132 BROOM ALL : 



an economic subslilule for extenninalion of the vanquished. 

 Sometimes it is solely economic in its origin, a simple stealing 

 of men. The slaves, their mating, breeding and mode of life, 

 are subject to the laws and customs applicable to property. 

 Family relations can hardly be said to exist under such 

 conditions. 



The American Negro is an example of a people whose 

 original languages have been eradicated by this vital influence. 

 Gathered from diverse parts of Western Africa, speaking 

 dialects mutually unintelligible, Negroes were brought to 

 America and scattered as articles of commerce through- 

 out communities speaking other tongues. Families were 

 destroyed by such a process. New families, such as they 

 were, were formed under artificial conditions and maintained 

 as long- only as the arrangement in any case might be profit- 

 able to the master. ITnder sUch conditions the Negroes of 

 America speak French, Spanish or English, according to cir- 

 cumstances. 



In these vital conflicts the family is affected by extermina- 

 tion, slaveiy or intermarriage. The condition necessaiy to 

 affect the child's learning to speak is thus fulfilled. Any 

 influence less than this can reach the speaker (jnly after his 

 vernacular has been acquired, and therefore, though the for- 

 eign influence may add to and end^ellish the vernacular, it 

 cannot affect the essential character of the language. Really 

 vital conflicts are comparatively rare in the world's history. 

 They often require centuries to complete them. They are 

 almost impossible among civilized nations. History, as we 

 usually understand the term, deals rather with wars and con- 

 flicts that are not vital, but only for commercial, political or 

 cultural objects. These dominative conflicts between peoples, 

 seemingly so violent and important at the time, are but small 

 affairs anthropologically unless they play a part as a step in 

 some vital conflict perhaps too large to be appreciated by the 

 participants. 



The dominative conflict u\;i\ be commercial. This is the 



