ake good slaves. The Oregon flatheads were docile and
industrious.[681] The Chinooks became the wealthiest tribe in the
region by acting as middlemen to sell war captives taken inland
as far from home as possible.[682] Amongst the Thlinkits slaves
are forbidden to wear the labret, and sex intercourse with a
slave woman disgraces a free man.[683] "Amongst the early Central
Americans the slave who achieved any feat of valor in war
received his liberty and was adopted by the Capulli, or
clan."[684] In Mexico there were slaves of three
classes,--criminals, war captives, and persons who had
voluntarily sold themselves or had been sold by their parents.
The captor generally sacrificed a prisoner, but might hold him as
a slave. Those who sold themselves did so to get a fund for
gambling. There was a public slave mart at Azcapuzalco. The
system is described as kind, but slaves might lose their lives
through the act of the master at feasts or funerals.[685] "Actual
slavery of the Indians in Mexico continued as late as the middle
of the seventeenth century."[686] It is evident that slavery
existed all over North and Central America, but was more
developed on the Pacific coast than in the Mississippi valley.
The meat eaters of the buffalo region had less opportunity to use
the institution.[687]

+278. Slavery in South America.+ In South America we also meet
with at least one case of a tribe, or part of a tribe, which is
in clientage to another tribe. This is a subdivision of the third
rank of the Mbaya, who voluntarily entered into a relation of
clientage to the Mbaya, giving them service under arms, and in
house and field, without being their slaves, being protected in
return by the powerful and feared tribe.[688] The Guykurus carry
on frequent wars to get captives, whom they keep in stringent
servitude. "There is, perhaps, no tribe of South American
Indians, among whom the state of slavery is so distinctly marked
as among them." Slaves and free do not intermarry, lest marriage
be profaned. There is no way in which a slave may become
free.[689] The Guykurus are the strongest tribe in the valley of
the Paraguay. They have horses and were called by the Portuguese
Cavalleiros.[690] In Brazil it was thought that the cultivation
of the country was impossible unless the Indians were made
slaves. The early laws and orders