Kirghiz, owner of 8000 horses, why he did not sell every year a part of
his stud. He answered: “Why should I sell that which is my pleasure? I
want no money; if I had any, I should be obliged to shut it up in a
box, where nobody would see it; but when my steeds run over the steppe
everybody looks at them; everybody knows that they are mine; and people
always remember that I am rich.” In this manner is the reputation of
being a rich man acquired throughout the hordes; such is the wealth
that procures them the regard of their countrymen and the title of baï
(rich man), which sometimes gives them an ascendency over the offspring
of the khans and the most deserving old men.” On the other hand the
number of beggars is very considerable. Levchine makes no mention of
servants; but Radloff, who about thirty years later visited the Kazak
Kirghiz, says: “There exists here a class of servants, whom I found in
every well-to-do family. The herds are generally tended by hired
herdsmen, who are subjected to a kind of supervision.” The rich also
engage poor families to till their lands. A man who loses all his
cattle has no resource left but to offer himself as a labourer [1189].
The same first-rate ethnographer informs us that among the Altaians
“rich and poor eat the same kind of food; the difference is only in the
size of the kettle and the quantity of food. The poor man eats what he
has got, which most frequently is very little; and he would starve but
that the rich have such an abundance of food, that in summer they
readily entertain whoever comes to their jurts (tents).” When a beast
is being killed, the poor neighbours in large numbers throng towards
the place and try to secure those portions of the bowels that the rich
disdain; they have to fight for them with the dogs, who are equally
fond of the delicacies. When all guests have been served, pieces of
meat are thrown towards the door, where poor men and dogs try to secure
them. The picked bones are also thrown to the poor, who clean them so
thoroughly that nothing but the bare bone is left to the dogs. The
cattle of the rich are generally tended by poor neighbours, who live in
the vicinity of the rich, partake of their food, and receive their worn
clothes. Young girls often seek employment as servants; orphans of poor
men also serve the rich [1190].
Among the Kalmucks there are poor people who serve the rich as herdsmen
[1191].
Prschewalsky states that rich Mongols, who own thousands of beasts,
employ herdsmen who are poor and have no relations [1192].
The Kurds of Eriwan employ freemen as herdsmen [1193].
Among the Tunguz the poor generally serve the rich, by whom they are
badly treated [1194].
Yakuts, who have less than one head of cattle per soul, must hire
themselves out for wages [1195].
Pallas says: “Every Samoyede has his reindeer and tends them himself
with the help of his family, except the very rich who employ poor men
as herdsmen.” Von Stenin also states that the poor serve the rich. The
following anecdote, given by this writer, shows how strongly the desire
of wealth influences psychical life among the Samoyedes. One of them
depicted the delight of intoxication in these terms: “Spirits taste
better than meat. When a man is drunk, he fancies he has many reindeer
and thinks himself a merchant. But on coming to his senses he sees that
he is poor and has just spent his last reindeer in drinking” [1196].
Of the Koryakes we are told: “Before they were subjected by the
Russians, they had neither government nor magistrates; only the rich
exercised some authority over the poor.” Their greatest pleasure
consists in looking at their herds. The poor are employed in tending
the herds of the rich for food and clothing; if they have themselves
some reindeer, they are allowed to join them to their master’s herds
and tend them together with the latter [1197].
Among the Tuski, according to Georgi, the poor serve the rich as
herdsmen [1198].
In North-East Africa the state of things is not quite the same. The
pastoral nomads here form the nobility, and tax subjected tribes with
tributes and compulsory labour. Servants are not found here so often as
in Asia. Sometimes, however, they are found. Thus among the Beni Amer
there are herdsmen, maid-servants etc. who work for wages [1199]. The
same, perhaps, applies to the Massai, where the man who owns large
herds and many wives, enjoys high consideration but a poor man is
despised [1200].
“Among all South African natives” says Fritsch “the rich tyrannize over
the poor who, in the hope of filling their stomachs, comply with a
state of dependence that is not authorized by law” [1201].
Among the Caffres poor men place themselves under the protection of a
rich head of a family, build their huts in his kraal, and in reward
yield their cattle to him [1202].
Kropf tells us that among the Ama-Xosa the consideration a man enjoys
depends on the number of cattle he owns. The poor are fed by the chief
and in return render him services [1203].
The Ovaherero despise any one who has no cattle. The rich support many
people, who become their dependents, and so they acquire distinction
and power [1204]. The children of impoverished families who, according
to Andersson [1205], are kept as slaves, are perhaps rather to be
called servants.
Among those tribes which are mainly agricultural, but besides subsist
largely upon the produce of their cattle, similar phenomena present
themselves.
Among the Ossetes freemen are often employed as servants [1206].
Among the Bechuanas the possession of cattle and a waggon is a mark of
distinction. They mix their porridge with curdled milk, and therefore
call a poor man a water-porridge man [1207].
Casalis gives an elaborate description of the value which the Basutos
attach to the possession of cattle. Wealth, among them, consists in
cattle, and this wealth is the base of the power of the chiefs. By
means of the produce of their herds they feed the poor, procure arms
for the warriors, support the troops in war and entertain good
relations with neighbouring nations. Were a chief to lose his cattle,
his power would be at an end [1208].
The Barotse employ as herdsmen young slaves and sons of poor men
[1209].
Among the Dinka every man upon an average owns three head of cattle;
but there are also poor men, who are the slaves or servants of the rich
[1210]. We may safely infer that these “slaves or servants” are
servants and not slaves.
The sheikh of each Chillook tribe, according to Chaillé Long, detains
as slaves those who do not own even a single cow [1211]. Probably the
same state of things prevails here as among the Caffres: these poor men
are not slaves, but compelled by hunger to seek the protection of a
rich man.
In the country of the Gallas the value of labour is very small [1212].
The Bogos employ freemen as herdsmen and peasants; they also keep
maid-servants [1213].
Among the Amahlubi there are herdsmen, who serve for wages [1214].
We see that, wherever men subsist by cattle-breeding, a peculiar
characteristic of economic life presents itself. This characteristic is
not the existence of wealth; for wealth also exists among the tribes of
the Pacific Coast of North America; yet on the Pacific Coast slave
labour is of great use. It is the existence of poverty. On the Pacific
Coast the “abundant natural supplies in ocean, stream, and forest”
enable each man, be he rich or not, to provide for himself; but among
pastoral tribes the means of subsistence are the property of
individuals; and those who own no cattle have no resource but to apply
to the owners for support [1215]. Therefore, if labourers are wanted,
there are always freemen who readily offer their services; and there is
no great use for slave labour [1216].
So there is always a supply of labour. On the other hand, the demand
for labour is small. There is but little work to be done. Among some
pastoral tribes the men spend a great deal of time in idleness [1217].
Prschewalsky, speaking of the Mongols, remarks: “Unlimited laziness is
a main characteristic of the nomads; they spend their whole life in
idleness, which is furthered by the character of pastoral nomadism. The
tending of the cattle is the sole occupation of the Mongol, and this
does not nearly require all his time. The guarding of cows and sheep is
the business of the women and grown-up children; milking, creaming,
butter-making and other domestic labour falls almost entirely to the
share of the mistress of the house. The men generally do nothing, and
from morning till night ride from one jurt (tent) to another, drinking
koumiss and chattering with their neighbours. The chase, which the
nomads are passionately fond of, serves mainly as a pastime.”
The Altaians have to survey the cattle; this consists only in riding a
few times a day to the herds, and driving them together. The milking of
the mares during the summer, which requires some courage, is also the
men’s business.
Among the Aeneze Bedouins the men’s sole business is feeding the
horses, and in the evening milking the camels [1218].
The Kazak Kirghiz, too, are very lazy. They pass a great part of the
summer sleeping because of the warmth; and in winter-time they hardly
ever leave their tents, because the snow covers the roads. As they are
not acquainted with any arts, and the tending of the cattle is their
only occupation, there is no need for much work [1219].
Rowney tells us of the Mairs and Meenas of Rajpootana: “The ostensible
occupation followed by them was that of goatherds; but the herds were
usually left to the charge of their boys and old men, while the more
able-bodied spent their time, mounted on their ponies, in marauding,
plundering, and murdering” [1220].
Among the Massai the men despise every kind of work. Only warfare is
considered an occupation worthy of a man [1221].
It has to be remarked that most of these tribes do not keep slaves; so
it is not by imposing all the work upon slaves that the men are enabled
to pass their time in idleness; yet they do almost nothing. “The
herdsman is lazy,” says Schmoller [1222], and Schurtz speaks of the
aversion from all hard and regular work, which characterizes the
pastoral nomads [1223]. This proves that but little labour is wanted.
One might object, that perhaps women and boys are overworked. But the
fact that the able-bodied men, who form a considerable part of the
community, can afford to take life so very easily, sufficiently proves
that the total amount of labour required is rather small.
Here we find one more reason why pastoral tribes have little use for
slave labour. The demand for labour is small; therefore, even if free
labourers were not available, only a few slaves would be wanted.
Capital is here the principal factor of production, labour holding a
subordinate place. Among agricultural tribes, when there is a
practically unlimited supply of fertile soil, every person whose labour
is available to the tribe can cultivate a piece of ground, and so, the
more people there are, the more food can be produced. But among
pastoral tribes, as soon as there are people enough within the tribe to
guard the cattle, milk the cows, and do the other work required, an
increase in the number of labourers is not profitable. There is only a
limited demand for labour; therefore, though there may be a temporary
scarcity of labour which makes strengthening of the labour forces of
the tribe by means of slaves desirable,—when a few slaves have been
procured, the point at which a further increase in the number of people
gives no profit will soon be reached again.
We see that among pastoral tribes little labour is required; and such
as is, is easy to procure; for there are always people destitute of
capital, who offer themselves as labourers. Therefore slaves are
economically of little use.
There is, however, one description of a pastoral tribe, in which it is
stated, that men as well as women have to work very hard. This is
Geoffroy’s capital monography on the Larbas. The head of the family and
his sons have to guard the herds, trace and dig pits, share in all
operations common to the horsemen of the tribe: raids and battles, the
pursuing of thieves, the defense of the pecuniary interests of the
family, the depositing of merchandise in the ksours (store-houses). The
head of the family tends the sick animals, and has the administration
of the wool and grain; but practically he will not have much to do with
these matters, not considering them worth his attention. But a great
part of his time is taken up with keeping watch and marching, and this
makes his life a rather hard one. He does not sleep at night; he waters
the cattle in the pits or r’dirs; he surrounds his tents with a
protecting hedge, the zirba; he struggles against the elements, which
often disperse beasts, tents and men. Daily, from the cradle to the
tomb, the nomad’s life is a struggle for existence. As a child he
already has to look after the cattle; he learns to ride on horseback
with his father. When older, whether rich or poor, he has to learn, for
several years, to conduct large numbers of cattle, which is a very
difficult and dangerous work, to tend the different kinds of animals,
to cure them, to sell them, to derive from them as much profit as
possible. Pastoral art is more complicated than at first sight it
seems, and comprehends a long series of accomplishments. At twenty
years the nomad is an accomplished man, thoroughly acquainted with the
life he has to lead, enjoying all the physical strength indispensable
in the exceptional milieu where he has to struggle. The two youngest
sons of the head of the family our informant describes, 15 and 13 years
of age, now perform in the family the duties of herdsmen. Daily
occupations of master and slaves are the driving together of the
dispersed animals, the tending of the females that have calved, the
preparing of special food for the young animals, the dressing of the
stronger ones for the saddle and pack-saddle, and the chase of hares
and gazelles [1224].
We see that pastoral life is not so easy here as on the fertile plains
of Central Asia. But the work that is most necessary here, and also
most difficult, is the care for the security of the tribe and its
possessions, or, as Geoffroy very appropriately expresses it, “c’est un
peu toujours comme la guerre”. And this work cannot be left to slaves;
else the slaves would become the masters of the tribe. Warriors are
wanted here; labourers not so much.
We have now accounted for the non-existence of slavery among many
pastoral tribes, and the little use of slave labour among pastoral
tribes in general, by the principle laid down in the last paragraph,
that, generally speaking, slaves are not wanted where subsistence
depends upon capital.
In North-East Africa, however, there is one more cause at work, making
slavery superfluous. This is the existence of a kind of substitute for
slavery, viz. subjection of tribes as such. Pastoral tribes often levy
tributes on agricultural tribes, to which they are superior in military
strength; the latter cannot easily leave the lands they cultivate and
seek a new country; if not too heavily oppressed, they will prefer
paying a tribute. And to pastoral nomads the levying of a tax on
agricultural tribes brings far more profit than the enslaving of
individuals belonging to such tribes, whom they would have to employ
either in pastoral labour, which they do not want, or in tilling the
soil, which work the nomads would be unable to supervise. There are
also pastoral tribes subjected by other pastoral nomads, the latter
forming the nobility and the military part of society. Finally we find
subjected tribes of hunters, smiths, etc.; here we have sometimes
rather to deal with a voluntary division of labour [1225].
The Somal have several pariah castes. Among the Wer-Singellis in North
Somaliland we find the following: 1º. Midgân, smiths and traders;
these, by acquiring considerable wealth, sometimes win so much regard,
that even a Somali noble deigns to marry his daughter to a Midgân. 2º.
Tómal, who are employed by Somali nobles as servants, herdsmen and
camel-drivers, and are also obliged to go to war. The noble
Wer-Singelli carries sword and spear, whereas the Tomali uses bow and
arrows; sometimes a Midgân girl is given him as a wife, but never the
daughter of a noble Somali. The Tómal, however, belong to the tribe.
3º. Jibbir, who are very much despised. They have no fixed habitations;
they roam in families over the country, from tribe to tribe, as
jugglers and magic doctors. Everybody, for fear of sorcery, gives them
food and presents, and in return receives from them amulets, made of
stone and roots. They contract no marriage outside their own caste
[1226].
The Massai, true warriors and raiders, “keep a subjected tribe, the
Wa-rombutta, who do their hunting and what meagre agriculture they
indulge in. This tribe is insignificant in appearance, and although
servile and subject to the Massai are not slaves; they present almost
the appearance of dwarfs.” The Wandorobo too, according to Thomson, are
regarded by the Massai as a kind of serfs, and treated accordingly; and
Johnston calls them a helot race of hunters and smiths [1227].
Among the Bogos “patronage results from military subjection or from the
helpless state of separate immigrants with regard to a strong and
closely united nation. As the nobles carefully trace their pedigrees,
it is easy to find out the Tigres. Tigre means a man of Ethiopian
extraction, who speaks the Tigre language. Some Tigre families,
subjected from time immemorial, have immigrated together with the
family of Gebre Terke [the legendary ancestor of the Bogos]. Others
already lived in the country, and unable to withstand the invasion,
hastened to submit in order to be tolerated. The Bogos seem to have
taken possession of the country in a very pacific and forbearing way,
and unlike the Normans and other European invaders, do not interfere
with the regulation of landed property, so that the ancient aborigines
still own most of the land. The third class is composed of foreign
families who, being for some reason unable to agree with their
countrymen, settle in the country of the Bogos and place themselves
under their protection, which still continually occurs. A member of the
Boas family [i.e. of the Bogos nobility], however poor and weak, never
becomes a Tigre; his origin is a guarantee of his independence. A
Tigre, however mighty and rich, cannot become a Schmagilly [noble]; for
the Tigres, who are a compound of various elements, cannot trace their
origin so far back as the Schmagillies who pretend to spring all from
the same ancestor. Moreover, the oppression is so slight, that a
revolution is unimaginable” [1228].
Among the Takue the state of the Tigres is the same as among the Bogos;
formerly they brought beer to their lords; now they pay them a small
tribute of corn and fat [1229].
Marea Tigres have a harder lot. Two kinds of obligations are incumbent
on them: towards their respective masters, and towards the nobility en
bloc. Even the poorest noble never becomes a Tigre, and does not
perform degrading work, such as for instance milking. The Tigre pays
his master yearly 8 bottles of fat, a measure of corn, and every week a
leathern bag with milk. Of every cow killed by a Tigre the master
receives a considerable portion; a cow belonging to a Tigre, which dies
a natural death, falls entirely to the master. As for the Tigres’
obligations towards the nobility as a whole, on several occasions they
have to give up their cattle for the nobility. Among the Black Marea
the Tigres own most of the land; among the Red Marea the greater part
of the land is in the hands of impoverished nobles, who live chiefly
upon the rent of their landed property. Another class are the Dokono,
who are obliged to choose a patron and pay a tribute, but are held in
rather high esteem and often marry daughters of the nobles; they own
land and herds and are much given to trading [1230].
Among the Beni Amer the same distinction, of nobles and subjects,
prevails. The latter are called Woréza. “We shall speak of master and
servant,” says Munzinger “though the latter term does not quite answer
the purpose. The state of things we are going to describe much
resembles that which we have met with among the aristocrats of the
Anseba; among the Beni Amer, however, the servant is a feoffee rather
than a protégé. But as he derives his wealth from his master, to whom
he owes what we may call interest, his state is one of much greater
dependence.... Among the Beni Amer it is an ancient custom, that a lord
distributes his wealth among his servants; e.g. if he receives 100 cows
as his portion of the spoils of war, he does not add them to his herd,
but leaves them to his servants as a present. When the servant marries,
the lord presents him with a camel. In every emergency the servant
applies to his lord, who helps him whenever possible. All these
presents become the true property of the recipient; the servant may do
with them as he likes, sell and even spend them; the lord may upbraid
him for it, but legally has nothing to do with it. On the death of the
servant the presents devolve upon his heirs. But the lord has a kind of
usufruct of these presents; the servant provides him with fat and daily
brings him a certain quantity of milk, i.e. he feeds the lord and his
family. Often has the lord to wait for his supper till midnight,
because the servant provides for himself first. The servant, moreover,
has to provide the funeral sacrifice for his lord and for every member
of the latter’s family; he leaves to the lord every sterile cow, and
when he kills a beast he brings him the breast-piece. He stands by his
lord in every emergency, and even assists him according to his means
towards paying the tribute”. The servant is, so to speak, a tenant of
his lord. As the Beni Amer are nomads, there is no land to distribute;
the pasture has no owner; therefore the fief can only consist in
movable property. As most of the wealth of the country is in the hands
of the servants, they have a decisive voice in every public council;
they have to find out where the best pastures are, where the camp has
to be erected [1231].
Similar phenomena present themselves outside North-East Africa.
In the second chapter of Part I we have met with subjected tribes in
South Africa, such as Fengu, Makalahiri, etc., sometimes called slaves
by our ethnographers [1232].
Geoffroy speaks of settled tribes being in some way the vassals of the
Larbas. The ksours are buildings in which the nomads preserve their
corn, dates and wool; these stores are guarded by settled tribes, that
permanently live there and receive one tenth of the preserved stock
yearly. The nomads look upon all settled tribes as degenerate beings
and inferiors [1233]. Here we have to deal with a voluntary division of
labour, rather than with subjection.
In Circassia, according to Bell, the serfs are prisoners of war and the
ancient inhabitants of the country. The latter are perhaps the same
peasants who, according to Klaproth, may not be sold apart from the
land [1234].
It is remarkable, that in Central Asia and Siberia we do not find a
single instance of this subjection of tribes as such [1235]. This is
probably the reason why in these parts members of the tribe are so
often employed as servants.
Where nearly all work is left to subjected tribes or castes, and the
nobles do nothing but fight, there is not much use for slave labour.
The nobles do not want slaves, because all work required by them is
performed by their subjects.
We have now found a new cause, from which in some cases slaves are not
wanted: the subjection of tribes as such, which serves as a substitute
for slavery.
§ 2. Slavery among pastoral tribes.
Yet several pastoral tribes keep slaves; this has still to be accounted
for. We shall inquire first, whether the secondary causes we have found
in the last paragraph are at work here.
1º. Condition of women. On the Pacific Coast of North America the men
sometimes procure slaves, in order to relieve the women of a part of
their task. There are some details on record suggestive of the same
state of things among some pastoral tribes. Among the Circassians,
Bahima and Beduan (pastoral tribes), Waganda, pirate-tribes of Mindanao
and Sulu, Ossetes and Gallas (agricultural tribes depending largely on
cattle for their subsistence), slaves are employed for household work.
The same is the case with female slaves among the Larbas and Somal of
the towns. Munzinger states that only few Beduan are rich enough to
keep a female slave or a maid-servant; therefore in most families the
preparing of food falls to the share of the wife, this being almost her
only occupation [1236]. Hence we may infer that among the Beduan, and
probably among some other tribes, slaves are procured by the men for
the benefit of the women.
2º. Preserving of food. This does not seem to require much labour among
pastoral tribes. On the Pacific Coast of North America the fish have to
be prepared for winter use. But where men live upon the products of
their cattle, food is not at one time much more abundant than at
another.
3º. Trade and industry. Household work, sometimes performed by slaves,
does not seem to serve the purposes of trade, as on the Pacific Coast;
there is not a single detail on record, that would lead us to suppose
that it does. We even find particulars tending to prove the contrary.
Among the Beni Amer, who have many slaves, the women are continually
occupied in making mats, the proceeds of which labour are often
sufficient to pay the tribute to the Turks [1237]. Slaves do not seem
to join in this occupation.
Among the Larbas free women manufacture tissues, which are sold abroad
[1238]. Probably slaves are not capable of performing such fine work.
Among the Yorubas and pirate-tribes of Mindanao and Sulu the slaves are
occupied in trading. But these tribes are not nomadic; moreover, these
slaves do not, like the slaves on the Pacific Coast, prepare the
articles of commerce, but are themselves the traders, which is quite
another thing.
4º. Slaves wanted as warriors. Slaves sometimes serve to augment the
military strength of the community. From the survey of the work done by
slaves, given in the beginning of this chapter, it appears that they
are often employed in warfare, viz. among the nomadic Somal and
Danakil, Kafirs, pirate-tribes of Mindanao and Sulu, Mandingoes and
Yorubas; probably also among the Bogos, where they generally take to
robbery. Circassian slaves cannot be compelled to go to war [1239].
Hence it seems to follow that they may go if they like. Among the Beni
Amer native-born slaves are avenged by their own relatives; so these
slaves are armed, and probably fight together with their masters.
The ensuing statement strikingly shows how highly slaves are valued as
warriors among the nomadic Somal and Danakil. If a slave kills one
enemy, he becomes free; if two or more, he is entitled to being
adopted. Having killed ten enemies, he becomes a person of rank and
enjoys many privileges [1240].
In these cases slaves strengthen the military force of the tribe. But
the tribe profits only indirectly by this reinforcement of the family.
Most pastoral nomads live in comparatively small groups, rather
independently; there is no strong central government [1241]. And where
quarrels between these small groups are frequent, the more numerous the
family (in the wider sense, the Roman familia, including slaves), the
better will the head of the family be able to maintain his position
[1242]. And pastoral nomads have always a great motive for fighting:
they can enrich themselves by a successful raid. Among hunting,
fishing, and agricultural tribes, if the conqueror does not want to
keep the vanquished as slaves, war gives little profit [1243]. But in
the raids pastoral nomads make on each other, the successful raider may
acquire numerous herds, i.e. great wealth. Therefore it is of the
utmost importance for a man to have as numerous a familia as possible.
When speaking of the Larbas, we have seen that their mode of life is un
peu toujours comme la guerre. Their describer states: “Theft is the
most threatening evil the nomad has to deal with; he is therefore most
severe in suppressing it, the punishment being invariably death.” He
also speaks of free servants, members of the family, who live under the
protection and at the expense of some rich head of a family; they are
generally very numerous, and form a body of clients that strengthens
their patron’s power [1244].
Levchine, speaking of the Kazak Kirghiz, says: “Their feuds are caused
by the unrestrained desire for plunder, that ruins and entirely
demoralizes them; this plundering is called baranta, These barantas
consist in reciprocal cattle-stealing, from which often sanguinary
combats result.... And we must not think that public hatred or contempt
falls on those who are addicted to these horrible excesses; on the
contrary, they enjoy a reputation for bravery, and are distinguished by
the name of Batyr or Boghatyr, which name spreads through all the
hordes the fame of their exploits. Many of these braves, called Batyr
for their plundering ardour, though many years dead, still live in the
remembrance of their countrymen, and their names are celebrated.”
Accordingly, one of the qualities required in a chief is a large
family, that gives him the power to maintain his authority [1245].
Among the Beni Amer, where it seems to be quite an ordinary thing for a
noble to receive 100 cows as his portion of the spoils of war, it is a
great support for a man to have many children, as in these countries
family is opposed to family [1246].
A writer of the 18th century tells us that “the Chukchi who live to the
north of the river Anadir, are not subjected to the Russian empire, and
often make raids on those brought under Russian control, on the
Koryakes as well as on the Chukchi, killing or making prisoners all
they meet, and carrying off their herds of reindeer” [1247].
Among the Somal and Gallas internal wars are very frequent; among the
former most wars are marauding expeditions. And here too the possession
of wife and children is indispensable; an unmarried man cannot attain
to wealth and power [1248].
Among the Ama-Xosa and Ovaherero the chief object of warfare is
cattle-stealing. Fugitives from other tribes are never delivered up by
the Ama-Xosa, whatever the reason of their flight; for they strengthen
the chief’s power. Another fact, showing the great importance they
attach to the numerical strength of their tribe, is this, that he who
kills a man or woman by accident has to pay a fine to the chief, as a
compensation for the loss suffered by the government of the tribe
[1249].
We have already seen that the Massai are “true warriors and raiders”
and that the Mairs and Meenas spend their time in “marauding,
plundering and murdering” [1250].
We see that among these tribes everybody is desirous of having as many
people about him as possible for the protection of his own property and
the capturing of his neighbour’s. And a convenient means of procuring
such people is the purchase of slaves.
There is one more secondary cause here, which we have not met with
before. It is sometimes stated that keeping slaves is a mere luxury.
Now rich nomads, like all rich people, love luxury. Like the rich Kazak
Kirghiz who told Levchine that the possession of over 8000 horses
procured him a reputation among his countrymen, many rich nomads will
win renown by possessing a large retinue of slaves. Thus for instance
we know that among the Beni Amer slave labour is of little use; yet it
is stated, that the Beni Amer are ambitious to possess many slaves
[1251]. And slaves are preferable, as objects of luxury, to free
servants. For slaves, generally acquired from beyond the limits of the
tribe, are much more apt to gratify the pride of the rich man by their
submission, than poor freemen, who are always conscious of their
membership of the tribe and unwilling to be trampled down. The latter
fact is proved by several statements of ethnographers.
If a rich Samoyede refuses to give his poor countryman a reindeer for
food, the latter has the right to carry off one or more from the rich
man’s herd; the law does not give the owner any hold upon him [1252].
Among the Yakuts, according to Müller, the rich sustain their poor
fellow-tribesmen; if the latter lose their reindeer, they are
indemnified by the rich. Another writer tells us that the poor, when
dying of hunger, refrain from slaughtering an animal, from fear of
losing their independence [1253].
Similarly among the Ostyaks “members of the same tribe, whether large
or small, consider themselves as relations, even where the common
ancestor is unknown, and where the evidence of consanguinity is wholly
wanting. Nevertheless, the feeling of consanguinity, sometimes real,
sometimes conventional, is the fundamental principle of the union. The
rich, of which there are few, help the poor, who are many. There is not
much that can change hands. The little, however, that is wanted by the
needy is taken as a right rather than a favour” [1254].
The Altaians are very sensitive about their liberty. “Every poor man
who joins a rich family considers himself a member of it. He will
perish of hunger, rather than comply with a demand of his rich
neighbour made in a commanding tone” [1255].
Licata tells us that hungry Danakil go to their chief and say: “I am
hungry, give me something to eat” [1256].
Among the Larbas free labourers “work for one more fortunate than
themselves, but not for a superior; for notwithstanding the relation of
employer and employed, equality prevails” [1257].
It is easy to understand that slaves are preferred to such servants.
Only in one case is this preference mentioned by an ethnographer.
Munzinger states that the slaves bought by the rich Beduan for
household work are generally more trusted than ordinary servants, as
they are riveted to their position [1258]. But we may safely suppose
that in other cases also this circumstance has furthered the growth of
slavery.
We have explained why pastoral tribes have no great use for slave
labour. We have also mentioned some motives that may induce such tribes
to keep slaves. But the fact has not yet been accounted for, that some
pastoral tribes keep slaves and others do not. Whence this difference?
It has been shown that slavery does not only exist among pastoral
tribes that till the soil to a limited extent. Among all pastoral
tribes subsistence is dependent on capital. Wealth, too, exists among
all these tribes [1259]; and we cannot see why slaves, as a luxury,
would be wanted by one such tribe more than by another. As slaves are
sometimes employed as warriors, we might be inclined to suppose that
slavery exists among all warlike tribes, and among these only. But
there are several pastoral tribes which, though very warlike, do not
keep slaves: Kazak Kirghiz, Turkomans, Massai, and some pastoral nomads
of South Africa.
That the subjection of tribes as such in stead of individual slaves, of
which we have spoken in the last paragraph, cannot account for all
cases in which slavery does not exist, becomes evident, if we take into
consideration that most of the pastoral tribes of North-East Africa,
which keep other tribes in subjection, practise slavery, whereas in
Central Asia and Siberia we find neither subjected tribes nor slaves.
Therefore there must be other causes.
In chapter II we have spoken of external causes: it may be that slaves
would be of great use, and yet cannot be kept, because the coercive
power of the tribe is not strong enough. We have also seen that this
coercive power is most strongly developed where men have fixed
habitations, live in rather large groups and preserve food for the time
of scarcity, and where there is a group of somewhat homogeneous tribes
maintaining, constant relations with each other. Pastoral tribes are
nomadic, do not live together in very large groups, and do not want to
preserve food, for they have their supply of food always at hand. Yet
the fact that several pastoral tribes keep slaves proves that at least
among these the coercive power is strong enough. We shall try to find a
cause peculiar to these tribes, that enables them to keep slaves. Now
it is remarkable that our positive cases are nearly all of them found
in a few definite parts of the globe: North-East Africa, the Caucasus,
and Arabia; whereas the pastoral nomads of Siberia, Central Asia,
India, and South Africa, with one exception (the Ovaherero), do not
keep slaves. And the parts where slavery exists are exactly those where
the slave-trade has for a long time been carried on on a large scale.
Accordingly, the slaves these tribes keep are often purchased from
slave-traders and in several cases belong to inferior races.
The slaves of the Aeneze Bedouins are Negroes [1260].
The slaves kept by the Larbas are Negroes purchased from slave-trading
caravans [1261].
Although we find no description of slave-trade among the Circassians,
slaves in the Caucasus are exported on a large scale [1262].
Most slaves found among the Somal and Danakil are articles of transit
trade: they are purchased from interior tribes and intended to be sold
to Arabians. A Somali never becomes the slave of a Somali, and
prisoners of war are not enslaved [1263].
Many Beduan make it their business to steal slaves, whom they sell in
Massowah [1264].
The slaves kept by the Beni Amer are either captured from enemies or
purchased abroad; a Beni Amer never loses his freedom. Slaves are not,
however, often sold abroad [1265].
On the other hand, the pastoral tribes of Central Asia and Siberia live
in secluded parts, far from the centres of the slave-trade.
The slave-trade greatly facilitates the keeping of slaves. Where slaves
are brought by slave-dealers from remote parts, it is much easier to
keep them than where they have to be captured from enemies, i.e. from
the neighbours; in the latter case the slaves are very likely to run
away and return to their native country; but a purchased slave
transported from a great distance cannot so easily return; if he
succeeded in escaping, he would be instantly recaptured by one of the
foreign tribes whose countries he would have to traverse. Moreover,
some tribes may, by their intercourse with slave-traders, have become
familiar with the idea of slavery, and so the slave-trade may have
suggested to them the keeping of slaves for their own use.
There is another circumstance, which may partially account for the
existence of slavery among some of these tribes: the slaves are often
Negroes. And Negroes have always and everywhere been enslaved; they
seem to be more fit for slaves than most races of mankind. Galton,
speaking of the Damaras, says: “These savages court slavery. You engage
one of them as a servant, and you find that he considers himself your
property, and that you are, in fact, become the owner of a slave. They
have no independence about them, generally speaking, but follow a
master as spaniels would. Their hero-worship is directed to people who
have wit and strength enough to ill-use them. Revenge is a very
transient passion in their character, it gives way to admiration of the
oppressor. The Damaras seem to me to love nothing; the only strong
feelings they possess, which are not utterly gross and sensual, are
those of admiration and fear. They seem to be made for slavery, and
naturally fall into its ways” [1266]. And Hutter, describing the Bali
tribes of Cameroon, remarks that the Negro wants to be ruled and
patiently endures any amount of oppression [1267]. Similar descriptions
may undoubtedly be given of many other Negro tribes. Moreover several
slave-keeping nomadic tribes are Semites and Hamites, and therefore
look upon the Negroes as an inferior race. Now, where slaves are
procured mainly for military purposes (and we have seen that this is
often the case with pastoral tribes), an absorption of foreigners into
the tribe would answer the purpose as well as, and perhaps better than,
slavery. But where the foreigners belong to inferior races, the members
of the tribe are not likely to intermarry with them and look upon them
as their equals; they remain slaves, though they are not of great use
as such. We must also take into consideration that inferior races are
not so much to be dreaded as superior peoples; the latter, if
individuals belonging to them were kept as slaves, might retaliate upon
the slave-owners. This may have been the reason why the Kazak Kirghiz
who, in Levchine’s time, kidnapped many Russians, always sold them
abroad: it would not have been safe to keep them as slaves.
Accordingly, Pallas states that in his time they used to kidnap men on
the Russian frontiers towards the time when they were going to remove
with their herds, so that they could not be pursued [1268].
In the second chapter of this Part we have remarked that the growth of
slavery is furthered by the existence of a group of more or less
similar tribes, the slave-trade being in such cases the means of
spreading slavery over the group. We may say now that, whether such a
group exists or not, the slave-trade facilitates the keeping of slaves.
When the coercive power of a tribe is not strong enough for the keeping
of prisoners as slaves, the slave-trade may enable such a tribe to keep
slaves; for the keeping of purchased slaves, brought from a great
distance, does not require so much coercive power.
We see that the difference between the slave-keeping and the other
pastoral tribes consists in external circumstances. Pastoral tribes
have no strong motives for making slaves, for the use of slave labour
is small. On the other hand, there are no causes absolutely preventing
them from keeping slaves. These tribes are, so to speak, in a state of
equilibrium; a small additional cause on either side turns the balance.
One such additional cause is the slave-trade; another is the
neighbourhood of inferior races. There may be other small additional
causes, peculiar to single tribes. We shall not inquire whether there
are, but content ourselves with the foregoing conclusions, of which the
principal are these, that the taming of animals does not naturally lead
to the taming of men, and that the relation between capital and labour
among pastoral tribes renders the economic use of slavery very small.
Recapitulating, we may remark that our general theory, that there is no
great use for slave labour where subsistence depends on capital, is
fully verified by our investigation of economic life among pastoral
tribes.
Two secondary internal causes found in the second chapter have been
also met with among pastoral tribes: slaves are sometimes employed in
warfare, and sometimes for domestic labour to relieve the women of
their task. Two new secondary factors have been found in this chapter:
slaves are kept as a luxury; and sometimes the subjection of tribes as
such, serving as a substitute for slavery, makes slavery proper
superfluous.
With regard to the external causes it has been shown that the coercive
power of pastoral tribes is not very strong, as they are nomadic and
live in rather small groups; but this want is sometimes compensated for
by the slave-trade and the neighbourhood of inferior races. The two
latter circumstances may therefore rank as new external causes, the
slave-trade taking the place of the existence of a homogeneous group.
On the Pacific Coast of N. America it is the trade between tribes of
the same culture, among pastoral nomads it is the trade with Arabia,
etc.; but in either case it is the slave-trade that furthers the growth
of slavery.
RECAPITULATION OF THE CAUSES WE HAVE FOUND UP TO THE PRESENT.
Furthering the Hindering the
growth of slavery. growth of slavery.
I. Internal causes.
A. General. 1º. Subsistence 1º. Subsistence
easily acquired and dependent on
not dependent on capital.
capital.
2º. Subsistence not
dependent on capital, but
difficult to procure.
B. Secondary economic: 1º. Preserving of 1º. Female labour
food. making slave
2º. Trade and industry. labour superfluous.
3º. A high position of 2º. Subjection of
women. tribes as such.
C. Secondary non-economic: 1º. Slaves wanted 1º. Militarism
for military making slavery
purposes. impossible.
2º. Slaves kept as a
luxury.
II. External causes: 1º. Fixed habitations.
2º. Living in large groups.
3º. Preserving of food [1269].
4º. The slave-trade.
5º. The neighbourhood of
inferior races.
CHAPTER IV.
AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.
§ 1. Numbers of positive and negative cases in the three agricultural
groups.
The list given in § 3 of the first chapter of this second Part contains
the following numbers of agricultural tribes with and without slaves,
classified according to the division into three groups we have made in
§ 2 of the same chapter:
FIRST AGRICULTURAL GROUP [1270].
a1 a1 + c a1 + t Total.
——————————— ——————————— —————————— ——————————
Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg.
North America 6 6
South America 6 9 6 9
Melanesia 2 12 3 1 5 13
Polynesia 1 1
Malay
Archipelago 11 4 1 12 4
Indo-Chinese
Peninsula 1 1
India 2 3 1 2 4
Bantu tribes 4 1 1 3 1 7 3
Soudan Negroes 1 2 1 2 2
-- -- - - - - -- --
26 37 0 3 8 3 34 43
SECOND AGRICULTURAL GROUP.
a2 a2 + c a2 + t a3 + c + t Total.
—————————— —————————— ————————— —————————— —————————
Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg.
N. America 11 11
S. America 1 2 1 2
Melanesia 1 3 1 3
Polynesia 1 6 1 6
Micronesia 5 5
Malay Arch. 29 1 3 7 2 41 1
Indo-Chin. Penins. 5 5
India 4 4 1 5 4
Bantu tribes 18 6 7 3 12 1 38 9
Soudan Negroes 5 4 4 2 7 4 20 6
Hamitic peoples 2 1 2 4 1
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- --
66 43 17 5 26 0 7 0 116 48
THIRD AGRICULTURAL GROUP.
a2 a2 + c a2 + t a3 + c + t Total.
—————————— ————————— ————————— —————————— ——————————
Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg. Pos. Neg.
N. America 1 1
Malay Arch. 9 1 9 1
Indo-Chin. Peninsula 1 1
Caucasus 1 1
Bantu tribes 1 1 5 6 1
Soudan Negroes 1 1
Hamitic peoples 2 1 2 1
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10 1 3 3 6 0 1 0 20 4
§ 2. Development of agriculture and development of slavery.
What do these numbers teach us?
In the first place we see that many (170) agricultural tribes keep
slaves. Hence it appears that slavery is by no means incompatible with
agriculture. But there are also many (95) agricultural tribes without
slaves, so the existence of agriculture among savage tribes does not
necessarily lead to the keeping of slaves.
In the second place it appears that the more agriculture is developed,
the more frequent slavery becomes. Looking at those agricultural tribes
among which subsistence does not depend to any considerable extent on
cattle-breeding or trade (a1, a2, a3), we find that in the first group
there are 26 positive and 37 negative cases, i.e. 41,3 per cent. of
these tribes keep slaves. In the second group the corresponding numbers
are 66 positive cases, 43 negative cases, and 60,6 per cent.; in the
third group 10 positive cases, 1 negative case, and 90,9 per cent. We
see that in the second group slavery is more frequent than in the
first, whereas in the third group it is almost universal. It has,
however, to be taken into consideration, that the great majority (9 out
of 10) of the slave-keeping tribes belonging to the third group live in
the Malay Archipelago, and 5 out of these 9 are divisions of the
Battas. We may not, therefore, attach much importance to the numbers
relating to the third group; for they may be strongly influenced by
local circumstances. Taking the second and third group together we find
76 positive and 44 negative cases, i.e. 63,3 per cent. keep slaves,
which percentage is considerably higher than that of the first group.
We do not claim mathematical exactness for these numbers. But at any
rate we may say that they sufficiently prove, that slavery is
considerably more frequent among truly agricultural tribes, which
subsist chiefly by agriculture, than among incipient agriculturists,
who still depend on hunting or fishing for a large portion of their
food.
The total numbers lead to the same conclusion. Looking at these we find
in the first group 34 positive and 43 negative cases, i.e. 44,2 per
cent. keep slaves. For the second group the corresponding numbers are
116 pos. cases, 48 neg. cases and 70,7 per cent; for the third group 20
pos. cases, 4 neg. cases and 83,3 per cent.; for the second and third
group taken together 136 pos. cases, 52 neg. cases and 72,3 per cent.
This agrees with what we expected. The tribes belonging to the first
group, the “hunting agriculturists” (Jägerbauern), as Dargun calls
them, bear a strong resemblance to hunting tribes. Generally the men’s
business is hunting and warfare, whereas the women have to till the
soil. The division of labour between the sexes does not much differ
here from that which exists in Australia, where the men hunt and the
women gather fruits and dig roots. These tribes are also often nomadic:
when the fruits of their fields are scarcely ripe, they reap them and
remove to some other place [1271].
The best specimens of this type are found in South America.
Azara, speaking of the Indians living in and around Paraguay, remarks:
“Even the agricultural tribes are more or less nomadic. Wherever the
Indians pass they sow something, and later on return to reap the
fruits” [1272].
Lery, a writer of the 16th century, tells us that among the Tupinambas
the principal cultures were two roots, which he calls aypi and maniot.
They were cultivated by the women. After being planted the roots needed
no further care, and within 2 or 3 months were fit to be dug up. Maize
was also cultivated by the women. The Tupinambas depended on hunting
and fishing for a considerable portion of their food. They did not
generally remain for longer than 5 or 6 months in one place, but were
always removing from one place to another, carrying their
house-building materials with them [1273].
Von den Steinen, describing the tribes on the Upper Schingu (in
Brazil), states that, though largely subsisting on agriculture, they
are psychically hunters rather than agriculturists. Like everywhere in
Brazil, the women not only prepare the food, but cultivate the manioc.
The men cultivate nothing but tobacco, the smoking of which is their
exclusive privilege [1274].
We have seen (in chap. II of this second Part) that hunters hardly ever
keep slaves; and as the “hunting agriculturists” so much resemble true
hunters, it is easy to understand why among the majority of them
slavery does not exist. Slaves cannot be employed for hunting, and the
women can easily perform the small amount of cultivation wanted by
these tribes. Moreover, the men who, as warriors, are able to procure
slaves, are not likely to take them for the sole benefit of the women.
And where the men are always hunting, the women would have to supervise
the slaves and keep them in order, which is not easy for them.
That this lowest stage of agriculture is not favourable to the growth
of slavery, is confirmed by what Mr. A. C. Kruyt had the kindness to
write us regarding Central Celebes. There is one native tribe, the
Topebato, that formerly did not keep slaves, the probable cause being
that they had remained hunters longer than the other tribes in the
neighbourhood. In a legend, in which it is told that the gods made
gifts to the different tribes characterizing their manner of life, the
Topebato get a dog allotted to them for the chase, and though now they
till the soil, they are still passionate hunters. They now buy a few
slaves and so in the course of time a slave class will originate among
them.
Yet there are a considerable number of positive cases in our first
group (26 out of 63). We will, of course, make due allowance for
mistakes; there may be several tribes contained in our first group
which on closer scrutiny would prove to be true agriculturists and not
Jägerbauern. But we cannot think but that among these 26 tribes there
are many, which have been justly placed in the first group. The
existence of slavery among them will have to be accounted for by
secondary causes, internal and external, such as we have found in the
foregoing chapters and of which we shall perhaps find some more in the
continuation of this chapter.
We must, however, bear in mind that our first group does not only
contain “hunting”, but also “fishing agriculturists”; and we know that
fishers are more likely to keep slaves than hunters. This may perhaps
account for the existence of slavery among some of these tribes. But
our numbers give us no hint in this direction. We find, indeed, that 11
out of 26 positive cases are afforded by tribes inhabiting the islands
of the Malay Archipelago; but among these there are some Dyak tribes
living in the interior of Borneo. Moreover, South America affords 6
positive, and the Melanesian islands 12 negative cases. We may suppose
that whatever effect this factor has is neutralized by the intervention
of other circumstances.
§ 3. Capital and labour among agricultural tribes.
We have seen that among the purely agricultural tribes of the second
and third stages there are altogether 76 positive and 44 negative
cases, i.e. more than three-fifths of them keep slaves. These numbers
make it probable, that the existence of slavery among agricultural
tribes has to be accounted for by general causes, that agricultural
life as such is favourable to the growth of slavery. We have to inquire
now, whether this supposition is justified by an application of the
general principle laid down in § 6 of the second chapter, i.e. whether
among agricultural tribes subsistence is dependent on capital, and if
not, whether it is easy or difficult to procure.
It appears that, where agriculture is carried on without the aid of
domestic animals, subsistence does not depend on capital. The savage
agriculturist is unacquainted with the more perfect and costly
agricultural implements used in Europe, and, where population is scarce
(as it is among most savages) cultivates only such grounds as are most
fertile and easiest of access. Even the plough is used by very few
savages; they most often content themselves with a pointed stick or
hoe, wherefore Hahn calls the agriculture carried on by them
hoe-culture (Hackbau), as distinguished from agriculture proper
(Ackerbau) [1275]. And even where agriculture is carried on in a more
skilful manner, e.g. by means of irrigation, it is not capital that is
wanted, but labour. The construction of the irrigation-works may be a
long and laborious task, but the materials cost nothing. There is only
one instance in which we have found it stated that agriculture cannot
well be carried on without capital. Radloff tells us that the Kazak
Kirghiz, besides rearing cattle, are largely agricultural. Some fields
want constant irrigation, and the water is very difficult to procure.
The rich use a paddle-wheel; the poor bring the water to their fields
in buckets and wooden vessels, but this is of little avail. Therefore
it is only the rich who are capable of carrying on agriculture to any
considerable extent [1276]. But this state of things probably had not
yet existed more than some 30 years; for Levchine (writing about 30
years earlier than Radloff) states that in his time agriculture was of
little importance; and he does not make any mention of irrigation
[1277]. The introduction of the paddle wheel has therefore probably to
be ascribed to the Russians; for the Kazak Kirghiz, in Radloff’s time,
were already strongly influenced by them; so we may not speak here of a
fact belonging to savage life. We have not found any other instance of
this dependence of agriculture on capital; but even if there be a few
instances, we are justified in concluding that, generally speaking, the
savage agriculturist can perfectly well do without capital, except, of
course, where he depends on cattle.
Moreover, subsistence is fairly easy to procure. Agriculture, where it
is carried on in such simple manner as among most savages, does not
require much skill or application. As compared with hunting, seafaring
and manufactures, it is rather dull work, requiring patience rather
than strength or skill. It is one of the occupations about which there
is no excitement, and which in many primitive societies are performed
by the women. Hunting requires personal qualities, and a good hunter is
held in high esteem; but we have not found it stated in a single
instance, that a man’s influence or power depends on his ability in
agriculture.
Subsistence, therefore, is independent of capital and easy to procure.
Every one is able to clear a piece of ground and provide for himself;
nobody offers his services to another, and so, if a man wants a
labourer, he must compel his fellow-man to work for him. “All freemen
in new countries” says Bagehot “must be pretty equal; every one has
labour, and every one has land; capital, at least in agricultural
countries (for pastoral countries are very different), is of little
use; it cannot hire labour; the labourers go and work for themselves.
There is a story often told of a great English capitalist who went out
to Australia with a shipload of labourers and a carriage; his plan was
that the labourers should build a house for him, and that he would keep
his carriage, just as in England. But (so the story goes) he had to try
to live in his carriage, for his labourers left him, and went away to
work for themselves” [1278]. Similarly, Sombart observes: “Colonies, in
which there are no labourers to exploit, are like knives without
blades” [1279]. In such countries, if a man wants others to work in his
service and according to his instructions, he must compel them to do
so, i.e. he must enslave them. And agriculture, requiring little skill
and application, is very fit to be imposed upon slaves: compulsory
agricultural labour, though not so productive as voluntary labour, can
yet yield some profit. Moreover, the agricultural slave is rather easy
to control; his work does not require independent action. It is also
easy to prevent him from running away. In all this he differs from a
hunting slave. And agriculture is also more favourable to the existence
of slavery than cattle-breeding; for among pastoral tribes there is but
a fixed and rather small amount of work to be done; but where men
subsist by agriculture, any increase in the number of slaves brings
about an increase of food.
We cannot, therefore, agree with Adam Smith, who asserts that in those
countries where slaves are employed, it would be more profitable to
employ free labourers, and that it was, in general, pride and love of
power in the master that led to the employment of slaves [1280]. A free
labourer, it is true, is more interested in the work he has to do, and
therefore likely to do it better, than a slave; but in those countries
where there is an abundance of fertile soil, and capital is of little
use, free labourers cannot be had; every freeman prefers working for
himself, or perhaps not working at all.
Cairnes, speaking of Negro slavery as it was carried on in the United
States, admits that slave labour has sometimes an advantage over free
labour, but only where tobacco, cotton and similar crops are raised for
industrial purposes, not where cereals are grown. “The economic
advantages of slavery” he remarks “are easily stated: they are all
comprised in the fact that the employer of slaves has absolute power
over his workmen, and enjoys the disposal of the whole fruit of their
labours. Slave labour, therefore, admits of the most complete
organization; that is to say, it may be combined on an extensive scale,
and directed by a controlling mind to a single end, and its cost can
never rise above that which is necessary to maintain the slave in
health and strength. On the other hand, the economical defects of slave
labour are very serious. They may be summed up under the three
following heads:—it is given reluctantly; it is unskilful; it is
wanting in versatility.... The line dividing the Slave from the Free
States marks also an important division in the agricultural
capabilities of North America. North of this line, the products for
which the soil and climate are best adapted are cereal crops, while
south of it the prevailing crops are tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar;
and these two classes of crops are broadly distinguished in the methods
of culture suitable to each. The cultivation of the one class, of which
cotton may be taken as the type, requires for its efficient conduct
that labour should be combined and organized on an extensive scale. On
the other hand, for the raising of cereal crops this condition is not
so essential. Even where labour is abundant and that labour free, the
large capitalist does not in this mode of farming appear on the whole
to have any preponderating advantage over the small proprietor, who,
with his family, cultivates his own farm, as the example of the best
cultivated states in Europe proves. Whatever superiority he may have in
the power of combining and directing labour seems to be compensated by
the greater energy and spirit which the sense of property gives to the
exertions of the small proprietor. But there is another essential
circumstance in which these two classes of crops differ. A single
labourer, Mr. Russell tells us, can cultivate twenty acres of wheat or
Indian corn, while he cannot manage more than two of tobacco, or three
of cotton. It appears from this that tobacco and cotton fulfil that
condition which we saw was essential to the economical employment of
slaves—the possibility of working large numbers within a limited space;
while wheat and Indian corn, in the cultivation of which the labourers
are dispersed over a wide surface, fail in this respect. We thus find
that cotton, and the class of crops of which cotton may be taken as the
type, favour the employment of slaves in competition with peasant
proprietors in two leading ways: first, they need extensive combination
and organization of labour—requirements which slavery is eminently
calculated to supply, but in respect to which the labour of peasant
proprietors is defective; and secondly, they allow of labour being
concentrated, and thus minimize the cardinal evil of slave labour—the
reluctance with which it is yielded. On the other hand, the cultivation
of cereal crops, in which extensive combination of labour is not
important, and in which the operations of industry are widely diffused,
offers none of these advantages for the employment of slaves, while it
is remarkably fitted to bring out in the highest degree the especial
excellencies of the industry of free proprietors. Owing to these causes
it has happened that slavery has been maintained in the Southern States
[1281], which favour the growth of tobacco, cotton, and analogous
products, while, in the Northern States, of which cereal crops are the
great staple, it from an early period declined and has ultimately died
out. And, in confirmation of this view, it may be added that wherever
in the Southern States the external conditions are especially
favourable to cereal crops, as in parts of Virginia, Kentucky, and
Missouri, and along the slopes of the Alleghanies, there slavery has
always failed to maintain itself. It is owing to this cause that there
now exists in some parts of the South a considerable element of free
labouring population” [1282].
This reasoning is quite correct so far as Negro slavery in the United
States is concerned; but it does not hold with regard to primitive
slavery or “retail slavery” as Bagehot calls it. The few slaves kept in
primitive agricultural societies work together with their masters, who
can therefore continually supervise their work and do not want
overseers. Moreover, the slave in primitive and simple societies is not
looked upon as a piece of machinery; he is, so to speak, an inferior
member of the family, sharing in its pleasures, sorrows, and
occupations; therefore it is not only the fear of punishment that
induces him to work; he is interested in the welfare of the family, and
knows that the better he works, the more he will be valued, and the
more food there will be of which he will get his due share [1283]. This
retail slavery, as Bagehot remarks, “the slavery in which a master owns
a few slaves, whom he well knows and daily sees—is not at all an
intolerable state; the slaves of Abraham had no doubt a fair life, as
things went in that day. But wholesale slavery, where men are but one
of the investments of large capital, and where a great owner, so far
from knowing each slave, can hardly tell how many gangs of them he
works, is an abominable state” [1284]. Retail slavery, therefore, can
very well exist where cereal crops are raised; it is even the most
convenient system of labour in primitive agricultural societies.
We see that the general economic state of truly agricultural tribes may
account for the existence of slavery among so many of these tribes. We
shall now inquire what secondary causes there are at work among
agricultural tribes, and what effect they have. But we shall have to
speak first of a great factor in economic life, which we have not met
with before.
§ 4. Land and population.
The general principle laid down in the last paragraph is that in
primitive agricultural societies capital is of little use and
subsistence easy to acquire; therefore every able-bodied man can, by
taking a piece of land into cultivation, provide for himself. Hence it
follows that nobody voluntarily serves another; he who wants a labourer
must subject him, and this subjection will often assume the character
of slavery.
But this general rule requires an important qualification. Hitherto we
have supposed, that there is much more fertile land than is required to
be cultivated for the support of the actual population. Such, indeed,
is the case among most savages; but it is not always so. And where it
is not so, our general rule does not obtain. When all land fit for
cultivation has been appropriated, a man, though able-bodied and
willing to work, if he owns no land, cannot earn his subsistence
independently of a landlord; he has to apply to the owners of the land
for employment as a tenant or servant. In such case free labourers are
available; therefore slaves are not wanted.
In this and the ensuing paragraphs we shall endeavour to prove by facts
the hypothesis arrived at here by a deductive reasoning, which we may
express thus: where all land fit for cultivation has been appropriated,
slavery is not likely to exist.
The same view is held by some theoretical writers.
According to Cairnes “slavery, as a permanent system, has need not
merely of a fertile soil, but of a practically unlimited extent of it.
This arises from the defect of slave labour in point of versatility. As
has been already remarked, the difficulty of teaching the slave
anything is so great—the result of the compulsory ignorance in which he
is kept, combined with want of intelligent interest in his work—that
the only chance of rendering his labour profitable is, when he has once
learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. Accordingly
where agricultural operations are carried on by slaves, the business of
each gang is always restricted to the raising of a single product....
Whatever crop may be best suited to the character of the soil and the
nature of slave industry, whether cotton, tobacco, sugar, or rice, that
crop is cultivated, and that alone. Rotation of crops is thus precluded
by the conditions of the case. The soil is tasked again and again to
yield the same product, and the inevitable result follows. After a
short series of years its fertility is completely exhausted, the
planter—“land-killer” he is called in the picturesque nomenclature of
the South—abandons the ground which he has rendered worthless, and
passes on to seek in new soils for that fertility under which alone the
agencies at his disposal can be profitably employed.... Slave
cultivation, wherever it has been tried in the new world, has issued in
the same results. Precluding the conditions of rotation of crops or
skilful management, it tends inevitably to exhaust the land of a
country and consequently requires for its permanent success not merely
a fertile soil but a practically unlimited extent of it.” Therefore
expansion is a necessity of slave societies [1285].
In the same sense Weber, speaking of the ancient states of Asia and
Europe, remarks that slavery is uneconomical, where a dense population
and high prices of the land render an intensive cultivation necessary
[1286].
It is easy to see that these arguments do not apply to slavery as
practised by savages. Rotation of crops and skilful management are
wanting among most savage tribes, whether they keep slaves or not.
Moreover, as we have already remarked, the slaves kept by them are not
pieces of machinery, nor, as in the United States, kept in compulsory
ignorance; they are rather regarded as members of the master’s family;
there is no great difference between master and slave [1287]. We may
therefore suppose that, whether a savage tribe keeps slaves or not,
agriculture is carried on in the same manner.
Loria also holds that slavery requires an abundant supply of ground;
but his arguments are quite different from Cairnes’. His reasoning is
as follows.
As long as there is land not yet appropriated, which a man destitute of
capital can take into cultivation, capitalistic property cannot exist;
for nobody is inclined to work for a capitalist, when he can work for
his own profit on land that costs him nothing. If, then, the capitalist
wants by any means to get a profit, he must violently suppress the free
land to which the labourer owes his force and liberty. And as long as
the population is scarce and therefore all land cannot possibly be
appropriated, the only means of suppressing the free land is by
subjugating the labourer. This subjugation assumes at first the form of
slavery; afterwards, when the decreasing fertility of the soil has to
be made up for by a greater fertility of labour, slavery gives place to
serfdom, which is milder and makes labour more productive.
When the population increases, and all land that can be cultivated by
labour without the aid of capital had been appropriated, quite another
state of things prevails. The labourer has now no other resource but to
sell his labour to the capitalist for such wages as the latter likes to
give; he is compelled to yield to the capitalist the greater part of
the produce of his labour. Now the latter need no longer use violence
to get his profit; for it falls to him by the automatic operation of
the social system. Yet, even then the capitalistic régime is not
absolutely certain to arise, for there is still land not yet
appropriated, that can be cultivated with the aid of capital. If,
therefore, the labourers could save a portion of their earnings and
thus accumulate capital, they would be able to take this land into
cultivation and so make themselves independent of their employers. This
consideration induces the capitalist to keep wages so low that they
cannot exceed the immediate wants of the labourers, which he brings
about by various artificial means.
When, finally, a further increase of population makes the total
appropriation of the land possible, the mere appropriation of it by the
capitalist class renders the labourers for ever subjected. The
capitalist need no longer have recourse to artificial methods of
reducing wages; the system operates automatically. The capitalists have
only to retain the land for themselves; they will then secure a
perpetual revenue at the cost of the labouring class.
“The basis of capitalistic property is thus always the same, viz. the
suppression of the free land, the exclusion of the labourer from the
appropriation of the land. This is brought about by various means,
according to the fertility of the land and the extent to which it has
already been appropriated. As long as there is free land fit for
cultivation by labour without the aid of capital, the only means of
suppressing it are slavery and serfdom; afterwards, when the land not
yet appropriated can only be cultivated by one who owns capital, it is
sufficient systematically to reduce wages to a level that does not
enable the labourers to save; when, finally, the population has so far
increased as to make the appropriation of all land possible, the
capitalists have only to keep the land to themselves” [1288].
Many objections can be made to Loria’s arguments. He is constantly
confusing capitalist and landlord. He seems to consider capitalists and
labourers as two strictly separated classes, though we see continually
people passing from one class to the other. And when he tells us that,
if wages were higher, the labourers would save a portion of their
earnings and so accumulate capital, but that the employers, wishing to
prevent this, keep wages low,—he ascribes to both capitalists and
labourers so much forethought and consciousness of class-interest as
men scarcely ever have, except in books on political economy [1289].
Yet we cannot think but that in the main Loria is right. The gist of
his reasoning is what we have already remarked in the beginning of this
paragraph. As long as there is an abundance of land not yet
appropriated, and therefore at the disposal of whoever may choose to
cultivate it, nobody applies to another for employment, and the only
labourers a man can procure are forced labourers. But when all land has
been appropriated, those who own no land are at the mercy of the
landholders, and voluntarily serve them; therefore slaves are not
wanted.
Much more fully has the true reason, why in densely peopled countries
there is little use for slaves, been recognized by Wakefield in his
book on the art of colonization. With him, the theory is not based upon
a general conception of society, but upon the facts of the colonial
history of his own time.
Wakefield, then, complains that in Australia and other colonies
manufactures cannot thrive; the reason for this is, according to him,
that there are no labourers to be had; for there is so much free land
that every newly-arrived labourer becomes a landowner rather than work
for wages. Therefore there are many colonies which would keep slaves if
the home government let them. This leads the writer to an investigation
of the circumstances which induce men to keep slaves.
“They are not moral, but economical circumstances; they relate not to
vice and virtue, but to production. They are the circumstances, in
which one man finds it difficult or impossible to get other men to work
under his direction for wages. They are the circumstances ... which
stand in the way of combination and constancy of labour, and which all
civilized nations, in a certain stage of their advance from barbarism,
have endeavoured to counteract, and have in some measure counteracted,
by means of some kind of slavery. Hitherto in this world, labour has
never been employed on any considerable scale, with constancy and in
combination, except by one or other of two means; either by hiring, or
by slavery of some kind. What the principle of association may do in
the production of wealth, and for the labouring classes, without either
slavery or hiring, remains to be seen; but at present we cannot rely
upon it....
“Slavery is evidently a make-shift for hiring; a proceeding to which
recourse is had, only when hiring is impossible or difficult ... it is
adopted because at the time and under the circumstances there is no
other way of getting labourers to work with constancy and in
combination. What, then, are the circumstances under which this
happens?
“It happens whenever population is scanty in proportion to land.
Slavery ... has been confined to countries of a scanty population, has
never existed in very populous countries, and has gradually ceased in
the countries whose population gradually increased to the point of
density. And the reason is plain enough.... In populous countries, the
desire to own land is not easily gratified, because the land is scarce
and dear: the plentifulness and cheapness of land in thinly-peopled
countries enables almost everybody who wishes it to become a landowner.
In thinly-peopled countries, accordingly, the great majority of free
people are landowners who cultivate their own land; and labour for hire
is necessarily scarce: in densely-peopled countries, on the contrary,
the great majority of the people cannot obtain land, and there is
plenty of labour for hire. Of plentifulness of labour for hire, the
cause is dearness of land: cheapness of land is the cause of scarcity
of labour for hire” [1290].
Wakefield proposed that the government should sell the new land in the
colonies at a sufficient price, i.e. at a price which would oblige the
newly arrived labourers to serve a few years for wages before being
able to become landowners [1291].
Another writer on colonial matters of the same period, Merivale,
follows quite the same line of argument as Wakefield. The great demand
for slaves and the great profitableness of slavery, he says, arise
altogether from the scarcity of labour. “When the pressure of
population induces the freeman to offer his services, as he does in all
old countries, for little more than the natural minimum of wages, those
services are very certain to be more productive and less expensive than
those of the bondsman, whose support is a charge to the master, and who
has nothing to gain by his industry.... This being the case, it is
obvious that the limit of the profitable duration of slavery is
attained whenever the population has become so dense that it is cheaper
to employ the free labourer for hire. Towards this limit every
community is approximating, however slowly.” That the relation between
land and population is indeed the determining factor as regards the
system of labour most suitable to a country, is clearly shown by the
effect which the emancipation of the slaves had upon the economic
development of the different colonies. Merivale then proceeds to divide
the British slave colonies, at the time of emancipation, into three
classes, as respects their economical situation. First, the oldest
settlements, established in the smaller Antilles (Barbadoes, Antigua,
etc.). They were those in which the land was nearly all occupied. “They
were less injured than any others by the immediate effect of
emancipation; for the negroes had no resource except in continuing to
work; there was no unoccupied land for them to possess, no independent
mode of obtaining a subsistence to which they could resort, still less
of obtaining those luxuries which habit had rendered desirable to
them.” “The next class is that of colonies in which the fertile or
advantageously situated soil was all cultivated, and becoming
exhausted; but there remained much unoccupied soil, of a less valuable
description, and the population was not dense in proportion to the
whole surface.” This applies especially to Jamaica. Here the colonists
“were injured, perhaps, by the abolition of the slave trade; and they
suffer now, since emancipation, by the difficulty of compelling the
negroes to perform hired labour while they have their own provision
grounds, and other resources, at their disposal.” “Finally, there is a
third class of colonies, in some of which the fertility of the
cultivated soil is as yet unexhausted, in others there is abundance of
fertile and unoccupied land. Such are the Mauritius and Trinidad, and,
in a far higher degree, Guiana”. In these colonies, after emancipation,
“the negroes have found it easy to obtain a subsistence in a country
overflowing with natural wealth: they have been rescued from a
servitude involving, perhaps, a greater amount of labour than in any
other settlements: they have abundance of land to resort to for their
maintenance. The accounts, both from Guiana and Trinidad, seem to
report the negroes as generally peaceful and well-inclined, but
indisposed to labour, to which they can only be tempted by the most
exorbitant offers of wages” [1292].
There is one more reason why slaves are of little use in those
countries where all land has been appropriated. When there is free
land, a man can, by increasing the number of his slaves, to any extent
augment his revenue: every slave will take a new patch of land into
cultivation; the more slaves a man owns, the more land he will have in
tillage. But when the supply of land is limited, each landowner can
employ only a definite number of labourers. As soon as there are hands
enough to cultivate his grounds, an increase in the number of labourers
soon becomes unprofitable. What we have said of pastoral tribes obtains
here too: it may be that slaves are wanted, but when they are procured
the point will soon be reached at which a further increase in their
number yields no longer any profit. Therefore, when all land has been
appropriated, even though it be equally divided between the members of
the community and so a labouring class be wanting, there is little use
for slaves.
It must be understood that we speak here of self-dependent agricultural
countries. Where manufactures and the trade with foreign parts are
highly developed, economic life becomes much more complicated and
presents quite another character.
What we want to prove is that in such self-dependent agricultural
countries, when all arable land has been appropriated, slavery is not
likely to exist.
All land has been appropriated, when every piece of land is claimed by
some one as his property. The owner, of course, need not be an
individual; land may also be owned by a group of individuals. Yet the
statements of our ethnographers concerning tribal property may not be
accepted without much caution. They often tell us that a tribe claims
the ownership of the territory it inhabits. This so-called right of
property held by the tribe often proves to consist in this, that no
strangers are admitted to the territory, but every member of the tribe
may cultivate as much of the land as he likes. In such case, whether it
be the tribe or the king to whom the land is stated to belong, the term
“ownership” is very inappropriately used [1293]. We shall only speak of
appropriation of land when some one claims the use of it to the
exclusion of all others, and values his property. Where the so-called
owner is always willing to give a piece of it in cultivation to whoever
wants to cultivate it, we shall not speak of appropriation; where,
however, the land is never (except by way of favour) given in use
gratis, but a rent is always stipulated, it appears that the owner
values it, it has now really been appropriated [1294].
It is not always clearly stated whether all land has been appropriated.
Then we shall have recourse to some criteria from which we may infer
whether such be the case.
The principal criterion is the existence of a class of freemen
destitute of land [1295]. Where such people are found we may be sure
that there is no free land; else they would be able to take it into
cultivation. It need scarcely be added that even where no such people
are found, it may be that all land has been appropriated, everybody
sharing in it.
The appropriation of the land does not imply that all land is actually
being cultivated. There may be land actually out of tillage and yet
valued by the owner. But when it is stated that all land is being
cultivated, it must all have been appropriated. This will therefore be
our second criterion.
There is another criterion that proves that all land has not yet been
appropriated. When we are told that clearing a piece of land is a modus
acquirendi of landed property, there must still be free land.
The appropriation of all land implies that property in land exists; but
the reverse is not true: when we are informed that property in land
exists, this does not prove that all land has already been
appropriated. For as soon as the population has so far increased as to
require the cultivation of land less fertile than that which was at
first exclusively cultivated, the more fertile land acquires value. “On
the first settling of a country” says Ricardo “in which there is an
abundance of rich and fertile land, a very small proportion of which is
required to be cultivated for the support of the actual population, or
indeed can be cultivated with the capital which the population can
command, there will be no rent; for no one would pay for the use of
land, when there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriated, and,
therefore, at the disposal of whosoever might choose to cultivate it.”
But “when in the progress of society, land of the second degree of
fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that
of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on the
difference in the quality of these two portions of land” [1296]. As
soon as land of the second degree of fertility is cultivated, rent
commences; but in such cases there is possibly much land of the second
degree not yet appropriated, and at any rate land of the 3rd, 4th, etc.
degrees. Accordingly we find that among some savage tribes, where there
is an abundance of free land, some very fertile or very favourably
situated pieces of land are highly valued. We shall give one instance.
Among the Sea Dyaks land is so abundant that, if a Dyak, when about to
cultivate a piece of land, finds a dead animal lying on it, which he
considers a bad omen, he immediately leaves the land, and seeks a new
field. Yet among the same Sea Dyaks “parents and children, brothers and
sisters, very seldom quarrel; when they do so, it is from having
married into a family with whom afterwards they may have disputes about
land. One would imagine that was a subject not likely to create
dissensions in a country like Borneo; but there are favourite
farming-grounds, and boundaries are not very settled. It used to be the
practice not to have recourse to arms on those occasions, but the two
parties collecting their relatives and friends, would fight with sticks
for the coveted spot” [1297]. The last sentence proves that these
quarrels were rather frequent. When, therefore, it is stated that land
has value, or that lands are rented, or that the wealth of individuals
consists partly in landed property, this does not prove that all land
has already been appropriated.
We have spoken of all land fit for cultivation being appropriated. What
land is fit for cultivation in each country depends on the ability of
the inhabitants in agriculture. Much will also depend on the character
of the individuals. Where these are vigorous and enterprising, the
people destitute of arable land will endure many hardships in taking
new lands into cultivation, whereas weak and indolent men will prefer
being employed by the rich. A good instance of this is furnished by the
Bontoc Igorot of Northern Luzon. Landed property here is highly
developed. “It is largely by the possession or nonpossession of real
property that a man is considered rich or poor.” “Irrigated rice lands
are commonly leased.” “Unirrigated mountain camote lands are rented
outright.” Yet there is still unoccupied land. “Public lands and
forests extend in an irregular strip around most pueblos.... Public
forests surround the outlying private forests. They are usually from
three to six hours distant. From them any man gathers what he pleases,
but until the American came to Bontoc the Igorot seldom went that far
for wood or lumber, as it was unsafe.” There are, however, people who
do not own land enough to live upon. “It is claimed that each household
owns its dwelling and at least two sementeras and one granary, though a
man with no more property than this is a poor man and some one in his
family must work much of the time for wages, because two average
sementeras will not furnish all the rice needed by a family for food”
[1298]. So the poor work for wages rather than going to settle on the
outlying public lands, to which they have free access. Here again we
see that economic phenomena have always a psychological basis [1299].
We shall not, in order to prove our hypothesis, examine the regulations
of landed property among all agricultural savage tribes, but confine
ourselves to one geographical group, in which the phenomena we have
spoken of in this paragraph most strikingly present themselves. This
group is Oceania, comprehending Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.
We shall, however, leave out of regard New Guinea, one of the largest
islands of the world. The rest of Oceania consists chiefly of small
islands.
Slavery in Oceania (with the exception of New Guinea) has never
prevailed to any great extent. In the second chapter of Part I it has
been shown that slavery, so far as we can know, existed only in the N.
W. Solomon Islands, on the Gazelle Peninsula of Neu Pommern, and in New
Zealand.
We shall try to account for this fact by showing that on most of the
Oceanic islands all land had been appropriated, which led to a state of
things inconsistent with slavery as a social system.
In the following paragraphs we shall inquire what our ethnographers
have to say about landed property in Oceania and the extent to which
the land had been appropriated.
§ 5. Land tenure in Polynesia.
In this and the following two paragraphs we shall not mention all
particulars of land tenure given by the ethnographers, but only those
which may enable us to decide whether all land had been appropriated.
Mahler, speaking of Polynesia and Micronesia generally, remarks that on
many islands the burial-places occupied large tracts of land; but this
does not prove that there was abundance of land, for these places were
hardly ever anything but (according to Penny), “barren points where the
wind howls and the sea moans, or rocky caverns in which the waves dash
with sullen roar” [1300].
Waltershausen tells us that in Polynesia the cultivated land belonged
to the king and nobility, to the exclusion of the labouring classes.
The upper classes also owned the fruit-trees, the small coral islets
surrounding the larger islands, the lakes, the rivers, and those parts
of the sea which extended from the land to the reefs. The untilled land
was the property of the tribe and, unless the king forbade it, every
one might cut the wood growing on it for building houses and canoes;
but only the ruling classes might take it into cultivation [1301].
Mariner states that in Tonga property principally consists in
plantations, canoes and houses. The plantations are owned by the chiefs
and the nobles. Agricultural labourers are very much despised; they
serve the chiefs on whom they are dependent. West tells us that “the
feudal principle, that the whole country belonged exclusively to the
king, regulated the disposal and tenure of lands,” and so the lower
classes were in a slavelike condition. “Lands were held in fief. The
great landlords derived them by hereditary right, in conjunction with
their chieftainship, but held them at the will of the supreme ruler.”
These landlords distributed their lands among their relations and
followers [1302].
In Niué or Savage Island, “the land belongs to clans represented by
their heads”. “At present there is land enough for all, and the junior
members of the clan come to the headman whenever they want land to
plant upon. Titles can be acquired by cultivation” [1303].
“The land in Samoa” says Turner “is owned alike by the chiefs and these
heads of families. The land belonging to each family is well known, and
the person who, for the time being holds the title of the family head,
has the right to dispose of it. It is the same with the chiefs. There
are certain tracts of bush or forest land which belong to them. The
uncultivated bush is sometimes claimed by those who own the land on its
borders. The lagoon also, as far as the reef, is considered the
property of those off whose village it is situated.” Von Bülow
concludes from the legends and traditions of the Samoans that formerly
all the land belonged to the chiefs. But now the land is owned by the
families [1304].
Gardiner gives an elaborate account of the regulation of landed
property in Rotuma: “No private property in land formerly existed, it
was all vested in the pure for the time being of the hoag [1305]; the
district generally had rights over it. It usually consisted of four
kinds: bush, swamp, coast, and proprietary water in the boat channel;
common to the hoag, too, were wells and graveyards. Every member of the
hoag knew its boundaries, which consisted of lines between certain
trees or prominent rocks, posts, and even stone walls. In the bush land
every hoag possessed property; it lay on the slopes of hills and in
valleys between at some slight distance from the coast, from which it
was separated by a stone wall, running round the whole island. On it
taro, yams, bananas, plantains, and a few cocoanut trees were grown for
food, while the paths into it and through it were planted with the
Tahitian chestnut, the fava tree, and the sagopalm. The Tahitian
chestnut and fava trees were favourite boundary marks owing to their
size and longevity. Swamp land is only possessed by Noatau, Oinafa,
Matusa, and Itomotu. It is low-lying land, on extensive beach sand
flats, which exist in these districts. The tide always keeps it wet,
percolating through the sand, and in it is grown the papoi, or broka,
against famine. The possession of a good-sized strip always caused and
gave to the hoag a position of importance; its boundaries were stones
at the sides. Coast land lay outside the surrounding wall, to which the
hoag had a strip from and including the foreshore. On it as near as
possible to the coast the house or houses of the hoag were placed,
while the rest of the land was planted with cocoanuts for drinking
purposes. Hifo trees are stated to have been planted formerly to show
the boundaries, but they more often now consist of stones or cocoanut
trees, the ownership of which is a constant source of dispute.
Districts and even villages were sharply marked off by walls down to
the beach. All had the right of turning out their pigs on this land,
and each hoag had to keep in proper repair the parts of the wall
adjacent to it. Each had, however, usually an enclosure on its own land
for its own pigs, when young. The proprietary water ran from the
foreshore to the reef, a continuation of the strip on shore. At Noatau
and Matusa, where it is very broad, it was to some extent
cross-divided. It consists of a sand flat covered by 10–12 feet of
water at high-tide. On it fish of all sorts are caught by traps and
various devices, and shell-fish are gathered. As these form no
inconsiderable portion of the daily food, indeed the principal animal
food, the value of this property was always very considerable. The
reef—i.e. the part on the outside exposed at the low tide—was the
common property of all. It was explained to me that fish, crabs, etc.,
cannot be cultivated there, owing to the heavy breaking seas, but are
sent up by the atua, or spirits.” “Any land, not being planted, is
willingly lent to another hoag on condition of two baskets of
first-fruits of each patch being brought to the pure, but cocoanut
trees on the land cannot be touched by the tenant, nor is he entitled
to their usufruct. If a hoag owns land in one district, but lives in
another, first-fruits are always paid to the chief of the district, in
which its lands lie. Any encroachment on the land was very vigorously
resented, it was usually referred to the district chief to settle, and
his decision loyally adhered to.” “If he [a man] had planted more
cocoanuts than required by the hoag, he has the entire usufruct of
these trees during his lifetime, quite independently of the
apportionment of the land below them for planting.” We see that the
idea of landownership is most fully developed here. During the 19th
century the population has much diminished, and so “most of the hoag
have far more land than they can cultivate.” But formerly it was
otherwise. “Examining the remains of planting, it appears as if the
whole island, wherever practicable, was at one time tilled. The land,
where there is a good and deep soil, is, and was, no doubt tilled
regularly from year to year, while the rocky country was planted more
or less in rotation with yams and kava. Even on the steepest slopes,
there are signs of clearing, the summit alone being left crowned by the
hifo. The bottoms of the craters of many hills used to be planted too;
in the crater of Sol Satarua, the lulu as it is termed, there are still
bananas growing, but planted so long ago that the fact that it had a
lulu at all was almost forgotten” [1306]. According to Hale, food was
not always abundant on this island; therefore the natives liked to
engage themselves as sailors on whaling-ships, until they had earned
enough to buy a piece of land [1307]. In Hale’s time land was evidently
not so abundant as it is now that the population is so rapidly
declining.
In Tahiti “every portion of land had its respective owner; and even the
distinct trees on the land had sometimes different proprietors, and a
tree, and the land on which it grew, different owners.” What our
informant further tells us of the present state of things as compared
with that of earlier times, shows a remarkable likeness to Gardiner’s
statement about Rotuma. Ellis states that “an extent of soil capable of
cultivation, and other resources, are adequate to the maintenance of a
population tenfold increased above its present numbers.” But a great
depopulation has taken place in the course of years. “In the bottom of
every valley, even to the recesses in the mountains, on the sides of
the inferior hills, and on the brows of almost every promontory, in
each of the islands, monuments of former generations are still met with
in great abundance. Stone pavements of their dwellings and court-yards,
foundations of houses, and remains of family temples, are numerous.
Occasionally they are found in exposed situations, but generally amidst
thickets of brushwood or groves of trees, some of which are of the
largest growth. All these relics are of the same kind as those observed
among the natives at the time of their discovery, evidently proving
that they belong to the same race, though to a more populous era of
their history. The stone tools occasionally found near these vestiges
of antiquity demonstrate the same lamentable fact.” According to
Moerenhout “landed properties constituted the principal, or rather the
only wealth of these people; therefore the power of the chiefs always
depended on the quantity and quality of their lands; moreover, the more
people they could support, the more sure they were of having subjects.”
This writer does not, however, enter into many details [1308].
In Hawaii four social ranks existed. The members of the third rank,
according to Ellis, “are generally called haku aina, proprietors of the
land.” “In the fourth rank may be included the small farmers, who rent
from ten to twenty or thirty acres of land; the mechanics, ... indeed
all the labouring classes, those who attach themselves to some chief or
farmer, and labour on his land for their food and clothing, as well as
those who cultivate small portions of land for their own advantage.”
“Sometimes the poor people take a piece of land, on condition of
cultivating a given portion for the chief, and the remainder for
themselves, making a fresh agreement after every crop.” Hale states
that formerly there were no landed proprietors; all the land was “the
property of the king, and leased by him to inferior chiefs (hatu aina,
landlords), who underlet it to the people; as the king, however, though
absolute in theory, was aware that his power depended very much on the
co-operation of the high chiefs, they became, to a certain degree,
partakers in his authority.” Remy tells us that the land belonged
exclusively to the great chiefs, who leased it and received
considerable rents. Chamisso and Marcuse equally state that the land
belonged to the chiefs [1309].
In Rarotonga, according to Gerland, a man’s power depends on the
quantity of land he owns. Meinicke states that there are four social
classes. The third class is composed of the landed proprietors; the
lowest class are those who own no land and live as tenants on the
estates of the nobles [1310].
On the Marquesas Islands, according to Gerland, three ranks formerly
existed: chiefs, landholders, and the common people. The landholders
were the most powerful class; the common people were obliged to pay
them a tribute. Yet those who owned most land were not always most
respected, and even of the common people some owned land. Meinicke,
however, states that the whole of the land is the property of the
nobles. Hale, after speaking of the nobles, adds that the rest of the
people were the landholders and their relatives and tenants [1311].
In Mangarewa (belonging to the Paumotu group) the nobles were the
proprietors of the soil; they often let out their lands to the third
class, the common people [1312].
Meinicke tells us that in the Manahiki group the cocoanut trees and the
lagoons (for fishing purposes) were private property [1313].
In an article, quoted by Schurtz, it is stated that in the Tokelau
group the land belongs exclusively to the nobles. Lister, speaking of
Fakaofu or Bowditch Island (in the Tokelau group), says: “Two islets
belonged ... to the king. Two others were common property, and the rest
were divided up as the property of individuals” [1314]. So it seems
that in this part of the group there was land which had not yet been
appropriated.
In the Abgarris, Marqueen and Tasman groups all the land belongs to the
chiefs and the nobles, the common people having no landed property
[1315].
Tregear has the following notes on landed property in New Zealand:
“Land was held primarily by tribal right; but within this tribal right
each free warrior of the tribe had particular rights over some portion.
He could not part with the land because it was not his to give or sell,
but he had better rights to certain portions than others of his tribe.
He would claim by having the bones of his father or grandfather there,
or that they once rested there; or by the fact of his navel-string
having been cut there; or by his blood having been shed on it; or by
having been cursed there; or by having helped in the war party which
took the land; or by his wife being owner by descent; or by having been
invited by the owners to live there.” Thomson states that “all free
persons, male and female, constituting the nation were proprietors of
the soil.” The chiefs were the greatest landholders. “Conquest and
occupation gave titles to land. The right of fishing in rivers and sea
belonged to the adjoining landed proprietor. Amongst the families of
each tribe there are also laws regarding landed property. Thus the
cultivation of a portion of forest land renders it the property of
those who cleared it, and this right descended from generation to
generation.... It was illegal for one family to plant in another’s
clearing without permission”. “The independence and social happiness of
the people were chiefly caused by cultivating their own lands.”
According to Taylor, each tribe had its own district; “each member can
cultivate any portion of it he thinks fit, if unoccupied, or if it has
not been previously cultivated by another.” Polack says: “Possession is
obtained by planting a portion (however small) of the soil, and reaping
the same” [1316].
On Easter Island, according to Geiseler, every piece of land has its
own name and its owner. The natives attach much value to landed
property [1317].
We see that on most Polynesian islands all land has, or had been
appropriated. Regarding Rotuma, Tahiti and Easter Island this is
explicitly stated; and the same must be the case in Tonga, Hawaii,
Rarotonga, the Marquesas Islands, Mangarewa, part of the Tokelau group,
and the Abgarris, Marqueen and Tasman groups, where classes destitute
of land are found. In Manahiki property in land was strongly developed;
but whether there was still free land is not clear. In Samoa there was
still unappropriated bush land, though this was already “sometimes
claimed by those who own the land on its borders.” In New Zealand
clearing was still a modus acquirendi, which proves that all land had
not yet been appropriated. Equally on Savage Island titles can be
acquired by cultivation.
§ 6. Land tenure in Micronesia.
Kubary tells us that the population of Ebon, and of the whole Rallik
group (in the Marshall Islands), consists of four ranks. “The common
people are called armidj kajur and form the greater part of the
subjects. They have no property, except the land allotted to them by
the chief, who can take it from them at his pleasure. Every week they
have, each of them, to provide the chief with prepared food, the
quantity and quality of which are determined. The next class are the
leotakatak, who hold their property by hereditary right and not from
the chief. The chief cannot take the property of these men unless he
kills them first.” “The punishments inflicted by the chiefs in former
times consisted most often in capital punishment, and more rarely, in
less serious cases, in confiscation of land and house” [1318].
Several other writers affirm that in the Marshall group the upper
classes are the sole proprietors of the soil and the common people are
destitute of land [1319].
Regarding the isle of Nauru we are told that not only every inch of
land and every palm, but even the reefs and the sea washing them, are
held as property [1320].
On the Pelau Islands the right of disposing of the land of the tribe
vests in the obokúl (chief of a family-group); but he cannot alienate
any land without the consent of his nephews. However, a regular
agriculture does not exist, and most of the land remains untilled;
therefore the opposition of the nephews generally bears a formal
character; they only aim at extorting a present from the obokúl. The
obokúl divides the land among the members of the tribe for cultivation.
He may also cede pieces of land to aliens for use without payment; such
persons then enter into the position of kaukáth, i.e. they are
considered as related to the tribe without possessing the same rights,
they occasionally provide the obokúl with food, and help him in his
work. In another place our informant states that there is not often
reason for disputes about land, as the population is scarce and large
tracts of land are uncultivated [1321].
On the Mortlock Islands the chief of each tribe has an unlimited right
to dispose of the land belonging to the tribe. He divides it among the
heads of families on condition of their paying a tribute in kind. The
latter assign to each member of their groups a piece of land for
cultivation. Most land is divided up between the several keys
(family-groups); the land which is not yet occupied is the property of
the principal key and thus more directly than the rest at the disposal
of the chief [1322].
On the isle of Kusaie twelve principal chiefs own all the land; but the
chiefs of the second rank administer and cultivate it for them. The
common people are obliged to pay a tribute to the chiefs and serve
them. The highest mountains are planted up to their summits with
bananas, taro, sugarcane, etc [1323].
On the Eastern Caroline Islands the land belongs exclusively to the two
upper classes; the third class are attached to the soil on which they
live [1324].
Hale states that in Ponape or Ascension Island there are three classes.
All the land belongs to the two upper classes. The estates are never
alienated and pass only by succession [1325].
Gerland tells us that on the Marianne Islands the nobles were
hereditary owners of the whole of the land [1326].
As to the Kingsmill Islands, the particulars given by Wilkes and
Parkinson, as quoted in the second chapter of Part I [1327]
sufficiently prove that all land had been appropriated. According to
Wilkes “any one who owns land can always call upon others to provide
him with a house, canoe, and the necessaries of life; but one who has
none is considered as a slave, and can hold no property whatever.” Hale
tells us that “the katoka are persons not originally of noble birth,
who either by the favour of their chief or by good fortune in war, have
acquired land and with it freedom” [1328]. If in Wilkes’ statement we
read “proletarian” instead of “slave,” and take Hale’s “freedom” in an
economic, not in a legal sense, we find that here too the lowest class
were destitute of landed property.
The conclusion is that on most of the islands of Micronesia all land
has been appropriated, most often by the upper classes to the exclusion
of the lower. In Pelau, though a vast amount of land is actually out of
tillage, the regulation of landed property related by Kubary proves
that all land is held as property. Here, as well as in Rotuma and
Tahiti, we have to deal with the effects of the depopulation that has
taken place in Oceania. In Mortlock there seems to be free land; but
Kubary’s account is not very clear.
§ 7. Land tenure in Melanesia.
Codrington, in his article “On social regulations in Melanesia,”
remarks that his observations “are limited to the Northern New
Hebrides, the Banks Islands, the Santa Cruz Group, and the
South-eastern Solomon Islands” [1329]. Of land tenure he says: “Land is
everywhere divided into (1) the Town, (2) the Gardens, (3) the Bush. Of
these the two first are held as property, the third is
unappropriated.... Everywhere, or almost everywhere, the abundance of
land makes it of little value. If an individual reclaims for himself a
piece of bush land, it becomes his own” [1330].
Somerville, speaking of New Georgia (one of the central Solomon
Islands, and therefore not included in Codrington’s description)
remarks: “Property seems to be well recognised: every one of the myriad
islets of the great eastern lagoon has its understood owner, no matter
if cocoanuts be growing there or not. Groves of cocoanut trees are well
protected by hopes, as before described, as are also taro patches.
Hunting rights over opossums on a man’s property are also protected by
hopes” [1331]. Ribbe, however, states that in the New Georgia group,
uncultivated land, i.e. bush and forest, has no owner, except the parts
planted with sago trees and fruit trees. Every one may clear and
cultivate this land and so acquire a right of property [1332].
On the Shortland Islands, near Bougainville (N. W. Solomon Islands),
landed property in the European sense does not exist. Everybody has the
right to take a part of the wood into cultivation. By doing so, he
acquires a right of property, but only for so long as he has the land
in use [1333].
Woodford describes the regulation of landed property in the Solomon
Islands in general in the following terms: “As to the system of land
tenure among them, I believe that to land, per se, they attach but
little value. Any individual of the tribe appears to be able to select
at will a piece of land from the forest, which he clears, fences in,
and upon it rears his crop of yams or bananas. After the crops are
taken off, the land is allowed to relapse again to forest. When,
however, a native plants cocoanuts his property appears to be in the
trees themselves, apart altogether from any idea of ownership in the
land upon which they are planted. I do not think that any objection
would be raised to another native utilizing the ground upon which the
cocoanuts were planted for other crops so long as the trees themselves
were in no way damaged or interfered with. Property in cocoanuts
appears to pass, upon a man’s death, to his heirs” [1334].
Of land tenure on the isle of Aneityum, in the New Hebrides, Inglis
says: “There is neither a town nor a village in the whole Island. The
system of cottage farming is in a state of full development there.
There is no large proprietor, no powerful or wealthy chief; every man
sits proprietor of his own cottage, his own garden, and his own
cultivated patches—you could not call them fields. The waste lands and
the forests, to the summits of the mountains, belong to the tribe. They
are a kind of crown lands, but what each man cultivates belongs to
himself” [1335].
In New Caledonia, according to Brainne, a noble’s authority depends on
the range of cultivated grounds he owns, and one who possesses large
tracts of cultivated land and large plantations of cocoanut trees is
called a great chief. Glaumont tells us that “property is acquired by
purchase or exchange. It may also be acquired by labour. Thus
uncultivated grounds belong to the tribe, are so to speak common
property; but if a Kanaka clears and cultivates a portion of this bush
land it passes into his property. Property is held sacred (viz. in time
of peace); the chief himself, however powerful, would not dare to take
away the field of taros or ignames from the least of his subjects.”
Lambert tells us that individual property in land is highly developed.
The forest land, however, has no owner; every one may take a portion of
it into cultivation and by doing so acquire a right of property.
Meinicke says: “Each tribe possesses a separate territory in which the
land fit for cultivation is the individual property of the chiefs and
nobles, whereas the rest is at the disposal of all.” According to
Rochas there are two ranks: nobles and common people; but the latter
enjoy a rather independent position and always own some land. The
rights of property in land are highly respected, even by the chiefs
[1336].
Williams, describing Fiji, speaks of a feudal government; but he adds
that the ancient divisions of landed property are much respected.
Seemann states that the “real power of the state resides in the
landholders or gentry”; and Hale tells us that the members of the
lowest class “work for the chiefs and landholders and are supported by
them.” The fullest account of land tenure in Fiji is given by Fison.
The lands are of three kinds. “1. The Yavu or Town-lot; 2. The Qele, or
Arable Land; and 3. the Veikau, or Forest.” “The town-lots and the
arable lands are divided among the taukei (landowners), while the
forest lands are held in common by them. Arable land also, which is not
in actual use, is in some places common to a certain extent.” “The land
is vested in—or, at any rate, is held by—certain joint tribal owners
who have a common descent. These are called the Taukei ni vanua or
owners of the land.... Not all the people are landowners.” Fison then
speaks of some classes destitute of land, of whom it is not quite clear
whether they are tenants or serfs. But the following statement of his
clearly shows that all land has been appropriated: “In addition to the
koro [villages] already mentioned, there are others inhabited by tribes
who have either migrated from their own lands owing to disagreement
with their kinsfolk, or have been driven thence by war. These emigrants
beg land from a taukei tribe, and settle down upon it. They are not
landowners where they are now living, but it does not follow that they
are kaisi [base-born men, who are very much despised]. If they were
taukei in their own land they cannot be placed on the level of the
people without a father.” They pay “rent of produce and service....
Tribes such as these are tenants at will, and the land may be taken
from them whenever it may be required. How long soever their occupation
may continue, it does not establish a title. The descendants of the
taukei can always resume the lands, upon giving formal notice, and
presenting some property or other, which is called “the falling back of
the soil” [1337]. These emigrants are neither slaves nor serfs, but
destitute of land; if there were free land fit for cultivation, they
would appropriate it instead of becoming tenants at will.”
On the Gazelle Peninsula of Neu Pommern, according to Pfeil,
uncultivated land as such is not claimed by any one as his property.
When a native wants land, he takes some piece which is not in use,
without having to ask leave of anybody. Hahl also states that in the
Northern part of the Gazelle Peninsula grass or forest land as a rule
is at the disposal of whoever wishes to cultivate it. Equally among the
Baining of the Gazelle Peninsula, as Parkinson tells us, the land is
regarded as private property as long as it is being cultivated [1338].
In the Nissan Islands poverty is unknown, as there is an abundance of
free land. Private property in land is acquired by taking it into
cultivation. Land is sold and leased [1339].
Haddon, in his article on the Western Tribes of Torres Straits,
remarks: “I have no precise information as to land laws, but I believe
that the whole of the land is divided up into properties, certainly the
arable land is, the chief sharing like anyone else. There is no one
person or class of landowners who possess land to the total exclusion
of anyone else. Title to land is derived from inheritance, gift or
purchase. I never heard of any means of conveyance” [1340].
Hunt, describing the Murray Islands, says: “The chiefs held only their
own hereditary lands, but the first fruits of all cultivated lands were
presented to them as their share.... Any dispute about land would be
settled by the old men who would meet and discuss the point in dispute
and then pronounce their decision. Land was never sold, but could be
leased, when, if used for planting, a share in the first fruits would
be paid to the owner” [1341].
From the foregoing it appears that in many parts of Melanesia clearing
is a modus acquirendi, viz. in the Solomon Islands, Northern New
Hebrides, Banks Islands, Santa Cruz Group, New Caledonia, Gazelle
Peninsula of Neu Pommern and Nissan Islands. Yet the rights of
landowners are recognized everywhere in these islands. Here, as Ricardo
would say, land of the second degree of fertility has already been
taken into cultivation, and so rent has commenced on that of the first;
but there is still free land. In Aneityum, too, there seems to be land
not yet appropriated. In Fiji people destitute of land are found. Among
the Western tribes of Torres Straits all arable land is divided up into
properties, as Haddon tells us; but whether the rest of the land is
still free is not quite clear. With regard to the Murray Islands we
cannot arrive at any definite conclusion.
Generally speaking we may conclude that in Polynesia and Micronesia all
land has been appropriated, whereas in the Melanesian Islands free land
still exists.
We see further that not only the arable land is held as property, but
often also the fruit-trees, lakes and streams, the shore and the lagoon
as far as the reef. On most Polynesian and Micronesian islands whatever
portion of land or water can yield any profit has been appropriated.
§ 8. Landlords, tenants and labourers in Oceania.
It appears from the foregoing paragraphs that in those islands where
all land has been appropriated, there are nearly always found people
destitute of land. The only exceptions are Rotuma and Pelau. Gardiner,
in his very minute article on Rotuma, makes no mention of social ranks;
and Kubary, as we have already seen in the second chapter of Part I,
states that “among the Pelau islanders there is no question of a
division of the people into ranks or classes.” But Semper, as has also
been shown in the same chapter, speaks of a despised working class
[1342]. Regarding the social classes on Easter Island we are not
sufficiently informed.
Another state of things would not be inconceivable. It were quite
possible that every inhabitant had appropriated a portion of the land,
nothing of it remaining unclaimed. Yet it is easy to understand that,
when all land has become individual property, a class of people
destitute of land is likely soon to arise. In large families the
portions falling to each of the children will often become too small to
live upon. And where it is customary to buy and sell land, there may be
improvident people who squander the land that was to afford them
subsistence. But the principal cause probably is the arbitrary conduct
of the chiefs and other men of power who appropriate the land of their
enemies, and even, under some pretext, that belonging to their own
subjects.
In Tahiti the chiefs had “a desire for war, as a means of enlarging
their territory, and augmenting their power” [1343].
Regarding Hawaii Ellis tells us: “When Tamehameha had subdued the
greater part of the islands, he distributed them among his favourite
chiefs and warriors, on condition of their rendering him, not only
military service, but a certain proportion of the produce of their
lands. This also appears to have been their ancient practice on similar
occasions, as the hoopahora or papahora, division of land among the
ranakira or victors, invariably followed the conquest of a district or
island”. Wilkes says: “Any chieftain, who could collect a sufficient
number of followers to conquer a district, or an island, and had
succeeded in his object, proceeded to divide the spoils, or “cut up the
land”, as the natives termed it. The king, or principal chief, made his
choice from the best of the lands. Afterwards the remaining part of the
territory was distributed among the leaders, and these again subdivided
their shares to others, who became vassals, owing fealty to the
sovereigns of the fee. The king placed some of his own particular
servants on his portion as his agents, to superintend the cultivation.
The original occupants who were on the land, usually remained under
their new conqueror, and by them the lands were cultivated, and rent or
taxes paid.” Remy equally states that a victorious chief gave the lands
of the conquered party to his followers [1344].
On Niué (Savage Island), “in fighting times the braves (toa) ignored
all rights and seized upon any land that they were strong enough to
hold” [1345].
On Nauru the chief had the right to keep all the land his tribe had
conquered for himself or distribute it among the other chiefs of the
tribe [1346].
In the Kingsmill Islands the katoka are persons who “either by the
favour of their chief or by good fortune in war, have acquired land”
[1347]. Hence it appears that, here too, the victors used to occupy the
lands of the conquered.
In Fiji, according to Waterhouse, one of the motives of war was the
desire for land. Williams also states that each government “seeks
aggrandizement at the expense of the rest” by means of conquest, and he
adds that the inhabitants of conquered districts were reduced to an
abject servitude. According to Wilkes, “the victorious party often
requires the conquered to yield the right of soil”. Fison says: “It is
certain that in former days, when population seems to have been on the
increase ... tribes were dispossessed of their lands by other tribes
who took them into their occupation, and are the tauke of the present
day” [1348].
We have seen in § 5 that a New Zealander sometimes claimed land “by
having helped in the war party which took the land.” According to
Ellis, a desire to enlarge their territory led to frequent wars.
Thomson tells us: “Sometimes whole tribes became nominally slaves,
although permitted to live at their usual places of residence, on the
condition of catching eels and preparing food for their conquerors at
certain seasons” [1349].
In New Caledonia the inhabitants of conquered districts have to pay a
tribute to the conqueror, but generally continue living under their own
chiefs [1350].
Von Bülow states that in Samoa conquered lands become the private
property of the victorious chief [1351].
It appears that this conquering of land does not always create a class
destitute of land; sometimes the inhabitants have only to pay a
tribute. But where individuals belonging to the victorious tribe
receive portions of the conquered land allotted to them, as in New
Zealand and the Kingsmill Islands, or where, as in Samoa, the land
becomes the private property of the conquering chief, the original
owners consequently are deprived of their property.
It also occurs that within the tribe the land is taken away from its
owner.
Williams states that in Fiji an adulterer may be deprived of his land
as a punishment; and Fison tells us that the chiefs have overridden the
ancient customs regarding land tenure [1352].
In Tahiti, those who resisted the king’s authority were banished and
deprived of their lands. “Should the offender have been guilty of
disobedience to the just demands of the king, though the lands might be
his hereditary property, he must leave them, and become, as the people
expressed it, a “wanderer upon the road”” [1353].
In Niué, widows and orphans “are frequently robbed of the land
inherited from their dead husbands and fathers” [1354].
In Ebon, confiscation of land by the chief was formerly a mode of
punishment [1355].
On the Kingsmill Islands, if a noble girl were to have connection with
a man of the middle class, she would lose her landed property [1356].
On Nauru, according to Krämer, a murderer in most cases has to yield
his land to the parents of his victim. Jung tells us that formerly the
chiefs often had to settle disputes about land among their subjects.
They then generally took the land from the quarreling parties and
regarded it as their own [1357].
Among the Melanesians described by Codrington the chiefs “often use
their power to drive away the owners of gardens they desire to occupy”
[1358].
Where land is so highly valued, and wealth and power depend upon the
possession of it, the chiefs and other men of power will be inclined to
appropriate as much of it as possible. This is not always easy, and
sometimes, in democratically organized societies, hardly practicable;
but we may be sure that it will be done on the very first opportunity.
This is strikingly proved by what Gardiner tells us of Rotuma: “Since
the introduction of missionaries, too, much land has been seized by the
chiefs, who, as a rule, in each district were its missionaries, as
fines for the fornications of individuals. A certain amount of cocoanut
oil was then given by the chiefs to the Wesleyan Mission, apparently in
payment for their support. The mission in the name of which it was
done, though generally without the knowledge of the white teachers, was
so powerful that the hoag had no redress.” Formerly individual rights
to land in Rotuma were highly respected: “The victorious side obtained
no territorial aggrandisement, as it was to the common interest of all
to maintain the integrity of the land, and the victors might on some
future occasion be themselves in the position of the vanquished”
[1359]. We may suppose that originally the chiefs were not powerful
enough to appropriate land belonging to others; but the additional
power that the new religion gave them enabled them to seize the lands
of their subjects, and they immediately availed themselves of this
opportunity.
A similar change has taken place in Samoa. In Turner’s time Samoan
government had “more of the patriarchal and democratic in it, than of
the monarchical.” Von Bülow, writing several years later than Turner,
states that some chiefs have lately introduced what he calls serfdom.
In the villages where this state of things exists the inhabitants live
on land belonging to the chief. They pay no rent, but are obliged to
stand by the chief in war and peace. They are personally free and have
the right to emigrate, but own no land [1360].
We can now perfectly understand why people destitute of land are found
in so many of these islands. And as most often not only the arable
land, but fruit-trees, lakes, streams, and the sea adjoining the land
are individual property, these people are entirely at the mercy of the
landowners. We shall see that they have to perform the drudgery for the
landlords, and are sometimes heavily oppressed.
In Tonga, the lowest class were the tooas. “The tooas can be divided
into three categories. A few of them are warriors and form part of the
retinue of the chiefs; some are professed cooks in the service of the
superior or inferior chiefs; others, and these form the majority, till
the soil. The latter are found all over the country and have no other
employment” [1361].
“The institutions of Niué seem always to have been republican” says B.
Thomson [1362].
In Samoa, in Turner’s time, a democratic and even communistic régime
prevailed. Speaking of the chief, Turner says: “With a few exceptions,
he moves about, and shares in everyday employments, just like a common
man. He goes out with the fishing party, works in his plantations,
helps at house-building, and lends a hand at the native oven.” The
Samoans were very hospitable: “In addition to their own individual
wants, their hospitable custom in supplying, without money and without
stint, the wants of visitors from all parts of the group, was a great
drain on their plantations.” Hale states that “the common people are in
general the relatives and dependents of the tulafales [landlords] and
have no direct influence in the government” [1363]. We have seen that
recently a class of people destitute of land has been created by some
chiefs; but their lot does not seem to be a hard one.
Gardiner, in his description of Rotuma, makes no mention of social
classes.
In Tahiti, the lowest class were the manahune, including, besides the
titi or slaves, “the teuteu or servants of the chiefs; all who were
destitute of any land, and ignorant of the rude arts of carpentering,
building, etc., which are respected among them, and such as were
reduced to a state of dependence upon those in higher stations.”
Speaking of the great landholders, our informant says: “Possessing at
all times the most ample stores of native provisions, the number of
their dependents, or retainers, was great. The destitute and
thoughtless readily attached themselves to their establishments, for
the purpose of securing the means of subsistence without care or
apprehension of want.” That the landholders enjoyed great consideration
is also proved by Wilkes’s remark, that the chiefs “find in their
possession [of land] an acknowledged right to rank and respectability”
[1364].
In Hawaii, four social ranks existed. The members of the third rank
held land, “cultivating it either by their own dependents and
domestics, or letting it out in small allotments to tenants.... In the
fourth rank may be included the small farmers, who rent from ten to
twenty or thirty acres of land; the mechanics, namely, canoe and house
builders, fishermen, musicians, and dancers; indeed, all the labouring
classes, those who attach themselves to some chief or farmer, and
labour on his land for their food and clothing, as well as those who
cultivate small portions of land for their own advantage.” “Sometimes
the poor people take a piece of land, on condition of cultivating a
given portion for the chief, and the remainder for themselves, making a
fresh agreement after every crop. In addition to the above demands, the
common people are in general obliged to labour, if required, part of
two days out of seven, in cultivating farms, building houses, etc. for
their landlord. A time is usually appointed for receiving the rent,
when the people repair to the governor’s with what they have to pay. If
the required amount is furnished, they return, and, as they express it
(komo hou), enter again on their land. But if unable to pay the
required sum, and their landlords are dissatisfied with the presents
they have received, or think the tenants have neglected their farm,
they are forbidden to return, and the land is offered to another. When,
however, the produce brought is nearly equal to the required rent, and
the chiefs think the occupants have exerted themselves to procure it,
they remit the deficiency, and allow them to return” [1365]. This is
quite the reverse of what occurs in slave countries. The slave or serf
is prevented from escaping and compelled to remain with his master; the
Hawaiian tenant, if the landlord is dissatisfied with the produce
brought, is forbidden to return to the land of his employer. In the
same sense, Wilkes remarks: “What appears most extraordinary, this bond
[i.e. the bond between landlord and tenant] was more often severed by
the superiors than by their vassals” [1366].
In Rarotonga, the lowest class are the unga or servants who have to
cultivate the lands of the nobles, build their houses and canoes, make
nets for them, pay them tributes, and in general obey all their demands
[1367].
In the Marquesas Islands, the kikinos (common people) were servants and
soldiers of the chiefs. They were always free to leave their employers.
The chief, in his turn, if he was not satisfied with a servant, might
expel him from his domain [1368]. Here again we may mark the great
difference between the lower classes of Polynesia and slaves; for the
latter are not expelled by way of punishment, but on the contrary
forced to remain with their masters.
In Mangarewa, as has been noticed, the whole of the land belonged to
the nobility, who often leased their lands to the third class, the
common people [1369].
In the Tokelau group, the common people till the lands of the nobles
for a payment in kind. A labourer has the right to leave his employer
and go into another man’s service [1370].
In the Abgarris, Marqueen and Tasman groups, the common people own no
land; they serve the members of the upper classes and form their
retinue; in reward they are provided with cocoanuts and other fruits
and allowed to fish on the reef and in the lagoon [1371].
In New Zealand, as has been shown in § 5, every freeman owned land.
Accordingly, we find only a beginning of the formation of a class of
free labourers. Polack states that “the poorest classes work as
freedmen on the farms of their richer relatives” [1372].
On Easter Island, the king formerly held a despotic sway over the
common people, i.e. those who did not belong to the nobility [1373].
Gerland remarks that the two principal classes, nobles and common
people, were nowhere in Polynesia less strictly separated than in Samoa
and New Zealand. This strikingly shows that the appropriation of the
land was really the basis of Polynesian aristocracy; for Samoa and New
Zealand, as we have found, were almost the only Polynesian groups in
which there was still free land [1374].
Regarding the condition of the common people in Micronesia we have
already mentioned many particulars in § 7 of the second chapter of Part
I in inquiring whether they were to be regarded as slaves, and in § 6
of this chapter in order to prove that all land had been appropriated.
We shall briefly repeat here what bears on their condition and the work
imposed upon them, adding such details as have not yet been mentioned.
Steinbach states that in the Marshall Islands neither the lowest nor
the next higher class owns land, “but they are allowed to grow as much
produce or catch as much fish as is necessary for their sustenance.
They have to perform certain services for the chiefs, such as the
cutting of copra”. And Krämer tells us that the common people are a
subjected class without property. The kings have an absolute rule over
the people and many islands are their exclusive property. They may take
as many women as they like from among the people as wives or
concubines. The common man has only one wife and even this one his
superiors may take away at their pleasure [1375].
On Nauru, the lower classes (sometimes called “serfs” or “slaves” by
the authors) are in the service of the chiefs and nobles.