Note 39 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Mackenzie, describing the Chepewyans or Athabascas, states that “they are constantly at war with the Eskimos, and kill as many of them as they can, as it is a principle with them never to make prisoners”39. Neither in his notes on the Chepewyans in general, nor in those on some single tribes belonging to the Chepewyan family, as the Slave and Dog-Rib Indians, Hare Indians, Beaver and Rocky-Mountain Indians, does our informant make any mention of slavery. Nor is there a word to be found about slaves in Russell’s and Bancroft’s accounts. Hearne speaks of Northern and Southern Indians, divisions of the Chepewyans. Among the Southern Indians a wife sometimes begs of her husband, who is going to war, to bring a female slave with him for her to kill. The chief Matonabbee was the son of a Northern Indian man and a Southern Indian slave40. Hearne does not speak of male slaves. So we may suppose that slavery proper does not exist.