POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 435 



ficed and feasted upon" ; and if we contrast this usage with the 

 usage common elsewhere, of slaying and devouring captives as soon 

 as they are taken, we may infer that the keeping of captives too nu- 

 merous to be immediately eaten, with the view of eating them subse- 

 quently, leading, as it would, to the employment of them in the mean 

 time, led to the discovery that their services might be of more value 

 than their flesh, and so initiated the habit of preserving them as slaves. 

 Be this as it may, however, we find that very generally, among tribes 

 to which habitual militancy has given some slight degree of the appro- 

 priate structure, the enslavement of prisoners becomes an established 

 habit. That women and children taken in war, and such men as have 

 not been slain, naturally fall into unqualified servitude is manifest. 

 They belong absolutely to their captors, who might have killed them, 

 and who retain the right afterward to kill them, if they please. They 

 become property, of which any use whatever may be made. 



The acquirement of slaves, which is at first an incident of war, 

 becomes presently an object of war. Of the Nootkas we read that 

 " some of the smaller tribes at the north of the island are practically 

 regarded as slave -breeding tribes, and are attacked periodically by 

 stronger tribes " ; and the like happens among the Chinooks. It was 

 thus in ancient Vera Paz, where periodically they made " an inroad 

 into the enemy's territory, ... and captured as many as they want- 

 ed " ; and it was so in Honduras, where, in declaring war, they gave 

 their enemies notice that " they wanted slaves." Similarly with vari- 

 ous existing peoples. St. John says that "many of the Dyaks are 

 more desirous to obtain slaves than heads, and in attacking a village 

 kill only those who resist or attempt to escape." And that in Africa 

 slave-making wars are common needs no proof. 



The class-division, thus initiated by war, afterward maintains and 

 strengthens itself in sundry ways. Very soon there begins the custom 

 of purchase. The Chinooks, besides slaves who have been captured, 

 have slaves who were bought as children from their neighbors ; and, 

 as we saw when dealing with the domestic relations, the selling of 

 their children into slavery is by no means uncommon with savages. 

 Then the slave-class, thus early enlarged by purchase, comes afterward 

 to be otherwise enlarged. There is voluntary acceptance of slavery 

 for the sake of protection ; there is enslavement for debt ; there is 

 enslavement for crime. 



Leaving details, we need here note only that this political differen- 

 tiation which war begins is effected, not by the bodily incorporation 

 of other societies, or whole classes belonging to other societies, but 

 by the incorporation of single members of other societies, and by like 

 individual accretions. Composed of units who are detached from their 

 original social relations and from one another, and absolutely attached 

 to their owners, the slave-class is, at first, but indistinctly separated as 

 a social stratum. It acquires separateness only as fast as there arise 



