[13] Now the Royal Canadian Institute. The paper appears in Series II of the Transactions, Vol. 2, p. 20 (1857).
The use by the Indians of Slaves is noted very early: for example in Galinée's Narrative of the extraordinary voyage of LaSalle and others in 1669-70 the travellers are shown to have obtained from the Indians, slaves as guides. See pp. 21, 27, 43 of Coyne's edition, 4 Ont. Hist. Soc. Papers (1903). These Indians were accustomed to take their slaves to the Dutch. Ibid., p. 27.
Still there is not very much in the old authors about slavery among the Indians: the references are incidental and fragmentary and the institution is taken for granted. Thus in Lescarbot's History of New France, published in 1609, the only reference which I recall is on pp. 270, 449 of The Champlain Society's edition, Toronto, 1914; speaking of the Micmacs the author says: " ... the conquerors keep the women and children prisoners ... herein they retain more humanity than is sometimes shown by Christians. For in any case, one should be satisfied to make them slaves as do our savages or to make them purchase their liberty."
[14] It will be remembered that the ancient law of Rome, the Twelve Tables, authorized creditors to take an insolvent debtor, kill him and divide his body amongst them, a real execution against the person more trenchant if not more effective than the capias ad satisfaciendum dear to the English lawyer.
[15] Everyone has shuddered at the awful picture drawn by Juvenal in his Sixth Satire of the fashionable Roman dame who had eight husbands in five years and who ordered her slave to immediate crucifixion. When her husband mildly ventured to suggest that there should at least be some evidence of guilt and that no time should be considered long where the life of a man is in question he was snubbed, just as the Roman lady who was expostulated with for taking her bath in the presence of man slaves asked "An servus homo?" The horrible but pithy dialogue reads:
"Pone crucem servo." "Meruit quo crimine servus
Supplicium? Quis testis adest? Quis detulit? Audi
Nulla umquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est"
"O demens, ita servus homo est? Nil fecerit, esto
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas."
—Juvenal, Sat., VI, ll. 219-223.
"The cross for the slave!" "What is the charge? What is the evidence? Who laid the information? Hear what he has to say—No delay is ever great where the death of a man is in question." "You driveller! So a slave is a man! Have it your own way—he did nothing. I wish it, that is my order, my wish is a good enough reason."
The natural death for a Roman slave was on the cross or under the scourge.
[16] Constantine also by his Constitution No. 319 provided for slaves becoming free: the Constitution referred to in the text is No. 326. The best short account of slave legislation in Rome which I have seen is in a paper read by the late Vice Chancellor Proudfoot of the Ontario Court of Chancery, February 7, 1891, before the Canadian Institute. Trans. Can. Ins., Series IV, Vol. 2, p. 173. Many of the judgments of Vice Chancellor Proudfoot (venerabile nomen) show a profound knowledge and appreciation of the Civil Law.
The following is taken from Prof. Sherman's great work Roman Law in the Modern World, Boston, 1917. The learned author has laid philosophical lawyers of all countries under heavy obligations by this splendid book, as noted for its lucidity as for its learning.