SOCIETY 139 
poor were slaves, either by capture or through debt 
servitude. Even among the wildest pagans, economic 
obligations are transmitted undiminished from father 
to son. When the Tagalog converted such obligation 
into peonage, serfdom, and finally outright slavery, 
there was therefore no wrench to custom when slavery 
became heritable. 
Throughout the lowlands two classes of slaves were 
recognized: those who were absolute property and 
served in their master’s house; and those who main- 
tained establishments and families of their own but 
were liable to constant service. Among the Tagalog, 
the former were known as sagigilid ‘“‘those at the 
margin,’ that is, at the fringe of society. The better 
situated slaves or namamahay, ‘‘those who live in 
their own house,’ possessed the right of compelling 
their master to free them on tendering to him their 
proper value, whereas the full slave might be manu- 
mitted by his owner, but could not exact his own re- 
lease. The value of a slave was put at ten taels of gold, 
or about eighty Spanish pesos, of a namamahay about 
half—very considerable amounts in view of the high 
value of money at the time and in so remote a region. 
For the Tagalog it is expressly stated that slaves con- 
stituted “their greatest wealth and capital.’’ That the 
institution of slavery was very deeply rooted among 
this people and the Bisaya, is shown by the fact that a 
slave might be divided between heirs. If the father was 
survived by two sons and but one slave, the latter served 
his‘ two new masters alternately for equal periods. 
Somewhat similar was the arrangement which made the 
child of a slave and a free man a half slave who served 
his master for alternate moons. It is even stated that 
a child of such a half slave and a free person was 
reckoned a quarter slave. 
