o get ease or other good by the
labor of another, and the incidental gratification to vanity,
seem to be the fundamental principles in slavery, when
philosophically regarded, after the rule of one man over others
has become established. The whole group, however, must approve of
the custom and must enforce it; otherwise it cannot exist. It
appears that slavery began historically with the war captive, if
he or she was not put to death, as he was liable to be by the
laws of war. Those laws put the defeated, with his wife,
children, and property, at the mercy of the victors. The defeated
might be tortured to death, as was done amongst the North
American Indians, or they might be saved from death by the women.
Then they were put to help the women and were rated as women.
Slavery, therefore, in its origin, was a humanitarian improvement
in the laws of war, and an alleviation of the status of women. It
seems to be established that it began where the economic system
was such that there was a gain in making a slave of a war captive
instead of killing him. It follows that slavery, wherever it has
existed, has affected all the mores of the society. It promised
great results gratis. It will appear below that it has been a
terrible afrit, a demon which promised service but which became a
master. When adopted into the folkways it has dominated and given
tone and color to them all. That is the reason for giving it a
place here.

+271. Slavery taught steady labor.+ It seems to be also right to
understand that slavery proved to be a great schoolmaster to
teach men steady work. If that view is correct, we must
understand that no men would do any hard, persistent work if they
could help it. The defeated were forced to it, and learned to
submit to it. Then they helped the whole society up to a higher
status, in which they also shared.[627] Von Goetzen gives some
proof of this when he states that he and his troop of carriers
sat by the camp fire evenings and that one after another told his
life. "Nearly all had been, as children, brought from the inner
country to the coast by slave dealers. Now they were proud of
this slavery, proud of belonging to the 'cultivated' and of not
being any longer 'wild' men."[628] In that view slavery is a part
of the discipline by which the human race has learned how to
carry on the industrial or