Note 107 — Chapter III · PASTORAL TRIBES.

There is another circumstance, which may partially account for the existence of slavery among some of these tribes: the slaves are often Negroes. And Negroes have always and everywhere been enslaved; they seem to be more fit for slaves than most races of mankind. Galton, speaking of the Damaras, says: “These savages court slavery. You engage one of them as a servant, and you find that he considers himself your property, and that you are, in fact, become the owner of a slave. They have no independence about them, generally speaking, but follow a master as spaniels would. Their hero-worship is directed to people who have wit and strength enough to ill-use them. Revenge is a very transient passion in their character, it gives way to admiration of the oppressor. The Damaras seem to me to love nothing; the only strong feelings they possess, which are not utterly gross and sensual, are those of admiration and fear. They seem to be made for slavery, and naturally fall into its ways”107. And Hutter, describing the Bali tribes of Cameroon, remarks that the Negro wants to be ruled and patiently endures any amount of oppression108. Similar descriptions may undoubtedly be given of many other Negro tribes. Moreover several slave-keeping nomadic tribes are Semites and Hamites, and therefore look upon the Negroes as an inferior race. Now, where slaves are procured mainly for military purposes (and we have seen that this is often the case with pastoral tribes), an absorption of foreigners into the tribe would answer the purpose as well as, and perhaps better than, slavery. But where the foreigners belong to inferior races, the members of the tribe are not likely to intermarry with them and look upon them as their equals; they remain slaves, though they are not of great use as such. We must also take into consideration that inferior races are not so much to be dreaded as superior peoples; the latter, if individuals belonging to them were kept as slaves, might retaliate upon the slave-owners. This may have been the reason why the Kazak Kirghiz who, in Levchine’s time, kidnapped many Russians, always sold them abroad: it would not have been safe to keep them as slaves. Accordingly, Pallas states that in his time they used to kidnap men on the Russian frontiers towards the time when they were going to remove with their herds, so that they could not be pursued109.