Note 303 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Though the isle of Nauru is often regarded as belonging to the Marshall group, its situation is rather isolated and the social organisation of the population is different from that on the other islands of the group, so we think we must treat it separately. Krämer remarks that there are three classes: chiefs, middle class and slaves. The chiefs have unlimited power over the slaves, who are not allowed to marry without their consent. A murderer in most cases has to yield his land to the parents of his victim, but when there are attenuating circumstances, he is allowed to give slaves as a compensation303. Jung gives more details. He speaks of serfs or slaves, but what he tells about them is not very suggestive of slavery. The serfs, unlike the other classes, own no land. A native who is supposed to have killed another by means of sorcery becomes the serf of the parents of his victim and his property is taken away. Many families stand in the relation of serfs to the chiefs and other people of rank. The power of the lords over these slaves is said formerly to have been very great. The origin of serfdom was this. In their wars, families belonging to the conquered party were driven from their lands and had to seek their subsistence elsewhere. They then applied to a powerful chief, put themselves under his protection and became entirely dependent on him. In later times these serfs were placed by the chief as agents on their own former property on condition of delivering the produce to him. It then sometimes happened that these agents or their children behaved as owners of the lands they lived upon and so came into conflict with the chief304. From this account it appears that the so-called serfs nowadays are not in a slave-like condition. Whether in former times they were really slaves is not clear; we should rather think their state was one of voluntary submission to a landowner; but we cannot arrive at a definite conclusion.