Vil 
SLAVERY 
SLAVERY in the usual historic sense of the term does not really exist to any ap- 
preciable extent in Liberia. The people referred to as slaves are rarely confined 
or seriously mistreated. I have already referred to the practice among Americo- 
Liberians of taking aboriginal children into their houses for housework, and of 
occasionally giving the chief of the tribe, or the person furnishing such children, 
a ‘‘dash”’ or present in compensation. The problem that this custom presents, 
is, however, except in the case of young girls or women, not a serious one. The 
pawning of women has already been discussed. Slavery is of course forbidden 
by the constitution of Liberia. Attention has also been called to the fact that 
in earlier years a number of the interior tribes were concerned in the slave trade. 
A number of persons also became slaves when captured as prisoners of war, and 
not redeemed by their tribe. 
Westermann,! in discussing the social organization of the Kpwesi tribes 
states that the people are classified in three groups, — free persons, serfs, and 
slaves. A free person cannot be sold by the chief or by private persons unless 
he has committed a crime, and even then he may be redeemed by purchase. 
Every person born of free parents is classified as a free man. The woman who 
has been a serf or a slave becomes free when she marries a free man. If a free 
man is captured in war, he becomes a slave, but he returns to the community as 
a free man immediately the sum required to redeem him has been paid. Children 
of women who have become slaves through capture in war, are always considered 
free, whereas the children of purchased slave women are usually counted as 
slaves. Every slave, however, can obtain freedom by redemption. To the class 
of serfs belong, first the children of slaves who are born in the house of their 
master; second, their descendants in all following generations; third, people 
who upon their own initiative have become serfs or who, while children, have 
been presented to a chief or other wealthy person. Their descendants likewise 
remain in the position of serfs. Like a free man a serf cannot be sold, but unlike 
a slave, he has not the privilege of redeeming himself. However, it is the pre- 
vailing custom often to bestow freedom upon serfs. Generally, the slaves are 
persons captured in war who have not been redeemed within a specified time. 
A few have been enslaved on account of crime, and some have been brought 
from abroad more particularly by the Mandingoes. Their lot is not apparently 
a hard one, and it is said that they are permitted to acquire private property. 
Many of them apparently live under similar conditions and eat the same food as 
the majority of the inhabitants of a district. They seem, however, to have no 
1 Westermann: Loc. cit. (Die Kpelle). 
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