamentations of resignation were gradually changed into excuses, and the excuses into justifications. The Bible, it was said, contains no prohibition of slavery; on the contrary, slavery is recognised both in the Old and New Testaments. Abraham, the father of the faithful and the friend of God, had slaves; the Hebrews were directed to make slaves of the surrounding nations; St. Paul and St. Peter approved of the {712} relation of master and slave when they gave admonitions to both as to their reciprocal behaviour; the Saviour Himself said nothing in condemnation of slavery, although it existed in great aggravation while He was upon earth. If slavery were sinful, would it have been too much to expect that the Almighty had directed at least one little word against it in the last revelation of His will? Nay, God not only permitted slavery, but absolutely provided for its perpetuity; it is the very legislation of Heaven itself; it is an institution which it is a religious duty to maintain, and which cannot be abolished, because "God is pledged to sustain it." According to some, slavery was founded on the judgment of God on a damned race, the descendants of Ham; according to others, it was only in this way that the African could be raised to a participation in the blessings of Christianity and civilisation. With the name of "abolitionist" was thus associated the idea of infidelity, and the emancipation movement was branded as an attempt to spread the evils of scepticism through the land. According to Governor Macduffie, of South Carolina, no human institution is more manifestly consistent with the will of God than slavery, and every community ought to punish the interference of abolitionists with death, without the benefit of clergy, "regarding the authors of it as enemies of the human race." It is true that religious arguments were also adduced in favour of abolition. To hold men in bondage was said to be utterly inconsistent with the inalienable rights which the Creator had granted mankind, and still more obviously {713} at variance with the dictates of Christian love. Many clergymen also joined the abolitionists. But it seems that in the middle of the nineteenth century the Quakers and the United Brethren were the only religious bodies that regarded slave-holding and slave-dealing as ecclesiastical offences. The American Churches were justly said to be "the bulwarks of American slavery."

Nobody would suppose that this attitude towards slavery was due to religious zeal. It was one of those cases, only too frequent in the history of morals, in which religion is called in to lend its sanction to a social institution agreeable to the leaders of religious opinion. Many clergymen and missionaries were themselves slave-holders, the chapel funds largely rested on slave property, and the ministers naturally desired to be on friendly terms with the more important members of their respective congregations, who were commonly owners of slaves. Adam Smith observes that the resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their slaves, was due to the fact that the principal produce there was corn, the raising of which cannot afford the expense of slave cultivation; had the slaves "made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to."

To explain the establishment of colonial slavery, the difficulties in the way of its abolition, and the laws relating to it, it is necessary to consider not only economic conditions and the motive of self-interest, but, as a factor of equal importance, the want of sympathy for, or positive antipathy to, the coloured race. The negro was looked upon almost as an animal, according to some he was a being without a soul. Even when free he was a pariah, subject to special laws and regulations. In the Code of {714} Louisiana it is said:--"Free people of colour ought never to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive themselves equal to the whites; but, on the contrary, they ought to yield to them on every occasion, and never speak or answer them but with respect, under the penalty of imprisonment, according to the nature of the offence." The Code Noir prohibited white men and women from marrying negroes, "à peine de punition et d'amende arbitraire"; and in the Revised Statutes of North Carolina we read:--"If any white man or woman, being free, shall intermarry with an Indian, negro, mustee or mulatto man or woman, or any person of mixed blood to the third generation, bond or free, he shall, by judgment of the county court, forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred dollars to the use of the county." In Mississippi a free negro or mulatto was legally punished with thirty-nine lashes if he exercised the functions of a minister of the Gospel. Coloured men in the North were excluded from colleges and high schools, from theological seminaries and from respectable churches, as also from the town hall, the ballot, and the cemetery where white people were interred. The Anglo-Saxon aversion to the black race is thus expressed by an English writer:--"We hate slavery, but we hate the negroes still more." Among the Spaniards and Portuguese racial antipathies were not so strong, and their slaves were consequently better treated.

Thus we notice in the opinions regarding slavery throughout the same distinction as in the judgments on other matters of moral concern. A person is, as a rule, allowed to enslave or to keep as slaves only persons belonging to a different community or a different race from his own, or their descendants. To deprive anybody of his liberty is to inflict an injury on him, and is regarded as {715} wrong whenever the act gives rise to sympathetic resentment, whereas nothing is thought of it where no sympathy is felt for its victim. Thus, whilst slavery grows up only under economic conditions favourable to slave labour, it is always limited by feelings of an altruistic character, and where these feelings are sufficiently broad and powerful it is not tolerated at all. The same factor also influences the condition of the slaves where slavery exists. We have seen that native slaves are better treated than foreign ones and slaves born in the household better than those who have been captured or purchased. The advancement of a nation, again, is frequently attended with greater severity in the treatment of the slaves, because, whilst the simplicity of early ages admits of little distinction between the master and his servants in their employments and manner of living, the introduction of wealth and luxury gradually destroys the equality. Besides, the number of slaves maintained in a wealthy nation makes them formidable both to their owners and to the State, hence it is necessary that they should be strictly watched and kept in the utmost subjection.

The condition of slaves is in various respects influenced by the selfish considerations of their masters. Stuart Mill observes:--"When, as among the ancients, the slave-market could only be supplied by captives either taken in war, or kidnapped from thinly scattered tribes on the remote confines of the human world, it was generally more profitable to keep up the number by breeding, which necessitates a far better treatment of them, and for this reason, joined with several others, the condition of slaves . . . was probably much less bad in the ancient world, than in the colonies of modern nations." Among the Bedouins, says Burckhardt, "the slaves are treated with kindness, and seldom beaten, as severity might induce them to run away." Superstition may also help to {716} improve the lot of the slave. In West Africa "the authority which a master exercises over a slave is very much modified by his constitutional dread of witchcraft. If he treats his slave unkindly, or inflicts unmerited punishment upon him, he exposes himself to all the machinations of witchcraft which that slave may be able to command." It is said in the Proverbs, "Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty." The same danger threatens the cruel master. We read in the Apostolic Constitutions, "Thy man-servant or thy maid-servant who trust in the same God, thou shalt not command with bitterness of spirit; lest they groan against thee, and wrath be upon thee from God."

END OF VOL. I

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Printed by LOWE & BRYDONE (PRINTERS) LTD., London, N.W. 1.

* * * * *

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL IDEAS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT

OF THE

MORAL IDEAS

EDWARD WESTERMARCK

Ph.D., LL.D. (Aberdeen)

MARTIN WHITE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FINLAND, HELSINFORS AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF HUMAN MARRIAGE," "MARRIAGE CEREMONIES IN MOROCCO," ETC

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II

SECOND EDITION

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1917

COPYRIGHT

First Edition, 1908 Second Edition, 1917

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF VOL. II

WHILE the text of the first edition has been left almost unchanged, some notes have been added at the end of it.

E. W.

LONDON,

September, 1916.

CONTENTS