RoTH] WAR AND WARFARE 599 
presses himself: “We heard to our great astonishment that they 
[Carib from the River Wayombo, exhibiting a pass from the authori- 
ties at Nickerie, a Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Corentyn| 
purposed ascending the river, in order to cross over by land to the 
Essequibo, and thence to proceed to the Makusi country, with the in- 
tention of trading for slaves. They openly asserted that this was 
their object, and showed us guns and other articles of trade for that 
purpose, but they likewise assured us that the Carib of the Coren- 
tyn were to accompany them” (ScC, 298). On the other hand, as 
Stedman says, these kinds of slaves for the Dutch are only for show 
and parade, as they absolutely refuse to work, and if at all ill-treated, 
or especially if beaten, they pine and languish like caged turtles, even 
refusing food, till by affliction and want they are exhausted and 
finally expire (St, 1,400). In N. Darnell Davis’s Records of Brit- 
ish Guiana are to be found notices of some of the official enactments 
relative to the Dutch slave trade (Ti, Dec., 1888, p. 348). The Arawak 
were much esteemed, and their alliance highly valued by the Dutch, 
who by law exempted them from that slavery to which individuals of 
the other tribes were then liable on their being sold by each other (Br, 
96). Schomburgk speaks of the slaves he met with the Carib being 
known as poiti (SR, 1, 480). Other nations besides the Carib took 
part in the very profitable trade of capturing and exporting slaves. 
The Quajiva and Chiricoa fight with the object of making slaves, 
whom they sell to other nations for choppers and axes (G, 1, 255). 
The Akawai also frequently made incursions on their interior neigh- 
bors, etc. (BA, 268), usually the Makusi, and sold them either to the 
Dutch or to the Portuguese (HiC, 240). Stedman ntentions the case 
of an Arawak bringing in a captive Akawai boy whom he had taken 
in battle (St, m1, 92). 
St. Clair speaks of the “ pusillanimous” Arawak stealing their 
[Akawai] children, and making prisoners of their young men and 
women, whom they barter away for rum and other commodities to 
the white inhabitants lower down the | Essequibo] river (StC, 1, 51). 
Instead of exporting slaves certain of the nations kept them for 
their own use, obtaining them either as prisoners of war, as the result 
of special slave raids, or by purchase. Thus among the Makusi a 
man may sell his children, in spite of the bitterest tears of the mother, 
to a married couple who have none. The price is the same as that 
demanded for a dog, i. e., a gun, ax, or something similar, but the 
buyer has in addition to give some little things, e. g., beads, to the 
relatives, who report themselves in considerable number to the new 
father (SR, nu, 315). 
775. It is noteworthy that on the mainland the servitude of Indian 
slaves to other Indians—a condition of affairs which exists up to the 
