Note 318 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

In the Kingsmill or Gilbert Islands, according to Wilkes, there are three classes: chief (nea), landholders (katoka), and slaves (kawa). “The katokas are persons who possess land, but are not of noble birth; many of these were originally slaves, who have obtained land by acts of bravery, or through the favour of their chiefs. The kawas are those who possess no land, and no one from whom they can claim support”. “They have no term to designate a poor man, except that of slave. Anyone who owns land can always call upon others to provide him with a house, canoe, and the necessaries of life; but one who has none is considered as a slave, and can hold no property whatever”318. It is evident that these kawas, as described by Wilkes, are not slaves, but a subjected and despised class of people destitute of land. Meinicke enumerates the following classes: chiefs (in Tarawa: nea or oamata, in Makin: jomata), free landholders (in Tarawa: katoka, in Makin: tiomata), and the common people (in Tarawa: kawa, in Makin: rang); and he adds: “There are also slaves, who originally were captives, and whose children have remained such”319. So the kawa, called slaves by Wilkes, are called freemen by Meinicke, according to whom there is a class of slaves still below them. Behm asserts that on Makin there are slaves besides the three other classes320. The best description is given by Parkinson. According to him there are kings (these only on some islands); further great landholders; then the class of small landholders. Then there are two subjected classes. One is the class of the te torre, who live as vassals on the lands of the great landholders; they get a small piece of land for their own use; they must provide their lord with men when in war, and bring him the number of cocoanuts he desires, and what he needs for his household. The lowest class are the te bei or kaungo. They have no property, no land to live upon; they live with the great landholders by whom they are maintained; they on their part must work for their lord, i.e. fish, prepare food, etc. The lord, by giving them a piece of land, can raise them to the class of the te torre. These two classes have no voice in government matters; they follow their lord without grumbling; his will is their will; an offence against the lord is regarded by them as a personal offence, and avenged as such. Generally no one marries outside his class. In ordinary life there is no difference between master and vassal; they often sleep on the same mat; they drink, dance and play together; they wear the same kind of dress. When a poor man dies, a wealthy inhabitant of the village generally provides for his family; but they must labour for him and are, so to speak, his slaves321. We have to examine now, whether these two lowest classes are slave-classes. We may remark, first, that, whereas most ethnographers make a large use of the word “slave”, Parkinson does not use it, except in the last sentence, and there with the qualification “so to speak”. Moreover, some particulars are not mentioned, which we should expect to find in such an elaborate description, if slavery really existed; e.g. it is not stated that the subjected persons are bought and sold; nor that care is taken that they do not run away; nor that the master is not at all, or only to a limited extent, responsible for his behaviour towards the person who serves him. As little does it appear, that these vassals become such in the same manner in which men generally become slaves. It is only stated that the family of a deceased poor man fall into a state of dependence upon a rich inhabitant of the village; but it is not clear, whether they voluntarily or involuntarily join the rich man’s family. The principal objects of property, says Parkinson, are houses, lands, and canoes322. Were there slaves, they would have been mentioned here too. Krämer states that there are chiefs, a nobility (aomata), a middle class (te vau), and slaves (te kanua). A noble may not marry a girl of the middle class or a slave girl, nor is he allowed to have any connection with a female slave who is his own subject323. Krämer’s use of the word slave, without any particulars suggestive of slavery, cannot impair the inference, to which Wilkes’s notes and Parkinson’s detailed account lead us, that there are no slaves on the Gilbert Islands.