We do not attach very much importance to this circumstance; for even the Australians have a great variety of food, and yet they are poorly off[66]. But together with the other causes it may have some influence; for where various kinds of food are available, there is a good chance, that the procuring of one or more of them will be a work fit to be performed by slaves.
3º. They generally have fixed habitations and live in rather large groups; they are enabled to do so by preserving food for winter use. The Koniagas “build two kinds of houses; one a large, winter village residence, … and the other a summer hunting hut.… Their winter houses are very large, accommodating three or four families each.” “The kashim or public house of the Koniagas is built like their dwellings, and is capable of accommodating three or four hundred people.” During the summer great quantities of fish are dried for winter use, which they lay up in their houses[67]. The Tlinkits during the winter dwell in villages, regularly built and consisting of solidly constructed houses. The greater houses lodge up to 30 persons. “For winter they dry large quantities of herring, roes, and the flesh of animals”[68]. Haida houses are similar to those of the Tlinkits, but larger, better constructed and more richly ornamented. “Fish, when caught, are delivered to the women, whose duty it is to prepare them for winter use by drying”[69]. Among the Nootkas “each tribe has several villages in favourable locations for fishing at different seasons.” Each house accommodates many families. Fish and shell-fish are preserved by [[206]]drying; some varieties of seaweed and lichens, as well as various roots, are regularly laid up for winter use[70]. In Jewitt’s narrative mention is made of divisions of the Ahts, consisting of 500–1000 warriors. They used to preserve various kinds of fish for the winter[71]. In W. Washington and N. W. Oregon acorns, some kinds of berries, and especially salmon and whaleblubber, are stored for winter use[72]. About Puget Sound “the rich and powerful build substantial houses”. “These houses sometimes measure over one hundred feet in length, and are divided into rooms or pens, each house accommodating many families.” “In the better class of houses, supplies are neatly stored in baskets at the sides”[73]. “During a portion of every year the Tacullies dwell in villages.” “In April they visit the lakes and take small fish; and after these fail, they return to their villages and subsist upon the fish they have dried, and upon herbs and berries”[74]. The Chinooks, according to Bancroft, do not move about much for the purpose of obtaining a supply of food. They have permanent winter dwellings. “Once taken, the salmon were cleaned by the women, dried in the sun and smoked in the lodges; then they were sometimes powdered fine between two stones before packing in skins or mats for winter use”. Swan also states that they preserve fish and berries for the winter[75]. Similar accounts are given of the Similkameem[76].
These circumstances greatly tend to further the growth of slavery. A settled life makes escape of the slaves more difficult[77]. Living in larger groups brings about a higher organization of freemen, and therefore a greater coercive power of the tribe over its slaves. And the preserving of food requires additional work; and this work is very fit to be performed by slaves, as it does not require overmuch skill, and has to be done in or near the house, so that supervision of the work is very easy. Moreover, the hope of partaking of the stored food is a tie that binds the slave to his master’s house, in [[207]]much the same manner as a modern workman is bound by having a share in the insurance fund of the factory.
4º. Trade and industry are highly developed along the Pacific Coast. Kane speaks of the ioquas, “a small shell found at Cape Flattery, and only there, in great abundance. These shells are used as money, and a great traffic is carried on among all the tribes by means of them”[78]. Among the Aleuts “whalefishing is confined to certain families, and the spirit of the craft descends from father to son”[79]. The Koniagas are “adapted to labour and commerce rather than to war and hunting”. They make very good boats and men as well as women excel in divers trades. They got slaves by means of exchange from other tribes[80]. Among the Tlinkits there are professional wood-carvers, smiths and silversmiths. The women are very skilful in plaiting. Very good canoes are made. Formerly they hunted whales with harpoons. Trade was already highly developed before the arrival of the whites; they traded even with remote parts of the coast and with the tribes of the interior. The trade in slaves was formerly carried on on a large scale[81]. The large and ingeniously built canoes of the Haidas are widely celebrated; they often make them for sale. They have a standard of value: formerly slaves or pieces of copper, now blankets. Their houses are richly ornamented. They are “noted for their skill in the construction of their various implements, particularly for sculptures in stone and ivory, in which they excel all the other tribes of Northern America”[82]. The Tsimshian formerly acted as middlemen in the slave-trade. The southern tribes kidnapped or captured slaves, sold them to the Tsimshian, and these again to the Tlinkits and interior Tinneh. “Each chief about Fort Simpson kept an artisan, whose business it was to repair canoes, make masks, etc.”[83]. The Atnas “understand the art of working copper, and have commercial relations with surrounding tribes”. They buy their slaves from the Koltschanes[84]. Gibbs states that in W. Washington [[208]]and N. W. Oregon the Indians of the interior preserve some kinds of salmon, “which after a stay in the fresh water have lost their superfluous oil, and these are often actually traded to those Indians at the mouth of the river or on the Sound. The Dalles was formerly a great depot for this commerce”. Some wild-growing roots “were formerly a great article of trade with the interior”. The slave-trade is carried on here too. “Many of the slaves held here are … brought from California, where they were taken by the warlike and predatory Indians of the plains, and sold to the Kallapuia and Tsinuk.” “Many of them [the slaves] belong to distant tribes”[85]. The tribes about Puget Sound have canoes, beautifully made, painted and polished. The houses of the rich are made of planks split from trees by means of bone wedges. “In their barter between the different tribes, and in estimating their wealth, the blanket is generally the unit of value, and the hiaqua, a long white shell obtained off Cape Flattery at a considerable depth, is also extensively used for money, its value increasing with its length. A kind of annual fair for trading purposes and festivities is held by the tribes of Puget Sound at Bajada Point.” “Slaves are obtained by war and kidnapping, and are sold in large numbers to northern tribes”[86]. Of the Nootkas Bancroft says: “Trade in all their productions was carried on briskly between the different Nootka tribes before the coming of the whites.” “The slave-trade forms an important part of their commerce.” Harpooners are a privileged class[87]. The several divisions of the Ahts mutually exchange the fish that each of them catches. They also sell mats and baskets manufactured by the women. According to Jewitt’s narrative, they made very good canoes. A kind of shell, strung upon threads, formed a circulating medium among them, five fathoms of it being the price of a slave, their most valuable species of property. “The trade of most of the other tribes with Nootka was principally train-oil, seal or whale’s blubber, fish fresh or dried, herring or salmon spawn, clams and mussels, and the yama, a species of fruit which is pressed and dried, cloth, sea-otter skins, and slaves”[88]. [[209]]Among the Makah (a Nootka tribe) the whale-oil “is used as an article of food as well as for trade.… The Makah were till lately in the habit of purchasing oil from the Nittinat also, and have traded in a single season, it is said, as much as 30,000 gallons.” A division into different trades also exists among them. “A portion of them only attain the dignity of whalers, a second class devote themselves to halibut, and a third to salmon and inferior fish, the occupations being kept distinct, at least, in a great measure”[89]. Among the Tacullies hiaqua shells up to 1810 were the circulating medium of the country[90]. The Chinooks, says Bancroft, “were always a commercial rather than a warlike people, and are excelled by none in their shrewdness in bargaining. Before the arrival of the Europeans they repaired annually to the region of the Cascades and Dalles, where they met the tribes of the interior, with whom they exchanged their few articles of trade—fish, oil, shell and Wapato—for the skins, roots and grasses of their eastern neighbours.” “Their original currency or standard of value was the hiaqua shell.” They obtain their slaves “by war, or more commonly by trade”. According to Swan, the Chinooks “manage, during the course of the winter, to make a great many articles, which are disposed of to the whites”. A species of small shell passes as money among them. “Their slaves are purchased from the Northern Indians, and are either stolen or captives of war, and were regularly brought down and sold to the southern tribes”[91].
This development of trade and industry furthers the growth of slavery in several ways:
a. The slave-trade facilitates the keeping of slaves. Prisoners of war usually belong to a neighbouring tribe; they have much more opportunity to escape to their native country than purchased slaves, who have been transported from a great distance. The latter, if escaping from their masters, would instantly be recaptured by some other slave-keeping tribe of the Pacific Coast. So among the Nootkas “a runaway slave is generally seized and resold by the first tribe he meets”[92]. We can [[210]]therefore easily understand why the Koniagas did not keep full-grown captive men as slaves, but acquired their male slaves by means of exchange[93]. Similarly, a chief of the Cowitchins (near Vancouver Island), according to Kane, “took many captives, whom he usually sold to the tribes further north, thus diminishing their chance of escaping back through a hostile country to their own people”[94].
b. Where the fishing implements are brought to a high perfection (canoes, nets, harpoons), fishing becomes more remunerative; the produce of a fishing slave’s labour exceeds his primary wants more than where fishing is carried on in a ruder manner.
c. The more the freemen devote themselves to trade and industry, the more need there is for slaves to do the ruder work (fishing, rowing, cooking, etc.). The trade itself may also require menial work: carrying goods or rowing boats on commercial journeys, etc.[95].
d. Another effect of intertribal trade, together with a settled life and abundance of food, is probably this, that these tribes are not so warlike as most hunters. So they need not employ all available forces in warfare; they can afford to keep male slaves who do not fight. We have seen that the Koniagas are “adapted to labour and commerce rather than to war and hunting”, and that the Chinooks “were always a commercial rather than a warlike people”. Regarding the other tribes it is not clearly stated, whether war is very frequent[96]; but our impression, on perusing the ethnographical literature, is, that it is not nearly so frequent as among the Sioux, Ojibways, and similar tribes.
5º. Property and wealth are also highly developed. Schmoller remarks: “We know now, that there are some instances of settled hunting and fishing tribes with villages, with some development of the means of conveyance, with dog-sledges, reindeer, [[211]]etc., with a certain social organization of the chase and fishery, with ornaments and slaves, with rich and poor people; such is the case in Northern California, in Northern Asia, in Kamchatka”[97]. Among the Koniagas “when an individual becomes ambitious of popularity, a feast is given”. A man’s wealth, among them, formerly depended on the number of sea-otter skins he owned[98]. Among the Tlinkits private property comprises clothes, weapons, implements, hunting territories and roads of commerce. Nobility depends on wealth rather than on birth[99]. Of the Haidas Bancroft says: “Rank and power depend greatly upon wealth, which consists of implements, wives and slaves. Admission to alliance with medicine-men, whose influence is greatest in the tribe, can only be gained by sacrifice of private property”. Swan speaks of wooden pillars, placed before the houses of the rich. They are elaborately carved at a cost of hundreds of blankets, and fetch up to 1000 dollars. Only the very rich are able to purchase them[100]. Kane speaks of a Cowitchin chief who “possessed much of what is considered wealth amongst the Indians, and it gradually accumulated from tributes which he exacted from his people. On his possessions reaching a certain amount, it is customary to make a great feast, to which all contribute. The neighbouring chiefs with whom he is in amity are invited, and at the conclusion of the entertainment, he distributes all he has collected since the last feast, perhaps three or four years preceding, among his guests as presents. The amount of property thus collected and given away by a chief is sometimes very considerable. I have heard of one possessing as many as twelve bales of blankets, from twenty to thirty guns, with numberless pots, kettles, and pans, knives, and other articles of cutlery, and great quantities of beads, and other trinkets, as well as numerous beautiful Chinese boxes, which find their way here from the Sandwich Islands. The object in thus giving his treasures away is to add to his own importance in the eyes of others, his own people often boasting of how much their chief had given away, and exhibiting with pride such things as they had received themselves from [[212]]him”[101]. Among the Nootkas “private wealth consists of boats and implements for obtaining food, domestic utensils, slaves, and blankets”. “The accumulation of property beyond the necessities of life is only considered desirable for the purpose of distributing it in presents on great feast-days, and thereby acquiring a reputation for wealth and liberality”[102]. In Jewitt’s narrative it is stated, that among the Ahts the king is obliged to support his dignity by making frequent entertainments, otherwise he would not be considered as conducting himself like a king, and would be no more thought of than a common man[103]. A wealthy Fish Indian may also win renown by giving away or destroying property[104]. Boas, describing the Kwakiutl Indians, speaks of “the method of acquiring rank. This is done by means of the potlatch, or the distribution of property. The underlying principle is that of the interest-bearing investment of property”. He gives an elaborate account of this institution[105]. Among the Makah “the larger class of canoes generally belong to a single individual and he receives a proportionate share of the booty from the crew”[106]. Among the Tacullies “any person may become a miuty or chief who will occasionally provide a village feast”[107]. Of the tribes of W. Washington and N. W. Oregon Gibbs says: “Wealth gives a certain power among them, and influence is purchased by its lavish distribution.” They have pretty clear ideas about the right of property in houses and goods. The men own property distinct from their wives. The husband has his own blankets, the wife her mats and baskets[108]. Bancroft tells us of the Puget Sound Indians: “I find no evidence of hereditary rank or caste except as wealth is sometimes inherited”[109]. Among the Chinooks “individuals were protected in their right to personal property, such as slaves, canoes, and implements”. Each village was ruled by a chief “either hereditary or selected for his wealth and popularity”[110].