Note 185 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

The principal native tribe of Paraguay were the Abipones, described at large by Dobrizhoffer. The prisoners they made were very leniently treated. They gave them the best of their food, and tended them when ill. The prisoners had daily opportunity to run away, but they did not desire it, for they were very contented. They were never beaten, nor even reproved. They hunted and fought together with the Abipones. And yet they were not merged into the nation of the Abipones; for the Abipone women generally would marry only a man of their own people; and the men never married female prisoners, nor had they any connection with them. It appears that every captive was assigned to an individual master. So we have here to deal with the fact, that one man is the property of another beyond the limits of the family proper, i.e. slavery, though slavery of an extraordinarily mild character185.