Note 92 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

a. The slave-trade facilitates the keeping of slaves. Prisoners of war usually belong to a neighbouring tribe; they have much more opportunity to escape to their native country than purchased slaves, who have been transported from a great distance. The latter, if escaping from their masters, would instantly be recaptured by some other slave-keeping tribe of the Pacific Coast. So among the Nootkas “a runaway slave is generally seized and resold by the first tribe he meets”92. We can therefore easily understand why the Koniagas did not keep full-grown captive men as slaves, but acquired their male slaves by means of exchange93. Similarly, a chief of the Cowitchins (near Vancouver Island), according to Kane, “took many captives, whom he usually sold to the tribes further north, thus diminishing their chance of escaping back through a hostile country to their own people”94.