Note 58 — Chapter I · DEFINITION AND DISTINCTION FROM KINDRED PHENOMENA.
Reading edition
The question arises, and has to be settled here, whether we for our purpose have to call these pawns slaves. We shall quote here one description of pawning. Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa “a pawn is a person placed in temporary bondage to another by the head of the family … either to pay a debt, or to obtain a loan.… When a person is pawned on account of a debt, the services of the pawn, even should they extend over a considerable number of years, count for nothing towards the liquidation of the debt; and a pawn has to serve his master, until the amount of the original debt with 50 per cent. interest, is paid by the person who pawned him”58.