Slavery as an industrial system

by H. J. Nieboer

Some remarks have still to be made on the details of our proceeding. First as to the ethnographical literature.

We have collected our materials quite impartially, without any regard to our ultimate conclusions, which, indeed, rest upon a study of the facts, not upon any preconceived opinion. Though there is, of course, much ethnographical literature we have not used, our collection is rather extensive and contains most of the better works. All geographical groups are properly represented, least of all perhaps India, most of the literature on which country (so far as wild tribes are concerned) seems to be wanting in the Dutch libraries. We have greatly profited by being allowed to make use of Professor Steinmetz’s schedules, being detailed extracts of hundreds of ethnographical books and articles, somewhat resembling Spencer’s “Descriptive Sociology”, but far more complete.

The ethnographical literature may not, however, be used without a thorough criticism. We shall often meet with very loose and inaccurate statements, and this book will afford many instances of the careless use of the terms “slave” and “slavery” by ethnographers. The zoölogist and the geologist have only to deal with accounts of their fellow-scientists; but the ethnologist is obliged always to rely on ethnographers, who often have no notion of ethnology, and sometimes no notion of science at all. Hence the very bad terminology; hence also the frequent omission of details which would have been very valuable. Yet, regarding the very little that has as yet been achieved in ethnology, we can hardly blame the ethnographers. It is true, if the ethnographical literature were better, ethnology would greatly profit by it; but, on the other hand, even with the help of the existing literature, which, after all, is not so very bad, much more might be attained than is actually done. And as long as ethnology is still in an unsettled condition, it is perhaps better that an ethnographer should have no ideas at all on ethnological subjects, than premature, quasi-scientific, and probably erroneous ideas. Montaigne, one of the most sensible men who have ever lived, speaking of his informant on the cannibals of America, says: “This man whom I had was a simple and rude man, which is a condition conducive to reliable testimony; for refined people observe more curiously and observe more things; but then they gloss them; and in order to force their interpretation on you, they [[XVIII]]cannot but change the story a little; they never represent you the pure facts; they warp and mask them according to the point of view from which they regard them; and in order to give credit to their judgment and make you accept their view, they readily add something to the matter on that side and exaggerate it. A man must be either very truthful, or so simple that he does not want to construct false inventions and give them a semblance of truth, and is not riveted to a theory.” What we want is, as the same writer has it, la matière de l’histoire nue et informe[1]. An ethnographer should be taught what to observe and how to observe, and how to record his observations. But when this ideal cannot be attained, it is better to have an ethnographer who only knows that every correct statement of his will interest the men of science, than one whose perceptive faculties are troubled by preconceived opinions.

We have subjected our materials to a thorough criticism, externally by comparing in each case the descriptions of the same tribe by different writers, and internally by inquiring what importance is to be attached to the statements of each writer, considering the time in which he wrote, his more or less intimate acquaintance with the people described, the general character of his writings, etc.

We thus find where slavery exists or formerly existed, and where it does or did not exist. We always mention the exact numbers of the tribes with and without slaves in the several geographical groups, and afterwards also in the several economic groups. We do not intend these numbers as statistical materials, upon which to base mathematical rules. We only mean to express the results of our investigations in the exactest manner possible. Instead of stating: Slavery in such a group exists in many cases, it is much more accurate to state: Slavery in such a group exists, so far as our observations go, in, say, 80 cases. We thus simply follow the method (sometimes miscalled statistical method) first introduced by Professor Tylor in his article “On a method of investigating the development of institutions”, and adopted by Professor Steinmetz in his “Entwicklung der Strafe”.

We inquire next what conditions govern the occurrence of the observed phenomena. This part of our work is certainly the most difficult, and it is necessary here to proceed with the utmost caution. Many ethnologists adopt a rather curious method. They have some theory, found by deductive reasoning, and then adduce a few facts by way of illustration. This, however, is quite insufficient. It does not appear whether all existing facts agree with the theory; there may be many instances, not mentioned by the theorist, in which his rule does not hold. The only scientific method is impartially to collect facts and inquire whether they can be brought [[XIX]]under any general rule. If we find a hypothesis that accounts for many, but not all, of the observed phenomena, our task is not finished until we have explained the rest by showing the influence of additional factors. Moreover, the negative instances must be accounted for as well as the positive. If we account for the existence of B by the coexistence of A, we must prove either that in those cases where B does not exist A too is absent, or that in such cases there are additional causes which neutralize the effect of A. Ethnological works should not be causeries, as they often are, but scientific researches.

But we must also be careful not to fall into the other extreme. We shall never be able to arrive at a true understanding of the facts without the help of leading ideas. The facts do not arrange themselves spontaneously; we must try to account for them by hypotheses which seem a priori plausible. When such a hypothesis occurs to us, we have to inquire how far it can go to account for the facts, and, of course, to abandon it if, however plausible it seemed, it proves to be erroneous. By judiciously selecting our hypotheses we can save ourselves much futile labour. For instance, when about to investigate the causes of slavery, it occurs to us that its existence will probably largely depend on the economic state of society, and we inquire whether this be really so. If we began with investigating the effect of some factor that a priori seems to have little connection with slavery, e.g. the development of aesthetic sentiments, we should be almost certain to do useless work.

The present volume endeavours to come up to the ideal we have set ourselves and developed here. A book of the same size as this might contain a survey of many more subjects connected with slavery. In the last paragraph it will be shown how very much remains unsaid. We treat only a small portion of the subject of slavery. But this portion is treated carefully, and by doing so we think we have arrived at some conclusions of scientific value, whereas, if we had superficially treated a wider subject, our work, though perhaps more agreeable from a literary point of view, would be nearly useless in a scientific sense.

Slavery among savages has never yet been made the subject of any special investigation. Letourneau’s “Évolution de l’Esclavage” treats of slavery among all races of mankind, savages included. But he deals with his subject in quite an insufficient manner. His literature is rather scanty, and there is no question of any critical inquiry into the value of his materials. The theoretical part of his work consists of some entirely unproved assertions; not a single systematic investigation is to be found in it. Hence his general conclusion is very meagre and contains only the hackneyed evolutionary series of slavery,—serfdom,—wage-system,—socialist paradise, to which he adds “slavery of women” as the very first stage. The scientific value of this book is very little. [[XX]]

There is another book dealing with the general history of slavery, Professor J. K. Ingram’s “History of slavery and serfdom”. This writer confines himself to the historical nations of ancient and modern times; the savages are excluded. Though he makes many valuable remarks, of which, as the reader will see, we have availed ourselves, by far the greater part of his work is purely descriptive. A great difference between his book and ours is further that he writes “not for scholars, but for the mass of thoughtful and cultivated men and women”[2], whereas we appeal to the men of science, not to the public at large. Yet it is an instructive little book. We only regret that the writer appears to agree with Comte’s curious theory concerning the relation between slavery and religion[3].