Note 102 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Although these bastards present a close resemblance to slaves, Powers explicitly says that they are not slaves. Probably they are only a despised class; for social status, among these tribes, depends largely upon wealth. The chief “obtains his position from his wealth, and usually manages to transmit his effects, and with them his honours, to his posterity”102. “The ruling passion of the savage seems to be love of wealth; having it he is respected, without it he is despised”103. We may therefore suppose, that these bastards are despised because penniless, and as soon as they possess 15 or 20 dollars, respected for their wealth. And as we “find no description of an actual system of slavery existing among them,” slavery probably does not exist104.