Note 143 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Rochefort speaks of slavery existing among the Caribs of the Antilles. They believed, that the bravest warriors of their nation after death would live in happy islands, and have their enemies, the Arawaks, for slaves, whereas the cowards would be the slaves of the Arawaks. In their wars with the Spaniards they did not kill the Negro slaves, but took them with them and made them work. Sometimes slaves were killed after their master’s death, to serve him in the other world. Male prisoners were killed and eaten after a few days. Captive women became slaves; their children were reared with those of the Caribs. Female prisoners were sometimes taken for wives; then the children were free, but the mothers remained slaves. In the isle of Saint Vincent there were in Rochefort’s time English boys and girls, captured when very young; they had quite forgotten their parents, and would not even return with them, so accustomed were they to the mode of life of the Caribs, who treated them very kindly, just as if they were of their own nation. De la Borde makes no mention of slaves143. It seems to us very doubtful whether slavery really existed here. Rochefort’s statement that captive children were reared with those of the conquerors is more suggestive of adoption of captives than of slavery, and the enslavement of Negroes by the Indians is something foreign to the aboriginal state of things, as has been said before. So we cannot arrive at a definite conclusion.