RANKS IN SOCIETY. 
95 
tinct ranks: the hui arii, the royal family and 
nobility—the hue raatira , the landed proprietors, 
or gentry and farmers—and the manahune , or 
common people. These three ranks were sub¬ 
divided into a number of distinct classes; the 
lowest class included the titi and the teuteu , the 
slaves and servants; the former were those who 
had lost their liberty in battle, or who, in conse¬ 
quence of the defeat of the chieftains to whom 
they were attached, had become the property of 
the conquerors. This kind of slavery appears to 
have existed among them from time immemorial. 
Individuals captured in actual combat, or who fled 
to the chief for protection when disarmed or dis¬ 
abled in the field, were considered the slaves of the 
captor or chief by whom they were protected. The 
women, children, and others, who remained in the 
districts of the vanquished, were also regarded as 
belonging to them ; and the lands they occupied, 
together with their fields and plantations, were 
distributed among the victors. 
We do not know that they ever carried on a 
traffic in slaves, or sold those whom they had con¬ 
quered, though a chief might give a captive for a 
servant to a friend. This is the only kind of 
slavery that has ever obtained among them, and it 
corresponds with that which has prevailed in most 
of the nations of the earth in their rude state, or 
during the earlier periods of their history. This 
state of slavery among them was in general mild, 
compared with the affecting cruelty by which it 
has been distinguished in modern times, among 
those who support the inhuman system of traffick¬ 
ing in these unhappy beings. If peace continued, 
the captive frequently regained his liberty after a 
limited servitude, and was permitted to return to 
