CHAPTER XV: SLAVERY.

§ 794. Along with the developments of industrial regulation dealt with in the preceding four chapters, there was going on one of another kind, which, thus far ignored for convenience of exposition, we must now trace up from the beginning.

Before we can understand the phases of social evolution to be here treated of, we must free ourselves from the prejudgments fostered by the sentiments of modern days. Just as every people assumes its own creed to be the only rational one, so it thinks its own social arrangements are alone natural and right. Often the feelings and convictions generated by usage are such as make almost impossible the formation of true beliefs.

During recent days habit has generated the idea that slavery is an exceptional institution; whereas observation of all societies in all times shows that slavery is the rule and freedom the exception. The current assumption is that of necessity a slave is a down-trodden being, subject to unlimited labour and great hardship; whereas in many cases he is well cared for, not overworked, and leniently treated. Assuming slaves everywhere to have ideas of liberty like our own, we suppose them to be intolerant of despotic control; whereas their subjection is sometimes so little onerous that they jeer at those of their race who have no masters. Assuming that their feelings are such as we should have under the same circumstances, we regard them as necessarily unhappy; whereas they are often more light-hearted than their superiors. Edition: current; Page: [465] Again, when we contrast the slave with the free man, we think of the last as his own master; whereas, very generally, surrounding conditions exercise over him a mastery more severe and unpitying than that exercised over the slave by his owner: nature’s coercion is often worse than man’s coercion. There is constantly made the erroneous assumption that there may exist in early stages the same system of free labour as that which we have; whereas, before money comes into existence, payment of wages is generally impracticable: nothing but food, clothing, and shelter, can be given to the worker. Once more, it is taken for granted that as among ourselves free labour is conducive to social welfare, it is everywhere and at all times conducive to it; but in early stages the undisciplined primitive man will not labour continuously, and it is only under a régime of compulsion that there is acquired the power of application which has made civilization possible.

Carrying with us the qualifications of belief here indicated as needful, we must abandon the point of view to which our form of social life has accustomed us, and look at the facts from other points of view proper to other forms of social life.

§ 795. In its beginnings slavery commonly implies some kind of inferiority, especially physical inferiority. In uncivilized tribes and in ancient societies, this is shown by the slavery of the child and the slavery of the captive. The power to treat children as slaves, and to sell them into slavery, of course accompanied the power of life and death—a power exercised by many savage and semi-civilized people: in old times by the Jews, who sometimes sold children to pay creditors, and in modern days by the Circassians, who sell their daughters. This power in some cases extends over others than children—the cases of persons whose feebleness makes them relatively defenceless. Concerning the negroes of Blantyre, Duff MacDonald says:—

But that form of physical inferiority which is by far the most general origin of slavery is militant inferiority. During stages in which battles are made up of individual contests, this inferiority, either in strength or agility, is obviously implied; and it continues to be implied until stages in which the contests are between bodies of men acting together. Speaking generally, we may regard slavery as a sequence of war; for, of its several causes, war is the most common and the most extensive in its results.

Of other inferiorities whence slavery results, there has next to be named crime. Enslavement as a punishment occurs, or has occurred, among many peoples. The Jews inflicted it for theft. So, too, in ancient Nicaragua—

And it was the same in Guatemala. At present in Angola—

In early days among ourselves and other European peoples, slavery was thus entailed, and it is thus entailed even now in a sense; for convicts who are set to work are slaves to the State. In Russia, where they are doomed to the mines, this form of punishment is commonly employed.

Next comes the slavery of the debtor. In many cases he is simply unfortunate, but very generally his indebtedness connotes one or other defect of nature. Of the many peoples among whom the creditor could take possession of the debtor, may be named the Jews. In the time of Matthew (xviii, 25) insolvent men could be sold with their families, and this penalty had long existed. In Old English times, too, the creditor had the power to enslave the debtor.

Less general than the above are two other derivations Edition: current; Page: [467] of slavery. One of them is kidnapping—a process which manifestly tended to arise where slavery had become an industrial institution. Among the Greeks the being seized and carried off was a danger constantly to be guarded against. That kidnapping has not unfrequently occurred between their times and ours, we may infer from the fact that not many generations ago it occurred in Scotland, whence entrapped men were shipped to the plantations. The other occasional, but unusual, cause is that of extreme impoverishment by excessive taxation. Under Roman rule, so much lauded by the many to whom nothing seems so admirable as successful aggression, it was a cause widely operative. People ruined by merciless exactions surrendered themselves into slavery for the sake of maintenance.

Only just noting these several origins of slavery, each exemplified in one or two cases out of the multitudinous cases which might be named, we may now pass to the consideration of slavery as originating from its chief cause, war; and study the forms it takes as an industrial institution.

§ 796. Tribes which have not emerged from the hunting stage are little given to enslaving the vanquished: if they do not kill and eat them they adopt them. In the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food. But where, as among fishing tribes like the Chinooks, captives can be of use, or where the pastoral and agricultural stages have been reached, there arises a motive for sparing the lives of conquered men, and, after inflicting on them such mutilations as mark their subjection, setting them to work.

The instances to be first named are transitional ones—instances in which some of the prisoners are devoured and others are made bond-servants. It was thus in ancient Mexico, where, Zurita says, “the slaves were very numerous,” but, according to Clavigero, when prisoners of war, were in large part sacrificed to their cannibal gods: the ceremonial Edition: current; Page: [468] offerings of their flesh and blood to these gods, being partaken of by worshippers. In our own days a kindred union of these two uses of captives was found in Fiji, where subjugated tribes, doomed to predial slavery, served also as reserves of victims for the feasts of their conquerors.

Where cannibalism is not rampant, or has died out, prisoners of war are, among the slightly civilized, put to use either as domestic slaves or as field-slaves, or very generally as both. Of certain low-grade Africans it is said—

And in the more advanced African societies we find allied facts. Describing the Dahomans as “demoralized by slave-hunts,” Burton says that “agriculture is despised because slaves are employed in it.” In Ashanti again, nobles possess “thousands of slaves,” who “are employed in cultivating the plantations of their masters, or in trading for them.”

Asia, in our own times, furnishes illustrations of various kinds. We are told that the Biluchi do not themselves do the laborious work of cultivation, but impose it upon the Jutts, the ancient inhabitants whom they have subjugated. In Ceylon, up to 1845, there survived a like use of the indigenes. Says Tennent:—“Slavery in Ceylon was an attribute of race; and those condemned to it were doomed to toil from their birth.”

The sequence of slavery upon war in ancient times is shown us in the chronicles of all races. Besides a semi-free class of fellahin, the Egyptians had a slave-class, which, judging by the representations and inscriptions on their monuments, was continually recruited by captives taken in Edition: current; Page: [469] battle. Assyrian monuments, too, show us a like relation of cause and effect. The Hebrews, both before and after their Egyptian bondage, following defeat in war, were themselves slave-owners on large and small scales. By the requirement that subjection to Yahveh should be shown not only by the circumcision of Abraham himself, but by the circumcision of his bond-servants, it is proved that the institution went back to primitive days; and there is proof that it survived down to the latest times: the Essenes being distinguished by reprobating slavery. And that the slaves were in large measure prisoners of war, various passages demonstrate. The Jews themselves in later days suffered enslavement by the Romans: one conqueror alone, Nicanor, taking 180,000.

The connexion between slavery and war thus made manifest, and chronically implied by the swarms of predial slaves made to work as cattle under the Roman Empire, was shown afterwards as before. Says Levasseur:—

§ 797. Some distinction, though an indefinite distinction, may be drawn between undeveloped slavery and developed slavery—between those forms of it in which the slave-class is small and little differentiated, and those in which it is large and organized.

In a primitive social group no considerable bodies of slaves can be formed. Captives taken by individual victors are scattered throughout the tribe: the females, while occupied as domestics, being commonly concubines, and the males burdened with the heavier tasks. Under these conditions the slave is often imperfectly distinguished from members of the family. Among the Hebrews “clever and trustworthy slaves rose occasionally to the posts of superintendent and Edition: current; Page: [470] major domo (Gen. xv. 2, xxiv. 2; 2 Sam. ix, 10).” The relative laws and usages among the Jews were, indeed, such as implied mildness of treatment. In Ecclesiasticus viii, 21, we read:—

This indorses the passage in Proverbs xvii, 2:—

But these passages refer to slaves of Hebrew blood, as is implied by the rabbinical saying that “he who buys an Israelitic slave, buys himself a master.” The treatment of foreign slaves was by no means thus lenient. At the present time with a kindred race in the same region, similar relations exist. Says Burckhardt of the Bedouins:—

Here we may observe a cause of the mildness characterizing primitive slavery—the ability of the slave to escape. Burckhardt tells us that—

Among the Abyssinians, too, according to Harris, the slavery is mild.

Sometimes, indeed, it happens among African peoples that the slave rises to the condition of adopted son, as was the case among the Hebrews. The tradition concerning Abraham’s confidential servant Elieser, is paralleled by statements concerning negroes.

And this testimony of Beecham is verified by the testimony of Livingstone and another missionary, the Rev. T. M. Thomas.

As thus implied, this domestic slavery practically differs from free domestic service much less than we suppose. For the ordinary house-servant, under contract, is bound to obey orders, and is usually as hard worked as a domestic slave. Food and lodging are common to the two, and, though a servant receives wages, yet much of the amount goes to buy clothing, which in the other case is provided: the slave also, though not receiving wages, often receiving gifts and being allowed to accumulate property. Though the domestic servant can end the subject condition at a specified date, yet very generally he or she has to accept some like position where labour is carried on under command.

But now, turning to societies which have grown large by conquests, we come upon a much worse form of slavery. A great population is implied; agriculture is its concomitant; those who are not wanted in the household can be set to work in the fields; and there thus grows up a class of predial slaves, who, at first undistinguished from domestic slaves, gradually become differentiated from them. A transitional state is described as existing in Madagascar.

And this employment of slaves in out-door tasks has brought about the gravest evils. Ellis writes—

In Africa the system is much more developed. Says Holub of the Marutse:—

Similarly in Ashanti, as shown in § 796.

How immensely developed this form of slavery was in ancient times every reader knows. Movers writes of the Phœnician towns that “slaves formed by far the greatest part of their population.” Beyond the use of them for agriculture, they were employed for other industrial purposes.

Grecian life had like traits. In Athens, “if the master cultivated his lands himself . . . he employed numerous slaves under an overseer, ἐπίτροπος, who was himself a slave.” All have heard of the extreme stage reached in Rome, where the swarms of slaves on the estates of patricians amounted sometimes to thousands. Being too numerous to be effectually superintended, these were occasionally kept in chains, not only while at work in the fields but at night in the ergastulum: a practice paralleled in the towns by chaining the house-porter to the doorway.

That throughout barbarian Europe there existed analogous, if less developed, forms of slavery, domestic and predial, goes without saying; since there went on the perpetual Edition: current; Page: [473] conflicts which lead to them. Respecting early England, Seebohm, verifying Kemble, says—

In illustration of the generality of the institution among the predecessors of the Saxons, may be quoted from Seebohm the following passage concerning the Welsh tribes.

If predial slavery as carried out among pagans has not been in some respects paralleled among Christians, it has in other respects been exceeded in its savagness; for though in ancient times kidnapping was by no means unknown, yet most slaves were captives taken in war, or the descendants of them. It remained for those whose professed creed tells them to love their neighbours as themselves to develop, on a vast scale, a system of wholesale kidnapping by proxy—buying from slave-raiders multitudes of Negroes, who, if they survived the voyage, were set to work in gangs on plantations under the driver’s lash.

§ 798. Little has thus far been said respecting slavery as an industrial institution. Some significant facts in elucidation of our special subject may, however, be set down. The rise of slavery exhibits in its primary form the differentiation of the regulative part of a society from the operative part.

Everywhere the tendency is for one man to make another man work for him. In the first stages the worker is physically inferior, and often mentally inferior, to the one who makes him work; so that labour becomes a sign of inferiority. Consequently pride comes in to reinforce idleness. Then a third feeling is added. Fighting with enemies and animals is the only occupation worthy of men. Thus three influences Edition: current; Page: [474] conspire to establish a distinction between the ruling militant class and the subject industrial class.

This primary differentiation is followed by secondary differentiations when growth permits. Speaking of the institution in Greece, Heeren, after noting that slaves did domestic work and agricultural work, as well as labour in mines and galleys, goes on to say:—

Still more marked was the sub-differentiation in the still more militant society of Rome. For as we have already seen, not only were those who carried on manual occupations and those who superintended them, members of the slave-class, and not only did this class include those who carried on commerce, but it included also those who carried on the higher mental activities—the professional class. Out of these slave-classes were formed all social structures save those occupied with war and government. There should be added the significant fact that the organization of these servile bodies simulated in some measure the militant organization; since the slaves on a Roman estate were arranged into groups of ten called decuriæ under a decurion, mostly also a slave but sometimes a free man: they were regimented.

In later times throughout Europe, while war was chronic, there arose an analogous though not identical differentiation—analogous in so far that the sustaining part of each society was definitely marked off from the expending part.

§ 799. Between that worst form of slavery in which there is legally recognized no distinction between the bondman and the brute, and the most mitigated form of slavery occur, Edition: current; Page: [475] as already shown, many gradations. The status of the slave differs in various degrees from that of the free man.

The extreme power of the master, naturally existing where political restraints do not exist, we also find in some cases where, along with a comparatively developed law, there exists extreme militancy. It was thus in Fiji. It was thus also among the ancient Mexicans, by whom slaves were to a large extent sacrificed to the gods. Along with life-and-death power over his child, the Roman had of course like power over his slave—could torture him, send him to the arena, or make him food for fishes; and this power continued until the time of Hadrian. But in most societies, not so predominantly devoted to conquest and in smaller degrees delighting in bloodshed, the slave’s right to life has been recognized. It was so in Egypt: killing a slave was accounted as murder and punished by death. In Greece (Athens) though such an offence was not classed as a capital one, yet it entailed religious expiation and sometimes temporary exile. Indeed the much higher status of the Greek slave was shown by the fact that he had a legal remedy for personal outrage.

Where a man’s possession of himself is absent or greatly restricted, his possession of other things is likely to be either absent or greatly restricted. It was thus, according to some authorities, among the Hebrews: probably the custom varied. So was it in early India, where the slave’s inability to hold property was definitely instituted. In other cases, the capacity for possession, beginning by usage, eventually became legal. The Greek slave practically, though not theoretically, could become a proprietor; and while in early Rome the denial of the right to life was naturally accompanied by a denial of the right to property, there grew up the practice of letting the slave accumulate savings and form a peculium. This came to be so well recognized that a deduction was made from it for the privilege of marrying, and then at length, in the second century ad, the slave’s right Edition: current; Page: [476] of property was recognized by law in special cases, joined with a partial right of bequest.

Along with the gradually-established ability to possess, there presently came the ability to purchase freedom. Even among the despotic and sanguinary Mexicans this happened. “Slaves were allowed to marry and to possess private property, by means of which they often liberated themselves.” From a statement concerning Madagascar, where sometimes slaves are entrusted with capital and started in trade, we may infer a similar usage: “half the amount of profit obtained is allowed to the slave”; and if so, a possible purchase of liberty seems implied. In ancient Greece, too, a slave’s acquired property enabled him by agreement to buy his freedom. Similarly in Rome, the peculium could be thus applied, at first by agreement and in later times by law: manumission eventually becoming so common that it was put under legal restriction. But while giving the slave his freedom in return for his peculium was common, the freedom was not at first absolute. The liberated slave remained a client, and in various ways subject to his former master.

Bondage has been otherwise qualified by an arrangement under which the bondman carries on some occupation independently, and gives his owner a portion of the proceeds. Already we have seen that this happens in Madagascar. So in Athens, “the slave artisans who worked singly, handed over to their master a definite contribution out of their earnings, and retained the rest themselves.” Or, as the matter is put by Becker—

This usage, which practically made the slave pay rent for his body, clearly indicated a process of detachment. The slave’s condition was much that of a free man paying heavy taxes.

§ 800. Further detail would be inappropriate. Here we are concerned with slavery as a part of industrial evolution, and have to observe only its relations to coexistent institutions and its character as an agency for carrying on social sustentation; for, under the head of industrial regulation, little attention need be given to the slaves of the household.

The general truth that slavery is a sequence of war, and is extensive in amount and intense in form in proportion as war is active, is shown by negative evidence as well as by positive evidence—by decrease as well as by increase. We see this in the mitigation and gradual disintegration of slavery after the long militant career of the Romans had practically come to a close. The numerous captives taken in battle no longer furnished an adequate supply of slaves. The Romans were “obliged to have recourse to ‘the milder but more tedious method of propagation’ ”; and this improved “the condition of the slave by rendering his existence and physical health an object of greater value to his master.” Dr. Ingram, while remarking that “the rise of Christianity in the Roman world still further improved the condition of the slave,” recognizes “a change in sentiment with respect to the slave-class, which does not appear to have been at all due to Christian teaching, but to have arisen from the spontaneous influence of circumstances co-operating with the softened manners which were inspired by a specific régime.” That is to say, it was not the creed but the mode of life which was influential—not the theory but the practice. This, indeed, is the general reply to be made to that large claim put in for Christianity as the great civilizer. Not to Christian teaching have the improvements been mainly due, but to those relatively unaggressive social activities which have not directly conflicted with Christian teaching; and whether the activities have been aggressive or non-aggressive has been determined by other causes than Christian teaching: the whole history of Europe down to the Edition: current; Page: [478] present hour, when millions of soldiers threaten, yielding proof. Here the fact of significance is that along with perpetual wars, and the implied unmitigated triumphs of force, there went an unmitigated triumph of force in the treatment of slaves; and that with the decline of coerciveness in the one case went its decline in the other.

Considered as a form of industrial regulation, slavery has been natural to early stages of conflicts and consolidations. While all the native males in each society were devoted to war, there was great need for the labour of prisoners to supplement that of women. The institution became, under such conditions, a necessity; for manifestly, other things equal, a people whose men were all warriors and who used their captives as producers, would have an advantage over a people who either killed their captives or did not use them as producers. A society which had a slave-commissariat would, other things equal, survive in conflicts with a society which had no such commissariat.

Conversely, where decrease of wars leads to smaller mortality of native men to be fed, while the slave-class is no longer recruited by fresh captives, some labour on the part of the free population becomes necessary. To meet the need for social sustentation there tends to arise a class of non-slave labourers. So that in another way slavery is normally associated with war and declines along with it.

One more co-operative cause, especially relevant to slavery as an industrial institution, has to be named. When slave-labour and free labour come into competition, slave-labour, other things equal, decreases as being less economical. The relative lack of energy, the entire lack of interest, the unintelligent performance of work, and the greater cost of supervision, make the slave an unprofitable productive agent. Hence with an adequate multiplication of free labourers it tends gradually to disappear.