Note 296 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

According to Meinicke none of the describers of the Marshall Islands make mention of slaves. Gerland, too, does not speak of slaves296. According to Hernsheim the lowest class is composed of the poor, the armidwon or kajur. They are forbidden to take more than one wife. The next class is that of the leadagedag, who own property, have in most instances three wives, and are provided with food by the kajur297. Kubary says: “The common people are called armidj kajur and form the greater part of the subjects. They have no property, except the land allotted to them by the chief, who can take it from them at his pleasure. Every week they have, each of them, to provide the chief with prepared food, the quantity and quality of which are determined”. These people, according to Kubary, form the lowest class298. Hager quite agrees with Kubary, to whom he frequently refers299. Senfft states that sale or pawning of men is unknown. Captives, domestic slaves, debt-slaves etc. are not found. The lowest class are the armidj kajur or common people, who own no property. Hence we might infer that slavery does not exist. But in another place the same writer remarks that only the upper classes (kings, relations of kings and chiefs of districts) are free, the rest of the population being unfree and presenting all the characteristics of slaves. The armidj has no rights, everything he acquires is the property of his chief. The chief has over him the right of life and death. Yet we do not think the writer means to say that these people of very low standing are really slaves, i.e. the individual property of the chiefs. They are not bought and sold, as is generally the case with slaves. The armidj do not become such through captivity in war or indebtedness, the common manners in which people are made slaves. So some of the ordinary features of slavery are wanting. This already renders the existence of slavery doubtful. But we think the following passage in Senfft’s description clearly shows that the armidj are not slaves: “The armidj cannot leave the tribe without the consent of his chief, but as most often he belongs by birth to several chiefs, he can go over from the tribe of one of his chiefs to that of another, i.e., he can place himself under the immediate control of the other chief by rendering him services, especially by tilling his land. He commonly does so, when he is badly treated.” From this it appears that the armidj is not the individual property of his chief; else he would not be able to change his condition so easily. We think his relation to the chief is rather that of a subject to a petty despot300. This conclusion is strengthened by what we learn from other recent descriptions. Krämer makes no mention of slaves. The lowest class, according to him, are the kajur or common people301. In a report regarding the isle of Jaluit it is equally stated that the lowest class are the armidj kajur or common people, who own no land. They have to work for the landowners and to provide them with food. This is more suggestive of tenancy than of slavery. It is true that the writer calls them unfree; but then he says, that their becoming free was synonymous with their rising to the rank of a chief, so it seems that by “unfree” he means people whose condition is below that of the chiefs and nobles302. Taking all this into consideration, we think we may safely infer that there are no slaves in the Marshall group.