Note 469 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

The Kazak Kirghiz, according to Pallas, “much preferred the securing of a slave to the killing of a man. They did not treat their slaves cruelly, as long as the latter behaved well”. But the information we get from other sources shows that they were not a slave-keeping people. Boutakoff says nothing about slavery. According to Ujfalvy the poor serve the rich; he calls this a real serfdom. But he adds that, if the poor do not wish to serve, they must borrow from the rich at 100 per cent. interest. So these poor are compelled to serve by hunger, not by any social rule. Chambers says: “They … have well earned for themselves the title of the “Slavehunters of the Steppes” by seizing upon caravans, appropriating the goods, and selling their captives at the great slave-markets at Khiva, Bokhara, etc. Their wealth consists of cattle, sheep, horses, and camels”469. This is clear: the captives are sold abroad, and do not serve as slaves among the Kirghiz themselves; therefore they are not enumerated as forming part of their wealth. The best describer of the Kazak Kirghiz that we know of, Levchine, agrees with Chambers. “Slavery is unknown among them.” “The Turks, the Persians, and nearly all other sectaries of Mohammed keep slaves.… The Kirghiz, on the contrary, have no slaves”470. In several passages of his book, however, he makes mention of slaves471. But this will be understood, if we pay attention to two other statements of his. “They do not kill their prisoners, but sell them to the Bokharians, Khivians, and other neighbouring nations.” They buy many commodities from their neighbours, and “in exchange … provide them with slaves captured on the Russian frontiers”472. So the Kirghiz in Levchine’s time made slaves; they did not, however, themselves employ them; they were only slave-traders and not a slave-keeping people. Radloff, who many years after Levchine visited the Kazak Kirghiz, supposes that they formerly kept slaves. He says: “The former serfs and slaves of the sultan, who have been for many decades emancipated, always try still to nomadize in the vicinity of the sultans, and, though at present entirely on a level with the other Kirghiz, are still called telenguts” “The denominations kul (male slave) and küng (female slave) now mean male and female servant”473. But we may compare this with a statement of Levchine’s: “We do not arrange in a separate class the telenguts or servants of the khans, nor the kuls or slaves. The former are taken from among the Kirghiz and enjoy the same rights; the latter are looked upon as personal property or commodities and are not Kirghiz. They are Russian, Persian, Kalmuck, etc. prisoners”474. We see that Radloff’s “serfs or slaves”, the telenguts, were not slaves, and the kuls were captured slaves intended to be sold. Our inference is that the Kazak Kirghiz in their former independent state did not keep slaves.