Note 267 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

With reference to Samoa Gerland speaks of two political parties who were always at war, “but they do not destroy their adversaries”, he says, “nor enslave them, as frequently members of the same family belong to different parties”267. According to Meinicke the prisoners were at different times differently disposed of; but among these modes of treatment slavery is not mentioned268. Wilkes states that their wars “were attended with great cruelty, and neither old or young of either sex were spared”269. Turner, a good authority, remarks: “Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if women, distributed among the conquerors”270. We are not told whether these women were married, or kept in a slave-like state; but even in the last case this would be slavery of women only, and therefore not slavery in the proper sense. Krämer is the only author who speaks of slaves. The conquered party had to ask the pardon of the conquerors and to bring firewood as if to show that they considered themselves worth to be eaten like pigs. Often also they had to perform degrading work as slaves (pologa), to pay a tribute or even to furnish human flesh for cannibal purposes271. It would seem that this degrading work was imposed upon the conquered as a temporary punishment and that we have not to deal here with a permanent system of forced labour as among slave-keeping tribes. This being the only reference to slavery in Krämer’s very detailed description of the Samoans, and slavery not being mentioned by any of our other informants272, we may safely infer that it did not exist.