The murder of another person’s slave is of course largely regarded as an offence against the property of the owner, but, in many cases at least, it is not exclusively looked upon in this light. Where the master himself is not allowed to kill his slave, the slave possesses the right to live in the full sense of the term. Sometimes there is in this respect little difference between him and a freeman. Among the Beni Amer, whilst the murder of a slave who has been bought is merely compensated for by the payment of the purchase sum, the murder of a slave who belongs to his master by birth is avenged by his relatives, or, if he has none, by the master himself; should the murderer be too high a person, the matter drops, but there is no question of payment in any case.[32] Where the system of blood-money prevails, the price paid for the life of a slave is less than that paid for the life of a freeman. Among the Kirghiz the former is only half of the latter.[33] In Axim, on the Gold Coast, according to Bosman, the murderer of a slave was usually fined thirty-six crowns, whilst five hundred crowns were demanded for the murder of a free-born negro.[34]
[32] Ibid. p. 309.
[33] Georgi, op. cit. ii. 261.
[34] Bosman, New Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 141 sq.
The rule that the life of a slave is held in less estimation than the life of a freeman applies to the nations of archaic culture; yet not even the master is among them in all circumstances allowed to put his slave to death. In ancient Mexico the murder of a slave, though committed by the master, was a capital offence.[35] In Corea, a slave may not be killed by his owner before the latter has obtained the permission of the board of punishments, or of the high provincial authorities.[36] According to the Chinese Penal Code, a master who, instead of complaining to a magistrate privately, beats to death a slave who has been guilty of theft, adultery, or any other similar crime, shall be punished with one hundred blows. If he beats to death, or intentionally kills, a slave who has committed no crime, he shall be punished with sixty blows and one year’s banishment, and the wife or husband, as also the children, of the deceased slave shall be entitled to their freedom.[37] Again, a freeman who kills another’s slave shall be strangled.[38]
[35] Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 223.
[36] Rockhill, ‘Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of Korea,’ in American Anthropologist, iv. 180. Cf. Griffis, Corea, p. 239.
[37] Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccxiv. p. 340.
[38] Ibid. sec. cccxiii. p. 336.
According to Hebrew law, a master who smites his slave so that he dies under his hand, “shall be surely punished”; but if the slave continues to live for a day or two after the assault, the master goes free on the score that the slave is “his money.”[39] Muhammed strongly enjoined the duty of kindness to slaves; yet, according to Muhammedan law, the master may even kill his own slave with impunity for any offence, and incurs but a slight punishment—as imprisonment for a period at the discretion of the judge—if he kills him wantonly.[40] The price of blood for a slave is his or her value; but by the Ḥanafee law a man is obnoxious to capital punishment for the murder of another man’s slave.[41]