It is, of course, perfectly possible, and indeed it often occurs, [[405]]that some slaves are kept as a mere luxury, either doing nothing at all, or performing personal services. But then there must be other slaves who, by performing productive labour, provide for their master, their fellow-slaves, and themselves. There cannot be a class of unproductive labourers, without there being a class of productive labourers too. We can only imagine one case, in which all slaves might be kept as a mere luxury. It might be, that there were a class of productive labourers consisting of freemen, who provided for the slave-owners and their unproductive slaves. There might, for instance, be an aristocracy, levying taxes on the common people and keeping slaves as a luxury. Such is indeed the case among the pastoral Beni Amer. It might also occur among agricultural tribes; but we have not found any instance of it.
Only in two cases have we found it stated that slaves are not productive.
Coquilhat tells us that on the Upper Congo the keeping of slaves does not increase the master’s income; for agriculture is insignificant, and these tribes are not commercial. But he also states that the soil is tilled by old women and male slaves, so slaves do not seem to be kept as a mere luxury[314].
Among the Fanti, according to Finsch, slaves are articles of luxury; they are as lazy as their masters. They are acquired as prisoners of war or by purchase. Every noble Fanti owns numerous slaves; for it is a mark of distinction to keep many of them. Some slaves carry parasols or fans; others by trumpeting announce the arrival of the patrician. Most of them do nothing at all. But the same writer states that the condition of the pawns (who, as has been shown in the first chapter of Part I, are a kind of slaves) is much worse than that of the slaves in the restricted sense[315]. We may therefore suppose that these pawns are the productive labourers.
We have never found it explicitly stated that among any agricultural tribe slaves are not employed in agriculture.
Our conclusion is that luxury has not probably been among any agricultural tribe the only motive for keeping slaves. [[406]]Yet many slaves are kept as a mere luxury, and consequently among some tribes slaves are far more numerous than they would be if all of them were engaged in productive pursuits.
§ 17. Other secondary internal causes.
We have seen that among the tribes of the Pacific Coast of North America the growth of slavery is furthered by their preserving food for the time of scarcity, whereas hunters who live from hand to mouth have less use for slave labour.
Hunting agriculturists much resemble true hunters: subsistence depends largely on the vicissitudes of the chase. But where a tribe lives principally on the produce of the soil, it is necessary to preserve the reaped fruits until the following harvest.