Note 292 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Wilkes, speaking of the Paumotu group, observes that Anaa or Chain Island “is said to contain five thousand inhabitants, which large number is accounted for by the conquest of the other islands, and taking their inhabitants off as captives”. The influence of the missionaries caused a change in “the treatment of their captives, whom they allowed to return, if they chose, to their own island; but very many of them had married at Anaa, and became permanent residents there, and few have taken advantage of the permission to return”292. Whether the captives mentioned here were kept as slaves is not clear. Moerenhout tells us that the natives of the Paumotu group often preserved their prisoners to eat them later on at feasts293. We cannot arrive at a definite conclusion here.