Part 6
The Persian conquerors of the Asiatic world found domestic slavery more or less developed wherever they penetrated. Positive information, however, is extremely scanty regarding the special social and political organization of the Persians after Kyros and under Dareios. The rule of the Achæmenides extended over about eighty millions of men, belonging to various races. The conquerors, in all cases, respected the civil and social organization and administration peculiar to the subjugated tribes or nations. In numerous instances, the sovereigns of conquered states became Persian satraps over lands they once ruled in their own right. As satraps they were possessed of oppressive authority, had the power of life and death, of forcing exactions and levying taxes. But, as the Persian kings were, to the last, strict observers of Zarathustra's precepts, agriculture always continued to be the most favored pursuit. The satraps were rewarded with strict reference to the degree in which agriculture flourished and the population grew and prospered in their respective satrapies.
During the long rule of the descendants of Dareios, comparative peace prevailed in the interior of the great empire, which swept from the Nile almost to the Indus. So that domestic slavery did not find its usual supplies from prisoners of war, or by the destruction of small properties and consequent domestic impoverishment--those terrible sequels of wars from which Fore-Asia had suffered almost uninterruptedly for many previous centuries.
For these and other reasons, domestic slavery under the Persian rule, although sheltered by political servitude, had but small growth and made but slow progress. It certainly did not desolate the lands with the blight and barrenness that afterward depopulated them under Roman rule.
The tribute paid by the subdued nations to the Persian kings and their court, included slaves--boys and girls--but in a limited number. The slave-traffic existed as of old; but, in all probability, the supply of the human merchandise was less plentiful. From political slaves, but not domestic chattels, it was that the armies were recruited which crossed the Hellespont and invaded Greece.
But, viewing the matter in the gross and scope of historical development, political slavery and the blighting effects of the oppressive despotism to which the Persians were long subjected, may be looked upon as the soil out of which grew the morbid and monstrous system of domestic slavery, just as external influences frequently develop and foster the germs of a chronic and fatal bodily disease.
IX.
ARYAS--HINDUS.
AUTHORITIES:
_Lassen, Wilson, Weber, Max Müller, Pictet, Kuhn, etc._
The central region of Baktria was in all probability the cradle of the Aryas, the common progenitors of all the races and nations which now cover Europe. In times anterior to the great pre-historic division and separation of the Aryan races, they probably occupied the whole of the vast region stretching from the Hindu-Kush, the Belourtagh, to the river Oxus and the Caspian Sea. This, too, at a period of which it can only be said that time existed.
The antique Aryas led a pastoral life. The original signification of the words in the European languages denoting family and social relations, as well as the names of domestic and other animals, of grains and plants, of implements of husbandry and handicraft and the like, is elucidated by roots found in Sanscrit, which is supposed to have been the original language of the Aryas, or, at any rate, the one which most completely preserved the primitive impress of the Aryan character.
"Father" (in Sanscrit, _pitri_), signifies "the protecting one, or the protector;" "mother" (Sanscrit, _matri_), "she who regulates or sets in order;" "daughter" (_duhitri_), "the milking one;" "son" (_sunu_), "the begotten;" "sister" (_vastri_), "she who takes care,"--subauditur, of household matters--also, "the bearer of a new family;" "brother" (_brhatri_), "the helper, or carrier;" "youth" (_yavan_) "the defender." So also, "horse" (_açva_), signifies "swift, rapid;"[11] the name for the "bovine" genus, bull and cow (Sc., _go_, _gaus_), "to sound inarticulately," likewise (_ukshan_) "fecundating," besides other names with other significations; the "ovine" genus, or sheep kind (_avi_), implies "the loved, protected," etc.; the "dog" (_'cvan_, _kvan_), means "the yelper, barker;" but he has also other names denoting his qualities, as _sucaka_, "spy, informer," _krtagna_, the "recognizing," or "grateful one," etc.; "goose," (_hansa_, from Sc. _has_), "to laugh." So the roots for the general names of grains and fruits are to be found in the Sanscrit; thus, _ad_, "to eat;" _adas_, "nourishment;" _gr_, "to devour," whence _garitra_, "grain," "rice," etc. It may be noticed that derivatives from these and other roots became applied, in branch languages, to various special kinds of grain; thus, "oats," both in form and signification, is easily traced to a Sanscrit root. So, too, the names of many metals, trees, plants and wild animals, have their roots and descriptive meaning in the Aryan or Sanscrit language; and comparative philology gives us the method of seizing the affiliations of form and of meaning.
Words of the character pointed one and their primitive significations--constituting the foundation of man's family and social existence--followed the various ethnic branches issuing from the Aryan and expanding over the ancient world. _But no root, no name, no signification is to be found for a "servant" bearing the meaning of "slave" or "chattel,"_ or expressive of a deprivation of the rights of manhood or of human dignity. The primitive Aryan mode of life was naturally patriarchal or clan-like, and the above-mentioned words show that household and rural functions were performed by the members of the family. What has been already said in another division (see "Hebrews"), applies even more forcibly to the Aryas. The Sanscrit word _ibha_, signified "family," "household," "servants," but _never slaves or chattels_. Both its sound and sense are still perfectly preserved in the Irish _ibh_, which signifies "country," or "clan;" _not enslaved men_! The names of weapons, and other words relating to warfare, which may be traced back to the Aryan speech, prove that the Aryas warred with other tribes--perhaps with the Tartars; and all such foreign enemies were comprehended under the collective Sanscrit denomination of _barbara_, _varvara_, or "barbarians." But even here, where we should most look for it, no hint or trace of slavery can be found.
The attempt, historically, to endow certain human families or races with special fitness or capacity for freedom or slavery--or with a fatality toward the one or the other, or toward certain fixed social and political conditions--as well as the effort to divide the human family into distinct physiological or psychological races--all manifests a narrow appreciation of the course of human events; it evidences a very limited knowledge of positive history, and perhaps a still more limited philosophical comprehension of its spirit. If, however, such classifications had any scientific basis, assuredly the Aryas and the nations issuing from them had no natural, special propensity either to be slaves or slave-makers.
It win be hereafter pointed out, that among the various branches of the Aryas, or what are called Indo-Europeans, slavery was not a feature of their primitive life, but was the result of a long subsequent epoch of moral decay and degradation. It was at a comparatively late period of their history and under precisely the same conditions, that the Romans and Greeks began to enslave their own fellows. So was it with the Gaels or Celts, and so also with the Slavi. The Poles were free from serfdom till the thirteenth Christian century; the Russians only introduced it toward the close of the sixteenth--and in both cases after dissension, war, and desolation. The Teutons alone (Anglo-Saxons included), seen in the light of primitive history, had slavery in their household and in their national organism, and the slaves, too, of their own race and kin.
The Aryas descended the slopes of Hindu-Kush and the Himalayas, entering the region of the Five or of the Seven Rivers (Punjab), wandered along the river Jamuna, on the line between Attock and Delhi, successively spread over the whole region between the Indus and the Ganges--and here begins their historical existence as a people. In the course of this long march they conquered or drove before them--seemingly without any great trouble, at least in the first encounters, the aboriginal occupants of the Trans-Himalayan countries; and this, too, before they reached what may be called the threshold of history. Discords and wars early broke out among them, principally caused by the continual pressure of northern immigrants upon the possessors of the fertile countries in the south--caused, too, by the struggles for supremacy between families or dynasties, when the tents of the patriarchs had expanded into populous tribes, and almost into nations; and also by the struggles of classes created in the effort to subjugate the aboriginal inhabitants, especially those in the southern parts of India. All these wars took place at a very early epoch, and elude positive chronological division. Their history, as well as that of the primitive Aryan or Hindu mode of life, and their earliest spiritual conceptions, are pictured in the Vedas, which form the background of the whole Indian world.
The gray and venerable Vedaic age is now divided by critics into four periods: the Chhandas period, the Mantra period, the Brahmana period, and the Sutra period.
The Chhandas period exhibits the purest patriarchal and peaceful condition of the family. There were then no priests and no division of classes; the father offered up simple sacrifices to heaven, and the simple hymns and songs of the family resounded over the offering. If the household contained any captive of the aboriginal race, such a one, by renouncing his ancient customs and creed, and accepting the language, the faith and the law of the conqueror, retained life and comparative liberty. And, moreover, all ethnological investigations confirm the belief that the aborigines of India were of the negro, or what is commonly called African family. On this American continent the kidnapped and enslaved African has accepted both the creed and the language of his oppressor--but for him there is neither liberty nor law.
Not to enslave, but only to subdue--preserving, at least partially, the rights of the conquered--was the policy of the Aryas in their encounter with barbarians. And in the domestic wars of tribes and dynasties which yet dimly echo through the second or Mantra period, no traces of the enslavement of their conquered enemies are to be found. In general, the first two periods not only do not show any shadow of _slavery_ in the domestic and social relations, but even the division into _classes_ or _castes_ does not yet make its appearance. During the third or Brahmana period, the Vedas give an account of the terrible and bloody struggle which ended in the social and religious victory of the Brahmas, or Brahmins, over the Kshatriyas, who had previously formed the ruling families.
The Brahmins now reorganized the religious and political structure of the Hindus. They divided society into four classes or castes: (it is to be noted here, however, that some modern exegetists assert that the true meaning of the Sanscrit word _Varna_, for "caste," is not yet clearly apprehended). These four castes were: 1. The Brahmins; 2. The Kshatriyas; 3. The Vaisyas; 4. The Soudras, or Çudras. The first three correspond to the classification already mentioned as existing among the Iranians. The Çudras were the lowest and most degraded caste; still they were not enslaved, not the property of any other caste, not even of the Brahmins--those spiritual and political chiefs of the Hindus. The labors of agriculture ennobled even the hands of the Brahmin, and could not be performed by slaves nor under the compulsory terrors of a master or driver.
As the word Çudras is not Sanscrit, it is supposed that it was the ethnic name of the subdued aborigines of which the fourth caste was composed. The offspring of a Brahmin and a Çudra was considered of pure blood. The Brahminic law authorized the enslavement of persons belonging to all the interior castes, for debt. Slaves may also have been made in the wars with the southward retreating aborigines and others; and slaves may occasionally have been sold in the markets, but their number must have been very insignificant. Laws for the servitude of the Çudras--if such existed even--must very soon have fallen into disuse; for when Alexander brought Greece and Europe into contact with India, the astonished Greeks found scarcely any slavery then existing. Several of the Greek authors even assert that a positive law prohibited any kind of enslavement.
Budha, the great precursor of the Christ, was moved to tears, affected to inspiration, by the suffering and oppression which resulted from the division of society into castes, and by the misery of the poor, who were oppressed by the rich land-owner; but among the social and moral plagues, Budha and his disciples enumerate not human slavery. As far as the history of antiquity is known, Budha was the first whose religious teaching broke through the narrow conception of nationality, and taught universal emancipation and the brotherhood of all tribes and nations of men.
The oppression of the poor and of the landless, which then existed in India, exists there still. It was strengthened by the terrible Mahomedan and Mongol conquests, and by the iron rule of the British East India Company. But the imposition by the Mahomedans and Mongols of an oriental despotism over the Hindus did not implant domestic chattelhood, nor did the English tax-gatherers ever cause Hindu humanity to be exposed for sale in the markets or bazaars.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: The Sanscrit has about one hundred and forty appellations for the "horse" (mare and colt included); and comparative philology demonstrates their primitive roots to be preserved in almost all European languages.]
X.
CHINESE.
AUTHORITIES:
_The Biots, Kaeuffer, Gutzlaff, etc._
China belongs to the present and to the remotest past of the Asiatic world. The historical existence of China and her civilization are at least coeval with that of Egypt and of Assyria, perhaps older than that of the Aryas.
Some geological investigators affirm that the table-land inclosed between the northern slopes of the Himalayas, the Kuenlun, the desert of Gobi--which is said to be older than the formation of the Himalayas--the Heavenly or Blue mountains, and the Altaï, was the first land which rose from the waters, and that therefore it was the first, and perhaps the only place in the north, where man appeared. This admitted, the probability is, that from that first human family issued a race bearing to-day various appellations, as the Yellow, the Altaïc, Turanian, Scythic, Finnic, Mongolian and Tartar--which is the last general denomination adopted by science, at least for the branches occupying central Asia, and reaching to the frontiers of Europe and the descendants of the Aryas. The first immigrants to China from the Kuenlun probably followed the current of the Yellow river; and it seems that the aborigines retired before the invaders, or perhaps the new yellow settlers mixed with the primitive occupants. In the southern parts of China, in the mountains of the interior, are still found tribes of dark-colored men resembling the negroes or the Pacific islanders, and using notched characters similar to those used by the Malays.
Agriculture seems to have been the sacred occupation of these yellow-hued settlers along the banks of the Yellow river--as it was in the valley of the Nile, of the Euphrates, and on the plains of Iran. Everywhere the origin of agriculture is lost in the night of time, and Quain or Cain--that is, the kernel, the young, the generating, etc., the husbandman of the Scriptures--is many thousand years older than Abraham, the wandering and slave-holding patriarch. The oldest Chinese records show agriculture to have been the special occupation of the father of a family, of the chief of a clan, and then of the emperor of the entire nation. With his own hands he directs the plough--therefore the plough could not have been desecrated by the hands of a slave. And it was not. In the family, in the domestic as well as in the national life, slavery first dimly appears only about the thirteenth century B.C.
In the remotest time, labor was, as it is now, the basis, the cement and the soul of the Chinese social and political life and growth--and by labor I mean, intellectual and manual labor in its most varied departments and developments. No classes, no castes, existed in the old primitive times; and perhaps, during many thousand years, no dynasties. The best and ablest person was selected as the chief and ruler: all the offices or functions were obtained by intellectual faculty and by superiority of knowledge, but not inherited; and the same system prevailed throughout all the occupations and pursuits of life. No labor whatever was degraded or degrading; it was carried on by men free and equal, and in principle recognized as such.
In China, as everywhere else, slavery appeared as a disease in the social body. It was generated by war and crime. Prisoners of war and condemned criminals became, so to say, slaves of the state, which used them for public labors or hired them out to private individuals. The highest officers of state, persons over seventy years old, and children, could not be condemned to slavery, excepting children exposed or abandoned by their parents. Slaves hired by private individuals were only used as helps or servants in households and families. But most of the servants were always freemen--they are so now; and slaves never were used in agriculture or in the different handicrafts. The land being generally considered as the property of the state, or of the emperor, the sovereign divided, distributed it, under certain conditions and servitudes, for tribute in money or kind, etc. But slaves are not mentioned among the various objects enumerated as constituting the tribute. The increase of population generated poverty, and paupers sold and still sell themselves or their children into slavery. Repeated domestic or internecine wars, recorded at a very distant historical epoch, were among the prominent agencies in increasing poverty. Impoverished persons and those deprived of their homes either sold themselves or became serfs attached to the soil, but not chattels. As serfs their legal condition and denomination is preserved in the books written about the twelfth century B.C., by Ma-tuan-lin--they are named _usurped families_ or _usurpees_. Even after the conquest by the Mantschou Tartars, chattelhood did not get hold of the political structure, nor did it absorb the agricultural and industrial domestic economy of the Chinese. With the exception of the reigning family, no social position or function is privileged as hereditary; and in the same way, accidental slavery was not transmitted to the children of the enslaved. Their condition was and is controlled and regulated by law, which watches over the property of the state. Among the numerous domestic wars there are never recorded any revolts of slaves--an evidence of their very limited number.
Over-population generated and generates the most terrible and varied oppressions and miseries; but all of them lose their sting when compared with chattelhood. Over-population and misery generated the so-called coolie-system, which in principle is based on voluntary indenture. The reckless cruelties and the numerous infamies characterizing the manner in which the coolie trade is carried on, is evidence of the utter moral degradation and depravity of the white civilized Christian traders, and the inefficiency of their respective governments.
The Chinese civilization is commonly looked down upon from the heights of narrow-minded presumption and ignorance. About three thousand years B.C., public schools existed in China, and a full scientific and material culture prevailed there. Chinese records (among them the Books of the Sehu Kings), going back, perhaps, as far as two thousand five hundred years B.C.--contain the most correct and detailed statistical accounts of tribute, and give most reliable geographical notions of China, and of the subdued and neighboring countries--notions superior in exactitude to all similar records transmitted from classical antiquity. The Chinese lived in houses, in orderly communities, were humanized, polished, familiar with the sciences, industries, and all kinds of refinements, at a time, and during countless centuries, when the races of northern Europe--prominently the Slavi, the Germans, the Anglo-Saxons included--did not, in all probability, even understand how to construct huts, and, as savages, roved about in the wilderness.
In a work written by Prince Tscheu-Kong, about one thousand one hundred years B.C., are given the most minute details of the then existing organization of the empire. The administrative mechanism of that distant epoch finds no equal in the whole history of governments or of nations. Several thousand years ago the empire was administered by six supreme state departments, each with perfectly defined attributes, each subdivided into special branches, with directors and all orders of lower officials and functionaries. Chinese civilization passed its periods of youth and maturity many thousand years ago; and its senility has not yet reached total decrepitude. It crumbles not to pieces even now in its comparatively disjointed and disorganized condition.
No one can consider China in any way a model social organism; but its duration is marvellous and unequalled in the history of the race. The absence of hereditary privilege and of chattelhood as social or religious institutions, accounts, among other reasons, for this unique phenomenon. With all its drawbacks and defects, this long-lived civilization, with its schools, its general intelligence, its thousands-of-years old routine, compares, in many respects, favorably with that in the Southern States calling itself Christian, which, having partly inherited the great European development, and receiving influences from the free sections of the Union, has, nevertheless, for the last thirty or forty years, turned on its own crooked tracks, and, now prohibits, under severe penalty, schools for the children of its field laborers, whom it keeps in bondage. It sighs also for a further extension of oligarchic privileges, and for the enslavement of all human labor: re-enslaves the free or expels them; legalizes and sanctifies the sum of all social villanies: whose last word is the Lynch law, and the reckless, lawless persecution of free speech and even of free thought; while assassination becomes more and more frequent.
In the most ancient Asiatic world, the primitive societies generally had analogous beginnings, whatever may have been the regions and climates cradling them, whatever the difference of time, epochs, or race-characteristics. Analogous events and conditions evoked similar developments in the primitive men. The manifestations of man's intellectual and physical activity were everywhere spontaneous: a transmission of the various rudiments of civilization cannot logically be admitted.