[5] We have repeatedly remarked that the condition of countries with open resources is quite different: land is abundant, but the supply of labour is limited; therefore the ruling classes attach little value to land as such, but their chief aim is to people the land with men who enter into their service. A good instance is given by Junod in his account of the Baronga (near Delagoa Bay): “According to their laws, the soil belongs exclusively to the chief. But practically it belongs to every one. Nobody buys land. It is given gratuitously to whosoever wants to settle in the country. By simply declaring himself a subject of the chief, a native may acquire as much land as he wants for his subsistence.” (Junod, pp. 186, 187). [↑]
[6] Lange, Die Arbeiterfrage, pp. 12, 13. [↑]
[8] There is another reason: foreign women are sometimes procured for wives. But we may leave this case out of consideration as being foreign to our subject. [↑]
[9] Dr. Vierkandt, reviewing the first edition of this work, remarks that there is no internal connection between the results of the investigation and the distinction of economic groups, as the existence or non-existence of slavery appears to depend not only on the economic state of society, but on many causes which have little to do with this state.
Though we fully admit this last, we think our division of the savage tribes into economic groups is justified by the results of our investigation. This division has led us to the following conclusions. Hunters and fishers, and equally the lowest agricultural group, as Dr. Vierkandt himself observes, generally do not keep slaves. The state of pastoral nomadism is also unfavourable to the growth of slavery. On the other hand, agriculturists of the higher stages are very likely to keep slaves.
Having arrived at these preliminary results, we have inquired which causes engender this connection between slavery and the economic state of society. We have also asked for the causes of the exceptions to the rules above mentioned. So we have come to an understanding of the internal connection between slavery and the other factors of social life. We cannot think our final results would have been obtained as well in any other way. [↑]
[10] In the Shortland Islands (Solomon group) many of the common people are children of slave parents. Ribbe, p. 138. [↑]
[11] Among the Tlinkits, in Holmberg’s time, it was the custom to sacrifice slaves at some great feasts; but the master often gave a good slave the opportunity of hiding [[429]]during the feast; he could then return afterwards with impunity. Generally speaking, no slaves were sacrificed but the old and sickly and those who, being defective in some way or other, caused their master more trouble than profit. Except at the great feasts slaves were scarcely ever killed; for they were valuable and difficult to replace. (Holmberg, I p. 51). We see that the keeping of slaves had become profitable and so the old custom of sacrificing slaves was going out of practice. [↑]
[12] To give one instance, Guppy states that in Ugi, in the Solomon Islands, “infanticide is the prevailing custom. When a man needs assistance in his declining years, his props are not his own sons but youths obtained by purchase from the St. Christoval natives who, as they attain to manhood, acquire a virtual independence, passing almost beyond the control of their original owner. It is from this cause that but a small proportion of the Ugi natives have been born on the island, three-fourths of them having been brought as youths to supply the place of offspring killed in infancy”. Guppy, p. 42. [↑]