SLAVERY 109 
responsibilities and no voice in the election of the chief or in the administration 
of the town. 
Among some of the tribes it might be impracticable to discriminate between 
the status of wives and of female slaves acquired by purchase. Many of the 
slaves are naturally females and their position in the villages apparently does not 
differ greatly from that of a wife. The man in most of the tribes actually pur- 
chases his wife for a sum agreed upon in currency or in goods which he pays to 
her responsible relatives. In a way she then becomes the man’s property. He 
usually gives her a piece of land to cultivate which he has cleared in the forest 
and a house which they may erect together on this land. All the produce of the 
farm belongs to the man and must be turned over to him. The wife, however, 
must do all the farm work such as the planting, cultivation, and gathering of the 
crops. 
The most important problem of the hinterland, however, is not connected 
with these instances of more or less domestic slavery among the tribes, which 
could probably be easily dealt with through arbitration with the chiefs of the 
different tribes and all the actual slaves set free at a comparatively small cost. 
The really great problem lies in the various forms of oppression practiced on the 
interior people, particularly in respect to road and farm work, taxation, and to 
the actual abuses which are practiced upon them and which still seriously inter- 
fere with and retard their development. 
In order better to control the conditions in the interior of the country, the 
Liberian Government in 1905 passed a law for the government of districts in- 
habited by aborigines. This Act provided that every district inhabited exclu- 
sively by an aboriginal tribe should be regarded as a township, the people of 
which should have the right to choose a chief, subject to the approval of the Presi- 
dent of Liberia, and be given land upon an agreed basis. The native districts 
were to be supervised by district commissioners appointed by the President and 
endowed with judicial as well as administrative powers. Every chief and his 
council constituted a court for the preservation of order and the settlement of 
disputes, but appeal could be made from the verdicts to the Liberian district 
commissioner. The unfortunate relationship which exists between the Liberian 
Government and the indigenous tribes in the interior will now be discussed. 
