Note 334 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Yet, as we have already said, those parts of the world where we have found most of our positive cases are exactly those where the slave-trade has been carried on by civilized and semi-civilized peoples. Going on to account for this fact, we may remark first that it need not have been the slave-trade only that furthered the growth of slavery. The general intercourse with superior races may go far to account for the rise of slavery, irrespectively of the slave-trade. We have seen that commercial tribes are more likely to keep slaves than others; and a savage tribe can engage in commerce with superior peoples, who buy large quantities of native produce and introduce foreign manufactures, to a far greater extent than with neighbouring savages who have not much to exchange, as their own and their neighbours’ mode of life and industrial development are nearly the same. A remarkable instance of the influence of commercial intercourse with Europeans on the slave system of a savage race is afforded by Polack’s description of the Maori. Formerly, he says, “for a chief to enter his new abode [in the world of spirits], without being ushered by a number of slaves and wives [who were sacrificed], was accounted the greatest indecorum that could possibly exist, but from the scarcity of slaves during late years [Polack wrote in 1840], or rather from the profits accruing from their employment in rearing pigs, and planting provisions, cutting timber, and cleaning flax for their numerous European visitors (their services being at a premium), these butcheries … have ceased”334. Something similar to this may often have taken place.