although sheltered by political servitude, had but small growth and
made but slow progress. It certainly did not desolate the lands with
the blight and barrenness that afterward depopulated them under Roman
rule.
The tribute paid by the subdued nations to the Persian kings and their
court, included slaves--boys and girls--but in a limited number. The
slave-traffic existed as of old; but, in all probability, the supply
of the human merchandise was less plentiful. From political slaves,
but not domestic chattels, it was that the armies were recruited which
crossed the Hellespont and invaded Greece.
But, viewing the matter in the gross and scope of historical
development, political slavery and the blighting effects of the
oppressive despotism to which the Persians were long subjected, may
be looked upon as the soil out of which grew the morbid and monstrous
system of domestic slavery, just as external influences frequently
develop and foster the germs of a chronic and fatal bodily disease.
IX.
ARYAS--HINDUS.
AUTHORITIES:
_Lassen, Wilson, Weber, Max Müller, Pictet, Kuhn, etc._
The central region of Baktria was in all probability the cradle of the
Aryas, the common progenitors of all the races and nations which now
cover Europe. In times anterior to the great pre-historic division and
separation of the Aryan races, they probably occupied the whole of the
vast region stretching from the Hindu-Kush, the Belourtagh, to the
river Oxus and the Caspian Sea. This, too, at a period of which it can
only be said that time existed.
The antique Aryas led a pastoral life. The original signification
of the words in the European languages denoting family and social
relations, as well as the names of domestic and other animals, of
grains and plants, of implements of husbandry and handicraft and the
like, is elucidated by roots found in Sanscrit, which is supposed to
have been the original language of the Aryas, or, at any rate, the one
which most completely preserved the primitive impress of the Aryan
character.
"Father" (in Sanscrit, _pitri_), signifies "the protecting one, or
the protector;" "mother" (Sanscrit, _matri_), "she who regulates
or sets in order;" "daughter" (_duhitri_), "the milking one;"
"son" (_sunu_), "the begotten;" "sister" (_vastri_), "she who takes
care,"--subauditur, of household matters--also, "the bearer of a new
family;" "brother" (_brhatri_), "the helper, or carrier;" "youth"
(_yavan_) "the defender." So also, "horse" (_açva_), signifies "swift,
rapid;"[11] the name for the "bovine" genus, bull and cow (Sc., _go_,
_gaus_), "to sound inarticulately," likewise (_ukshan_) "fecundating,"
besides other names with other significations; the "ovine" genus, or
sheep kind (_avi_), implies "the loved, protected," etc.; the "dog"
(_'cvan_, _kvan_), means "the yelper, barker;" but he has also other
names denoting his qualities, as _sucaka_, "spy, informer," _krtagna_,
the "recognizing," or "grateful one," etc.; "goose," (_hansa_, from Sc.
_has_), "to laugh." So the roots for the general names of grains and
fruits are to be found in the Sanscrit; thus, _ad_, "to eat;" _adas_,
"nourishment;" _gr_, "to devour," whence _garitra_, "grain," "rice,"
etc. It may be noticed that derivatives from these and other roots
became applied, in branch languages, to various special kinds of grain;
thus, "oats," both in form and signification, is easily traced to a
Sanscrit root. So, too, the names of many metals, trees, plants and
wild animals, have their roots and descriptive meaning in the Aryan or
Sanscrit language; and comparative philology gives us the method of
seizing the affiliations of form and of meaning.
Words of the character pointed one and their primitive
significations--constituting the foundation of man's family and social
existence--followed the various ethnic branches issuing from the
Aryan and expanding over the ancient world. _But no root, no name, no
signification is to be found for a "servant" bearing the meaning of
"slave" or "chattel,"_ or expressive of a deprivation of the rights
of manhood or of human dignity. The primitive Aryan mode of life was
naturally patriarchal or clan-like, and the above-mentioned words
show that household and rural functions were performed by the members
of the family. What has been already said in another division (see
"Hebrews"), applies even more forcibly to the Aryas. The Sanscrit word
_ibha_, signified "family," "household," "servants," but _never slaves
or chattels_. Both its sound and sense are still perfectly preserved in
the Irish _ibh_, which signifies "country," or "clan;" _not enslaved
men_! The names of weapons, and other words relating to warfare, which
may be traced back to the Aryan speech, prove that the Aryas warred
with other tribes--perhaps with the Tartars; and all such foreign
enemies were comprehended under the collective Sanscrit denomination of
_barbara_, _varvara_, or "barbarians." But even here, where we should
most look for it, no hint or trace of slavery can be found.
The attempt, historically, to endow certain human families or races
with special fitness or capacity for freedom or slavery--or with a
fatality toward the one or the other, or toward certain fixed social
and political conditions--as well as the effort to divide the human
family into distinct physiological or psychological races--all
manifests a narrow appreciation of the course of human events; it
evidences a very limited knowledge of positive history, and perhaps
a still more limited philosophical comprehension of its spirit. If,
however, such classifications had any scientific basis, assuredly
the Aryas and the nations issuing from them had no natural, special
propensity either to be slaves or slave-makers.
It win be hereafter pointed out, that among the various branches of the
Aryas, or what are called Indo-Europeans, slavery was not a feature of
their primitive life, but was the result of a long subsequent epoch of
moral decay and degradation. It was at a comparatively late period of
their history and under precisely the same conditions, that the Romans
and Greeks began to enslave their own fellows. So was it with the Gaels
or Celts, and so also with the Slavi. The Poles were free from serfdom
till the thirteenth Christian century; the Russians only introduced it
toward the close of the sixteenth--and in both cases after dissension,
war, and desolation. The Teutons alone (Anglo-Saxons included), seen
in the light of primitive history, had slavery in their household and
in their national organism, and the slaves, too, of their own race and
kin.
The Aryas descended the slopes of Hindu-Kush and the Himalayas,
entering the region of the Five or of the Seven Rivers (Punjab),
wandered along the river Jamuna, on the line between Attock and Delhi,
successively spread over the whole region between the Indus and the
Ganges--and here begins their historical existence as a people.
In the course of this long march they conquered or drove before
them--seemingly without any great trouble, at least in the first
encounters, the aboriginal occupants of the Trans-Himalayan countries;
and this, too, before they reached what may be called the threshold
of history. Discords and wars early broke out among them, principally
caused by the continual pressure of northern immigrants upon the
possessors of the fertile countries in the south--caused, too, by the
struggles for supremacy between families or dynasties, when the tents
of the patriarchs had expanded into populous tribes, and almost into
nations; and also by the struggles of classes created in the effort to
subjugate the aboriginal inhabitants, especially those in the southern
parts of India. All these wars took place at a very early epoch, and
elude positive chronological division. Their history, as well as that
of the primitive Aryan or Hindu mode of life, and their earliest
spiritual conceptions, are pictured in the Vedas, which form the
background of the whole Indian world.
The gray and venerable Vedaic age is now divided by critics into four
periods: the Chhandas period, the Mantra period, the Brahmana period,
and the Sutra period.
The Chhandas period exhibits the purest patriarchal and peaceful
condition of the family. There were then no priests and no division
of classes; the father offered up simple sacrifices to heaven, and
the simple hymns and songs of the family resounded over the offering.
If the household contained any captive of the aboriginal race, such a
one, by renouncing his ancient customs and creed, and accepting the
language, the faith and the law of the conqueror, retained life and
comparative liberty. And, moreover, all ethnological investigations
confirm the belief that the aborigines of India were of the negro, or
what is commonly called African family. On this American continent the
kidnapped and enslaved African has accepted both the creed and the
language of his oppressor--but for him there is neither liberty nor law.
Not to enslave, but only to subdue--preserving, at least partially, the
rights of the conquered--was the policy of the Aryas in their encounter
with barbarians. And in the domestic wars of tribes and dynasties which
yet dimly echo through the second or Mantra period, no traces of the
enslavement of their conquered enemies are to be found. In general, the
first two periods not only do not show any shadow of _slavery_ in the
domestic and social relations, but even the division into _classes_ or
_castes_ does not yet make its appearance. During the third or Brahmana
period, the Vedas give an account of the terrible and bloody struggle
which ended in the social and religious victory of the Brahmas, or
Brahmins, over the Kshatriyas, who had previously formed the ruling
families.
The Brahmins now reorganized the religious and political structure of
the Hindus. They divided society into four classes or castes: (it is
to be noted here, however, that some modern exegetists assert that the
true meaning of the Sanscrit word _Varna_, for "caste," is not yet
clearly apprehended). These four castes were: 1. The Brahmins; 2. The
Kshatriyas; 3. The Vaisyas; 4. The Soudras, or Çudras. The first three
correspond to the classification already mentioned as existing among
the Iranians. The Çudras were the lowest and most degraded caste; still
they were not enslaved, not the property of any other caste, not even
of the Brahmins--those spiritual and political chiefs of the Hindus.
The labors of agriculture ennobled even the hands of the Brahmin, and
could not be performed by slaves nor under the compulsory terrors of a
master or driver.
As the word Çudras is not Sanscrit, it is supposed that it was the
ethnic name of the subdued aborigines of which the fourth caste was
composed. The offspring of a Brahmin and a Çudra was considered of
pure blood. The Brahminic law authorized the enslavement of persons
belonging to all the interior castes, for debt. Slaves may also have
been made in the wars with the southward retreating aborigines and
others; and slaves may occasionally have been sold in the markets, but
their number must have been very insignificant. Laws for the servitude
of the Çudras--if such existed even--must very soon have fallen into
disuse; for when Alexander brought Greece and Europe into contact with
India, the astonished Greeks found scarcely any slavery then existing.
Several of the Greek authors even assert that a positive law prohibited
any kind of enslavement.
Budha, the great precursor of the Christ, was moved to tears, affected
to inspiration, by the suffering and oppression which resulted from the
division of society into castes, and by the misery of the poor, who
were oppressed by the rich land-owner; but among the social and moral
plagues, Budha and his disciples enumerate not human slavery. As far as
the history of antiquity is known, Budha was the first whose religious
teaching broke through the narrow conception of nationality, and taught
universal emancipation and the brotherhood of all tribes and nations of
men.
The oppression of the poor and of the landless, which then existed
in India, exists there still. It was strengthened by the terrible
Mahomedan and Mongol conquests, and by the iron rule of the British
East India Company. But the imposition by the Mahomedans and Mongols
of an oriental despotism over the Hindus did not implant domestic
chattelhood, nor did the English tax-gatherers ever cause Hindu
humanity to be exposed for sale in the markets or bazaars.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: The Sanscrit has about one hundred and forty appellations
for the "horse" (mare and colt included); and comparative philology
demonstrates their primitive roots to be preserved in almost all
European languages.]
X.
CHINESE.
AUTHORITIES:
_The Biots, Kaeuffer, Gutzlaff, etc._
China belongs to the present and to the remotest past of the Asiatic
world. The historical existence of China and her civilization are at
least coeval with that of Egypt and of Assyria, perhaps older than that
of the Aryas.
Some geological investigators affirm that the table-land inclosed
between the northern slopes of the Himalayas, the Kuenlun, the
desert of Gobi--which is said to be older than the formation of the
Himalayas--the Heavenly or Blue mountains, and the Altaï, was the
first land which rose from the waters, and that therefore it was the
first, and perhaps the only place in the north, where man appeared.
This admitted, the probability is, that from that first human family
issued a race bearing to-day various appellations, as the Yellow, the
Altaïc, Turanian, Scythic, Finnic, Mongolian and Tartar--which is the
last general denomination adopted by science, at least for the branches
occupying central Asia, and reaching to the frontiers of Europe and
the descendants of the Aryas. The first immigrants to China from the
Kuenlun probably followed the current of the Yellow river; and it
seems that the aborigines retired before the invaders, or perhaps
the new yellow settlers mixed with the primitive occupants. In the
southern parts of China, in the mountains of the interior, are still
found tribes of dark-colored men resembling the negroes or the Pacific
islanders, and using notched characters similar to those used by the
Malays.
Agriculture seems to have been the sacred occupation of these
yellow-hued settlers along the banks of the Yellow river--as it was in
the valley of the Nile, of the Euphrates, and on the plains of Iran.
Everywhere the origin of agriculture is lost in the night of time, and
Quain or Cain--that is, the kernel, the young, the generating, etc.,
the husbandman of the Scriptures--is many thousand years older than
Abraham, the wandering and slave-holding patriarch. The oldest Chinese
records show agriculture to have been the special occupation of the
father of a family, of the chief of a clan, and then of the emperor of
the entire nation. With his own hands he directs the plough--therefore
the plough could not have been desecrated by the hands of a slave. And
it was not. In the family, in the domestic as well as in the national
life, slavery first dimly appears only about the thirteenth century B.C.
In the remotest time, labor was, as it is now, the basis, the cement
and the soul of the Chinese social and political life and growth--and
by labor I mean, intellectual and manual labor in its most varied
departments and developments. No classes, no castes, existed in the
old primitive times; and perhaps, during many thousand years, no
dynasties. The best and ablest person was selected as the chief and
ruler: all the offices or functions were obtained by intellectual
faculty and by superiority of knowledge, but not inherited; and the
same system prevailed throughout all the occupations and pursuits of
life. No labor whatever was degraded or degrading; it was carried on by
men free and equal, and in principle recognized as such.
In China, as everywhere else, slavery appeared as a disease in the
social body. It was generated by war and crime. Prisoners of war and
condemned criminals became, so to say, slaves of the state, which
used them for public labors or hired them out to private individuals.
The highest officers of state, persons over seventy years old, and
children, could not be condemned to slavery, excepting children exposed
or abandoned by their parents. Slaves hired by private individuals
were only used as helps or servants in households and families. But
most of the servants were always freemen--they are so now; and slaves
never were used in agriculture or in the different handicrafts. The
land being generally considered as the property of the state, or of
the emperor, the sovereign divided, distributed it, under certain
conditions and servitudes, for tribute in money or kind, etc. But
slaves are not mentioned among the various objects enumerated as
constituting the tribute. The increase of population generated
poverty, and paupers sold and still sell themselves or their children
into slavery. Repeated domestic or internecine wars, recorded at a
very distant historical epoch, were among the prominent agencies in
increasing poverty. Impoverished persons and those deprived of their
homes either sold themselves or became serfs attached to the soil,
but not chattels. As serfs their legal condition and denomination is
preserved in the books written about the twelfth century B.C., by
Ma-tuan-lin--they are named _usurped families_ or _usurpees_. Even
after the conquest by the Mantschou Tartars, chattelhood did not get
hold of the political structure, nor did it absorb the agricultural
and industrial domestic economy of the Chinese. With the exception of
the reigning family, no social position or function is privileged as
hereditary; and in the same way, accidental slavery was not transmitted
to the children of the enslaved. Their condition was and is controlled
and regulated by law, which watches over the property of the state.
Among the numerous domestic wars there are never recorded any revolts
of slaves--an evidence of their very limited number.
Over-population generated and generates the most terrible and varied
oppressions and miseries; but all of them lose their sting when
compared with chattelhood. Over-population and misery generated the
so-called coolie-system, which in principle is based on voluntary
indenture. The reckless cruelties and the numerous infamies
characterizing the manner in which the coolie trade is carried on, is
evidence of the utter moral degradation and depravity of the white
civilized Christian traders, and the inefficiency of their respective
governments.
The Chinese civilization is commonly looked down upon from the heights
of narrow-minded presumption and ignorance. About three thousand years
B.C., public schools existed in China, and a full scientific and
material culture prevailed there. Chinese records (among them the Books
of the Sehu Kings), going back, perhaps, as far as two thousand five
hundred years B.C.--contain the most correct and detailed statistical
accounts of tribute, and give most reliable geographical notions of
China, and of the subdued and neighboring countries--notions superior
in exactitude to all similar records transmitted from classical
antiquity. The Chinese lived in houses, in orderly communities, were
humanized, polished, familiar with the sciences, industries, and all
kinds of refinements, at a time, and during countless centuries, when
the races of northern Europe--prominently the Slavi, the Germans, the
Anglo-Saxons included--did not, in all probability, even understand how
to construct huts, and, as savages, roved about in the wilderness.
In a work written by Prince Tscheu-Kong, about one thousand one hundred
years B.C., are given the most minute details of the then existing
organization of the empire. The administrative mechanism of that
distant epoch finds no equal in the whole history of governments or of
nations. Several thousand years ago the empire was administered by
six supreme state departments, each with perfectly defined attributes,
each subdivided into special branches, with directors and all orders
of lower officials and functionaries. Chinese civilization passed its
periods of youth and maturity many thousand years ago; and its senility
has not yet reached total decrepitude. It crumbles not to pieces even
now in its comparatively disjointed and disorganized condition.
No one can consider China in any way a model social organism; but its
duration is marvellous and unequalled in the history of the race.
The absence of hereditary privilege and of chattelhood as social
or religious institutions, accounts, among other reasons, for this
unique phenomenon. With all its drawbacks and defects, this long-lived
civilization, with its schools, its general intelligence, its
thousands-of-years old routine, compares, in many respects, favorably
with that in the Southern States calling itself Christian, which,
having partly inherited the great European development, and receiving
influences from the free sections of the Union, has, nevertheless,
for the last thirty or forty years, turned on its own crooked tracks,
and, now prohibits, under severe penalty, schools for the children
of its field laborers, whom it keeps in bondage. It sighs also for a
further extension of oligarchic privileges, and for the enslavement
of all human labor: re-enslaves the free or expels them; legalizes
and sanctifies the sum of all social villanies: whose last word is
the Lynch law, and the reckless, lawless persecution of free speech
and even of free thought; while assassination becomes more and more
frequent.
In the most ancient Asiatic world, the primitive societies generally
had analogous beginnings, whatever may have been the regions and
climates cradling them, whatever the difference of time, epochs, or
race-characteristics. Analogous events and conditions evoked similar
developments in the primitive men. The manifestations of man's
intellectual and physical activity were everywhere spontaneous: a
transmission of the various rudiments of civilization cannot logically
be admitted.
Osiris, Cain, Yao, were urged by like necessities, when they
inaugurated agriculture in Egypt, in Euphratia, or along the valleys of
the Yellow river. On the Nile, on the Euphrates, on the Ganges, on the
Hoang-ho, man--red or black, white or yellow--observed nature, utilized
even the inundations, regulated and embanked the beds of rivers, cut
canals and trenches to irrigate the parched soil. Everywhere--and
certainly without imitating each other--but urged by surrounding
circumstances, man worked, toiled, constructed habitations with the
materials at hand--stone in Egypt; bricks, plaster, wood, etc., in
Babylonia and China; raised cities in rich and fertile plains, erected
edifices, and invented characters and signs to fix and to transmit to
others ideas, notions and facts. Whatever may have been the special
nature and form of these characters, whether hieroglyphics or
phonetics, etc., undoubtedly they were original and not transmitted
creations. These inventions arose at places separated by distances then
almost impassable, by the same necessities and thoughts, by observation
and imitation of nature, and by many other inner and outer promptings
and circumstances. The rudiments of mathematics, astronomy, and other
sciences, were created by this contact of man's mind with nature;
and it is difficult, if not impossible, to admit that Egyptians or
Chaldeans were the instructors of the Aryas or of the Chinese, or _vice
versa_.