BDLL. 30] 



SLAVERY 



599 



such accounts are usually devoid of de- 

 tails, and the context often proves them 

 to be based on erroneous conceptions. 

 Had slavery existed among the Eastern 

 and Southern tribes, we should find in 

 the mass of documentary history as full 

 accounts of the practice as there is con- 

 cerning the less -known tribes of the 

 N. W. coast. The unsatisfactory char- 

 acter of the references should make us 

 cautious in accepting statements regard- 

 ing the existence of slavery. The early 

 French and Spanish histories, it is true, 

 abound in allusions to Indian slaves, even 

 specifying the tribes from which they 

 w'ere taken, but the terms "slave" and 

 "prisoner" were used interchangeably in 

 almost every such instance. Hennepin, in 

 his account of his own captivity among 

 the Sioux, uses these terms as equivalent, 

 and speaks of himself as a slave, though 

 his story clearly shows that he had been 

 adopted by an old chief in the place of a 

 lost son. With the exception of the area 

 above mentioned, traces of true slavery 

 are wanting throughout the region n. of 

 Mexico. In its place is found another 

 institution that has often been mistaken 

 for it. Among the North American In- 

 diana a state of periodic intertribal 

 warfare seems to have existed. Dis- 

 putes as to the possession of land, re- 

 taliation for acts of violence, and blood 

 revenge were the alleged causes; but un- 

 derlying all was the tierce martial spirit 

 of the Indian which ever spurred him 

 from inglorious peace to stirring deeds of 

 war. In consequence of such warfare 

 tribes dwindled through the loss of men, 

 women, and children killed or taken cap- 

 tive. Natural increase was not sufficient to 

 make good such losses; for while Indian 

 women were prolific, the loss of children 

 by disease, especially in early infancy, 

 was very great. Hence arose the institu- 

 tion of adoption. Men, women, and chil- 

 dren, especially the latter two classes, 

 were everywhere considered spoils of war. 

 When a sufficient number of prisoners 

 had been tortured and killed to glut the 

 savage passions of the conquerors, the 

 rest of the captives were adopted, after 

 certain preliminaries, into the several 

 gentes, each newly adopted member tak- 

 ing the place of a lost husband, wife, son, 

 or daughter, and being invested with the 

 latter's rights, privileges, and duties. It 

 sometimes happened that small parties 

 w'entout for the avowed purpose of taking 

 captives to be adopted in the place of de- 

 ceased members of families. John Tan- 

 ner, a white boy thus captured and adopted 

 by the Chippewa, wrote a narrative of his 

 Indian life that is a mine of valuable and 

 interesting information. Adoption occa- 

 sionally took place on a large scale, as, for 



instance, when the Tuscarora and the 

 Tutelo, on motion of their sponsors in the 

 federal council, were formally adopted as 

 offspring by the Oneida, the Delawares 

 as cooks (an honorable position) by the 

 Mohawk, and the Nanticoke, as offspring 

 by the Seneca. In this way these alien 

 trioes acquired citizenship in the Iroquois 

 League; they were said to be "braces" 

 to the " Extended Cabin," the name by 

 which the Iroquois designated their com- 

 monwealth. (See Adoption, Captives). 



Nor is it impossible that slaveholding 

 tribes might have substituted adoption. 

 Indications of the manner in which such 

 change might have been effected may 

 be found among the Tlingit and other 

 N. W. Coast tribes, who not only freed 

 their slaves on occasions, but made them 

 members of the tribe. They also some- 

 times married slaves, which was tanta- 

 mount to adoption. Wherever slavery 

 did not exist, adoption seems to have been 

 universally practised. Except that pris- 

 oners of war were necessary to recruit both 

 institutions, the two are very unlike. The 

 slave of the N. W. coast held absolutely 

 no status within the tribe, whether he 

 came into possession of the individual as 

 the result of war or was bought as a slave 

 from a neighboring tribe. Whatever 

 privileges were his were granted as a 

 favor, not as a right. On the other hand, 

 the adopted person was in every respect 

 the peer of his fellow-tribesmen. If he 

 proved equal to the position assigned him 

 in the tribe, and improved his oppor- 

 tunities, his advancement was sure, and 

 he might aspire to any office attainable 

 by the individual into whose place he had 

 been adopted. If the new member of the 

 tribe proved a poor hunter, a poor pro- 

 vider, or, above all, if he lacked courage, 

 his position was not enviable: he was 

 despised, and treated according to his 

 demerits, probably worse than if he had 

 been born a member of the tribe. Still 

 there was nothing in his position or treat- 

 ment to justify the statement that he was 

 a slave, and his ignominy and shame 

 were probably not greater than were usu- 

 ally incurred by the poor and worthless. 

 It was the usual custom to depose the 

 coward from man's estate, and, in native 

 metaphor, to "make a woman" of him. 

 Such persons associated ever after with 

 the women and aided them in their tasks. 

 Such was the custom among the Pawnee, 

 as recorded by Grinnell (Pawnee Hero 

 Stories, 26, 1893), who also gives a still 

 more curious custom, by which young 

 men who had not attained any special 

 standing in the tribe lived as servants in 

 the families of men of position and influ- 

 ence, and performed many offices almost 

 menial. Dunbar speaks of these servants 



