As for adopted children, it is not always easy to distinguish them from slaves. Sometimes they are rather severely treated, especially those captured in war or kidnapped. Tanner was thus adopted by an Indian of the Shahnee tribe. The youngest son of this Indian had lately died, and his wife had told her husband, she could not live if he did not restore her the child. The husband accordingly went off, and came back with Tanner whom he had kidnapped. Tanner was adopted on the grave of the deceased boy, and given an Indian name. But the adoptive father treated him not at all as a son. He had to do the hardest work, got but little food, and was often severely beaten. If the mother tried to protect him, she was beaten too. Finally the father, regardless of the mother’s wishes sold him to an old Indian woman, who now became his adoptive mother. She treated him kindly, yet made him cut wood, carry water and meat, and perform other kinds of labour, which generally were not imposed upon children of his age. However, he was not a slave. When full-grown, he was considered by the Indians one of their tribe, and married an Indian girl[44].
In the second Chapter we shall meet with more instances of captives being adopted either into the tribe or into one of the families within the tribe. As long as such persons are children, it is often not easy to see whether they are slaves or adopted children, for it is not always stated, as in Tanner’s case, that they are formally adopted. We must ask then, what becomes of them when full-grown. If they have still a master to serve, it is clear that they are slaves; for if they are adopted members of the community, they will be free when adult, excepting the (most often slight) moral obligations of full-grown children towards their parents. Other facts proving that the captives are slaves, are their not taking share in government [[30]]affairs, when the tribe is democratically organized, and their being excluded from marriage with native-born women. With the aid of these criteria we shall try, in every particular case, to decide whether the captives are slaves or adopted members of the community. What has been said here of captives, equally applies to purchased persons.
The last two paragraphs show that there is still something wanting in our definition. Not every state of possession is slavery; those arising from family relations are to be excluded. Thus only can we come to a true understanding of the signification of slavery. For wives and children may accidentally be forced labourers and the like; the slave only is ex definitione a subjected person, a forced labourer, an object of possession. Wives and children there would be, and there are in many cases, without subjection; slaves there are not where there is not subjection and compulsory labour. A society that begins to keeps slaves, develops a new organ with a special, well marked function; and it is the evolution of this organ we are to trace in the following Chapters.
Our definition therefore wants an addition. We may now put it so: Slavery is the fact, that one man is the property or possession of another beyond the limits of the family proper.
§ 6. Distinction of slavery from kindred phenomena.
III. Members of a society in their relation to the head of the community.
Bastian, after remarking that in a social community nobody is literally free, gives a great number of quotations, describing widely different kinds of subjection, and among these some few, where the subjects of a despot are called his slaves or his property. “The Siamese are all (even marked) slaves of their king.” “The subjects of the king of Djagga are slaves, who may not marry without his consent.” “In Usumbara all are slaves of the king.” “The absolute rulers dispose of all their subjects as their property (even without having acquired a right by the subjects having transgressed the law), and even [[31]]mark with their badge the different working-guilds, as is done by the king of Siam.” “The princes and princesses on the Congo have the right to sell any one who is not a prince like themselves”[45].
What Bastian means by heaping up these various quotations, without any order or attempt at an explanation, is not clear. We, however, must not follow his example, but inquire whether the word “slave” is rightly used here, whether the subjects of a despot may be called slaves. A few moments of consideration will show that they may not. For however great the power of the chief, the king, the despot, in a word the head of the community, over his subjects, they are not his property. “Property” supposes a power of the master, pervading the whole life, personal, domestic and social, of the slave; so great a power over his subjects a chief never has. The following reasoning will make this clear. Slavery would not be capable of much development, if it depended upon the master’s personal superiority only; for slavery to become a social system, the master’s power over the slave must be recognized by the society. The slave lives in a society that regards him as a slave; slavery cannot exist where there is not a society of freemen. Therefore the despot, however great his power, is not as such a master of slaves. The slave-owner has the community on his side; the chief has subjects who themselves compose the community. Looked at from the practical side, the chief’s power contains much more of voluntary submission than the slave-owner’s. A chief never has the whole person of the citizens subjected in his own behalf; he may exact some performances for his personal benefit, but the restrictions put upon the subjects, encroaching on their freedom in private life, will generally be measures taken in the (real or supposed) interest of the community, and approved of by the community. These restrictions are mutual, and arise from the social connection itself; this is not, as in slavery, using one person as a means to the purposes of another definite person. This yet more distinctly appears, where not a single man imposes these rules, [[32]]but the council of citizens. In a communistic society there would be an entire absence of personal freedom; yet there would be no slaves, as there would be no freemen whom they could serve.