Slavery as an industrial system

by H. J. Nieboer

Guppy, in his description of the Solomon Islands, states: “The powerful chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits [[390]]usually possess a large number of wives of whom only the few that retain their youth and comeliness enjoy much of the society of their lord. The majority, having been supplanted in the esteem of their common husband, have sunk into a condition of drudgery, finding their employment and their livelihood in toiling for the master whose affections they once possessed. I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, who has between eighty and a hundred wives, that the main objection he has against missionaries settling on his islands is, that they would insist on his giving up nearly all his wives, thereby depriving him of those by whose labour his plantations are cultivated and his household supplied with food. A great chief, he remarked, required a large staff of workers to cultivate his extensive lands, or, in other words, numerous women to work in his plantations and to bring the produce home”[262].

This statement is very remarkable. In the second chapter of Part I we have seen that in these same islands of Bougainville Straits boys are captured from the neighbouring islands. Guppy calls them slaves, but at the same time tells us that they “enjoy most of the rights of a native of the common class”[263]. There is thus no difficulty in obtaining slaves; yet slavery is little developed, for the simple reason that polygamy perfectly serves the purposes of slavery.

Ribbe equally remarks that on Bougainville polygamy is common. The wife is the slave of her husband: she has to till the fields, to perform most of the domestic work and to take care of the children. In the Shortland Islands (near Bougainville) the wife is the slave and beast of burden of her husband, rather than his companion[264].

In the Nissan Islands, according to Sorge, most of the work is done by the women[265].

In the New Hebrides polygamy also prevails. The price paid for a wife varies from 10 to 20 pigs, “according to her capabilities as a worker in the yam-patch.” “They [the women] learn in their girlhood all that fits them to be man’s slave and [[391]]toiler in the fields”. “Women are degraded to the level of brute beasts, doing all the hard field work, and being made to carry loads which appear quite disproportionate to their ugly-shaped bodies and thin legs”[266]. Hagen and Pineau give a similar account of female labour, and add that a man’s wealth depends on the number of his wives[267].

De Vaux, speaking of the women of New Caledonia, says: “All the drudgery is incumbent on them. They perform the clearing and digging of the soil, carry on their backs crushing loads of ignames and taros to the village, and, if a chief has promised you assistance in some fatiguing work that you want to have quickly done, he will send you a gang of these miserable beings who may scarcely be called women.” Turner remarks: “Chiefs had ten, twenty, and thirty wives. The more wives the better plantations and the more food.” “If a wife misbehaved, the chief did not divorce her, but made her work all the harder”. And Rochas tells us that the New Caledonians keep no servants, but have many wives instead; rich men have as many wives as they want for the cultivation of their fields[268].

In Neu Pommern, according to Parkinson, “every man who can afford it buys many wives. For a wife is a capital that yields a fair interest; she works from an early age till her strength is spent; and when, from age or by being overtaxed with labour, she grows sickly and decrepit, she perishes unheeded by anybody. The wife is nothing but the beast of burden of her husband; she performs all labour, tills the soil, cleans the dwelling, prepares the food, and carries the reaped produce in heavy baskets far away to the market. The husband therefore regards his wife as a valuable property.” “The husband continually urges his wives to work, that they may earn much dewarra [shell-money] for him; for the more dewarra he owns the greater is the consideration and influence he enjoys. But the lot of the wives is not bettered by an increase in the wealth of the husband. The wives of a man who owns thousands of coils of dewarra have no better life and are no [[392]]less overworked than the wife of a very poor man who has no property except his only wife.” And Danks states that “a man may have as many wives as he can afford to purchase. If he cannot afford to purchase one, and his credit is low, he may have to remain single. The headmen are generally rich men, hence they invariably have a number of wives, ranging from three to six”. “Married life in New Britain is a hard one for the women. They are beaten and ill-treated by their husbands as occasion may arise”[269].

In New Mecklenburg the condition of the women is equally bad[270].

In Fiji, according to Williams, “polygamy is looked upon as a principal source of a chiefs power and wealth.” And Pritchard says: “The greater the number of wives a man had, the better his social position.… Besides the acknowledged wives, there were attached to the household of the chiefs slave-women, who, though performing the most menial services, were at the same time nothing else than what the odalisques are in the Turkish harem”[271].

We see that these Melanesian wives supply the place of slaves. They are bought like slaves; they have to work for their owners like slaves; and their labour, like that of slaves, increases the wealth of their lords. Another point of resemblance is this. In slave countries it is generally the rich only who are able to procure slaves; poor freemen have to work for themselves. Here it is the rich who appropriate the women; and many of the poor have to remain single. Here, as in all countries where polygamy is practised, it is only the minority of the men who can live in polygamy; for everywhere the number of women is nearly equal to that of men. And as in Melanesia the rich, who otherwise would want slaves, have many wives to work for them, slaves are not required.