Note [744 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
[744] Wheeler, op. cit., p. 15. Had there been any objection raised by the mother country to the enslavement of Indians on the ground of illegality, the colonists could have fallen back on the recognized right of enslaving captives in war. By a legal fiction the Indians could at any time have been considered in a state of war, their lands confiscated and their persons seized and held for disposal at the pleasure of the whites. Such was the legal argument used by England in justification of enslaving the African negroes.