Note 418 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

In Java slavery has not prevailed for centuries. “In Mohammedan law a large place is taken up with regulations of slavery, of the rights of masters and slaves, and of the manner in which the latter can acquire their freedom. The peculiar state of the aboriginal Javanese society prevented the application of nearly all precepts relating to this matter. Before the introduction of Islam slavery proper seems to have been unknown; the universal subjection of the mass of the people, as Sudras, to the members of the higher castes, had made slavery superfluous. Nor has Islam introduced slavery into Java; for although in later times Javanese chiefs in a few cases kept slaves, this was done in imitation of the Europeans, and the legal status of these slaves depended on Roman-Dutch law, not on Mohammedan law.” The desas or villages, that did not accept Islam, were conquered; yet their inhabitants were not enslaved, but the whole villages en bloc were reduced to a subjected state: they had to pay extraordinary tributes and to perform services to the Sultans. This ancient state of things remained in force, even when gradually the whole population accepted Islam. Even the concubines of the chiefs are not captured or purchased slaves, but women taken from among the people418. This passage from Veth’s book does not, however, inform us as to whether there were slaves before the Hindu invasion and some time after. In the “Encyclopaedie voor Nederlandsch-Indië” it is stated419, that in old times Africans were imported as slaves into Java, as appears from an inscription of 800 A.D. The continued investigation of Javanese history will probably throw more light on the subject.