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THE 
 
 LAW AND CUSTOM 
 
 OF 
 
 SLAVERY IN BRITISH INDIA, 
 
 IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO 
 
 THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 BY WILLIAM ADAM. 
 
 " A vis inertia, hostile to all change, seems inherent in the local governments of India." 14 Respon- 
 ctbility is avoided by following the beaten track, and silence is the safest reply to those who propose 
 a deviation from it, even for the sake of humanity. The outcry raised in India against the suttee was 
 long powerless, until it returned reverberated from the British shore ; and that against slavery will 
 continue disregarded, unless it receives support from all the energy of the home government. " A. D. 
 Campbell, Esq.) Late Member of the Board of Revenue at Madrqs, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 WEEKS, JORDAN, & COMPANY, 
 
 NO. 121 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1840. 
 

 
 Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1840, 
 
 BY WILLIAM ADAM, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY GEO. A. JND J. CURTIS, 
 
 TY? 1 ? ^ND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 LETTER I. Page . 
 
 Introduction Hindu Law of Slavery Muhammadan Law of 
 Slavery British Law of Slavery 5 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Examination of the Legality of Hindu and Muhammadan Slavery 
 under the British Government in India 29 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Administration of Hindu and Muhammadan Slave-Law under 
 the British Government in India . . . . . .51 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Ameliorations of the Law and Practice of Slavery under the Brit- 
 ish Government in India ....... 74 
 
 LETTER V. 
 Number of Slaves in British India 103 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 The Origin and Sources of Slavery in British India . . .130 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Occupations and Treatment of Agrestic Slaves Domestic Slaves 
 in British India 163 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Unsuccessful attempts to ameliorate the Law and Practice of 
 Slavery in British India Abolition of Slavery . . . 195 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. Mr. H. T. Colebrooke's Opinions on Slavery in India . 243 
 
 No. II. Dr. Francis Buchanan on Slavery in the South of India 254 
 
 No. III. Mr. D. Liston on Slavery in Gorakhpur . . . 268 
 
 No. IV. Case of the Ship Adramytte 272 
 
 No. V. Abolition of Slavery in Ceylon 276 
 
 438730 
 


 LETTER I. 
 
 TO THOMAS POWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Introduction Hindu Law of Slavery Muhammadan Law of Slavery 
 British Law of Slavery. 
 
 SIR, Having been requested by a benevolent institu- 
 tion in Boston to deliver a public lecture on some subject 
 connected with India, I thought of presenting a view of the 
 state of slavery in that country, a subject to which I had 
 paid some attention while resident there ; but on preparing 
 a memorandum of the materials I possessed for such a pur- 
 pose, I found that they far exceeded the limits of a single 
 discourse. I therefore selected another topic, and resolved, 
 as my leisure might permit, to bring under full review the 
 whole subject of slavery in British India, and to take some 
 other mode or occasion of drawing public attention to its 
 details. I now propose to submit to you the results of my 
 inquiries, observations, and reflections. 
 
 My primary design is to co-operate with a society which 
 has lately been established in England, called the British 
 India Society, the objects of which are to collect and com- 
 1 mumcate information respecting India, to excite an interest 
 in the welfare of its people, and to promote measures for 
 their protection and improvement. By the force of circum- 
 stances I have been separated both from India and England, 
 but my thoughts are constantly reverting to both countries, 
 and I shall be in some measure satisfying equally the affec- 
 1* 
 
6 SLAVERY 
 
 tions of my heart arid my convictions of duty in contribut- 
 ing my aid to give a right direction to the efforts of that 
 association. 
 
 There are various reasons which encourage me to prose- 
 cute the consideration of this subject. Slavery is indeed 
 only one of many evils under which India suffers, and I 
 will even admit that its operation is less extensive and its 
 effects less injurious than some other evils that I could 
 mention. But it is of such a nature that, while it exists 
 and wherever it exists, it checks the improvement of human 
 character and the development of human society; aids all 
 other bad influences and impedes all good influences; and 
 its removal, therefore, will not only remove a large amount 
 of positive injustice, degradation, and suffering, but is 
 essential to the free and salutary working of every other 
 measure that may or can be devised for the advancement 
 of mankind in the country where it prevails. This is the 
 inherent and radical attraction of the subject; but there are 
 also collateral and subordinate inducements to bring it 
 before the public. 
 
 Slavery in India has not received, and, as far as I am 
 aware, is not likely to receive, the attention of the bene- 
 volent society to which I have referred, unless by some 
 such means as that which I am employing. Even in 
 India it has excited so little active discussion, that I have 
 known its very existence denied by generally well-informed 
 persons, although in certain parts of the country it is 
 found in its most aggravated forms. In England, the sub- 
 ject is* not known or publicly recognised as one affecting 
 the welfare of India or the honor of Great Britain ; and if" 
 even seems to be generally assumed, since the abolition of 
 slavery in the British West Indies, that it has ceased to 
 exist throughout the British dominions, although it may be 
 shown that the number of slaves in the East Indies, under 
 the authority of the British government, is probably as 
 
IN I N D I A. 7 
 
 great as the number of those who have been emancipated 
 in the West Indies. I say that the number is probably as 
 great, because, since there has been no complete census of 
 the population in India, much less a registry of slaves, it is 
 impossible to speak of their number with certainty or pre- 
 cision. But if there is even only half or quarter so many, 
 it is proper that the facts of the case should be known, that 
 all undue exultation and vaunting may be repressed, and 
 that the necessary, impulse may be given to the friends of 
 humanity in England to complete the work which they 
 have only begun. Slavery may not be the greatest I 
 will admit, if required, that it is the least of the evils 
 tolerated or inflicted by the British government of India ; 
 but if the pre-occupation of the public mind with this sub- 
 ject in relation to other countries has qualified the Chris- 
 tian world to judge of the facts belonging to it in relation 
 to India, it is justifiable, it is obligatory on the well-wishers 
 of that country to avail themselves of this advantage in the 
 existing state of the public sentiment, in order to fix atten- 
 tion on the condition, the wants, and the interests of a peo- 
 ple whose numbers alone constitute them an important 
 division of the population of the world ; and whose dis- 
 tance, whose isolation, whose ignorance, and superstition 
 and degradation, whose uncomplaining helplessness, shut 
 them out from the ordinary sympathies of mankind. There 
 will be this advantage also in taking what may be called 
 low ground, that if slavery in India, such as on indubitable 
 authority I shall depict it to you, is the least of the evils 
 under which that country groans, you will be the better 
 able by this standard to judge of the greater evils under 
 which it suffers. 
 
 There is another point of view in which the exposition 
 of this subject may be attended with advantage. Great 
 Britain, by an extraordinary combination of circumstances, 
 has established her dominion over a hundred millions of 
 
8 SLAVERY 
 
 people in India, and her influence over at least fifty millions 
 more, and the civilized world is entitled to know for what 
 purposes of good or of evil such an unexampled power is 
 exercised. The British Crown and Parliament, by an act 
 passed in 1833, have delegated the sovereignty of India, for 
 a period of twenty years, to a corporation of private citizens, 
 exercising their authority through a board of directors, 
 and the people of England are specially bound to inquire 
 and to judge how this grave trust is fulfilled. England, in 
 establishing the existing system of government for India, 
 may be discharging her duty to the world, or she may not; 
 and the East India Company, in the administration of that 
 system, may be discharging her duty to England, or she 
 may not. But neither the negative nor the affirmative can 
 be determined by indiscriminate censure or praise ; it can 
 be ascertained only by a dispassionate examination of details, 
 and by an impartial estimate of the spirit and character of 
 the British Indian government and administration, and every 
 honest and well-meant contribution to such an object may 
 aid in arriving at a right conclusion. The question of 
 slavery in India certainly covers only a very small portion 
 of the whole ground, but it does cover a portion in itself not 
 insignificant, and when the judgment of the world is pro- 
 nounced on England, or that of England on the East India 
 Company, it will not be difficult to show that it is no unim- 
 portant item in the account. 
 
 It may perhaps be deemed that here the agitation of the 
 subject of slavery in India is inappropriate, and that it will 
 do no good, and may do some harm. I certainly feel that 
 what I have to say will establish a charge of inconsistency 
 against England, tending to lessen the force of her example 
 in the West Indies, and to furnish a temporary triumph to 
 the friends of slavery in this country. This triumph, how- 
 ever, will only be temporary, for the agitation of the subject 
 cannot fail to lead to the removal of the evil ; and whatever 
 
IN IN D I A. 9 
 
 the delay may be, the cause of truth, of justice, and of 
 humanity, cannot be promoted by the concealment of facts. 
 But it may be said the subject of domestic slavery presents 
 in itself questions sufficiently grave and difficult, and that 
 by introducing tbe question of slavery in India, I shall be 
 embroiling myself with the interests, and passions, and 
 prejudices that divide and afflict society here on this omi- 
 nous question. On this question I have not the informa- 
 tion that would enable me with intelligence and undoubting 
 conviction to advocate the views of any of the parties that 
 represent the subdivisions of public opinion ; but because I 
 feel that I am powerless at present to promote the good of 
 the slave in this country, I should be exceedingly sorry to 
 have it supposed that I am indifferent to his welfare, a neu- 
 tral or uninterested spectator of the exertions made for his 
 benefit, and without sympathy with those who devote their 
 days and their nights, their time and strength, the best 
 energies of their bodies and minds, to his cause. Although 
 not a citizen of the United States, yet as a citizen of the 
 world a far higher and nobler title I look upon every 
 slave, in every country, as an injured and oppressed fellow- 
 man ; and from the bottom of my soul I wish God speed to 
 every attempt based on Christian principles, and executed 
 in the spirit of Christian charity, to strike off the fetters of 
 the slave and to let the oppressed go free. It will thus be 
 perceived that I do not abstain from the question of slavery 
 in this country from indifference ; and that I limit myself 
 to the question of slavery in India, simply because I know 
 that I possess information on that subject, the publication of 
 which may tend to promote the cause of humanity. If it 
 should be further suggested that this cause would be best 
 promoted by the publication of that information in England, 
 the answer is, that for the present Providence has here cast 
 my lot, and that effectual means will be taken, through the 
 British India Society, of calling public attention in that 
 
10 SLAVERY 
 
 country also to this important subject. It will be no dis- 
 grace to America it will be one more honor to the city 
 of Boston, already distinguished for its enlightened and 
 philanthropic character that the first appeal to the public 
 opinion of the civilized world against slavery in India was 
 made in this country, and favorably received in this city. 
 
 Grievous and deplorable as is the inconsistency of Amer- 
 ica on the subject of slavery, yet a sound public opinion is 
 daily gaining ground, and with the growth and triumph of 
 that opinion the influence of America on all great social 
 questions will be increasingly felt abroad. It is, however, 
 to the people of England that I chiefly appeal, and I appeal 
 to them, Sir, through you, because your name has been 
 associated in my mind for many years with efforts for the 
 emancipation of the slave, because your recent publication, 
 exposing the increased extent and horrors of the slave- 
 trade, proves that your zeal is unabated, and because I hope 
 to convince you that, without abandoning the peculiar 
 province that you have nobly and humanely selected for 
 yourself, British India should be included within the range 
 of your philanthropic exertions. If the respect and confi- 
 dence with which your persevering and disinterested labors 
 have inspired the Christian philanthropists of Great Britain 
 and the members of Her Majesty's government, shall ena- 
 le you to speak with useful effect a word in favor of the 
 slave in India, I feel confident that word will not be with- 
 held. 
 
 And is not the subject one that may well awaken the 
 attention both of the government and of the people of 
 England ? The people of England have just paid twenty 
 millions sterling to emancipate eight hundred thousand 
 slaves in the British West Indies; and while they are con- 
 gratulating themselves that now at length every British 
 subject is a freeman, and insultingly reproaching republi- 
 can America with her slavery, they are to be told that their 
 
IN IN D I A. 11 
 
 congratulations are premature ; that their reproaches may 
 be retorted ; that their work is only half done ; that there 
 are prohably 800,000 slaves more, British subjects, in the 
 East Indies; that this slavery has been perpetuated and some- 
 times aggravated by the East India Company's government ; 
 and that there' is no prospect of its ceasing, unless their 
 powerful voice shall be put forth to demand its extinction. 
 The government of England have been engaged for years 
 in a hard-fought battle with slave-holders in the West In- 
 dies, and with the slave-holding interest in England, and 
 they have just succeeded, at the expense of the people of 
 England, in the great work of emancipation. They have 
 been for years engaged in a diplomatic war, too unsuc- 
 cessfully waged, with foreign powers against the slave-trade, 
 and with praiseworthy energy and perseverance they are 
 still adopting measures against this hydra-headed monster. 
 Her Majesty's ministers are now to be told (are they now 
 to be told, or have they long known and neglected their 
 duty in this matter ? ) that one of the heads of this mon- 
 ster is in British India ; that even the slave-trade has not 
 wholly ceased there ; that the laws enacted by the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain against the slave-trade are in part 
 either expressly set aside, or are acknowledged to be wholly 
 a dead letter; that slavery itself exists in British India; 
 that it exists probably as extensively, and to a great extent 
 in as aggravated a form, as it did lately in the West Indies; 
 that it has been and is legalized, and nourished, and sup- 
 ported by the East India Company, a creature of their own 
 forming; and that notwithstanding the express requisition 
 of Parliament to that effect, no movement has been made 
 by the East India Company's government towards its ex- 
 tinction. This is the bearing of the subject to which I am 
 desirous of soliciting your attention ; and will you, will the 
 government and people of England, listen to the proofs of 
 all this with patient acquiescence ? Must it not be perceived 
 
12 SLAVERY 
 
 that this is a state of things compromising the honor and 
 consistency of the government, and the humanity and justice 
 of the people of England, and invoking the prompt and in- 
 dignant interference of every honest statesman and every 
 good man? 
 
 The whole subject of slavery in India will be embraced 
 by considering, first, the law of slavery ; second, the custom 
 or practice of slavery ; and, third, the means that have been 
 or may be employed for the mitigation of the evil or for its 
 entire abolition. 
 
 Slavery exists legally under the British government in 
 India as an effect of the legal existence which it possessed 
 under the former Hindu and Muhammadan governments. 
 The British government affirms, administers, and enforces, 
 with exceptions to be hereafter mentioned, the Hindu and 
 Muhammadan laws of slavery ; and hence, in order to 
 acquire a just view of the subject, it is necessary to con- 
 sider, first, the Hindu law ; second, the Muhammadan law ; 
 and third, the British law of slavery in India. In explain- 
 ing the Hindu and Muhammadan laws of slavery, I shall 
 present only those general views that are necessary to un- 
 derstand the force and effect of the law of slavery as 
 administered by British authorities, without going into the 
 numerous and minute details which the two former systems 
 of law embrace. 
 
 The provisions of Hindu law limiting the liability to 
 slavery are first to be noticed. Hindu institutions recognise 
 four classes or orders of men subject to them, the sacerdo- 
 tal, military, commercial, and servile classes, and all who do 
 not belong to those four are outcastes, foreigners, barbarians, 
 and impure. With reference to this division of the Hindu 
 race, the law of slavery expressly provides that a member 
 of the first or sacerdotal class never can become legally a 
 slave, and this limitation is extended to females of that class, 
 whose enslavement is declared null and void and punishable 
 
I N I N D I A . 13 
 
 by amercement, as is that of a man of the sacerdotal class 
 by the highest amercement which the law imposes. A 
 further limitation is, that members of the military, commer- 
 cial, or servile class can, under certain circumstances, 
 become slaves only in the direct, not in the inverse, order 
 of the classes, and that under certain other circumstances 
 they may be made slaves to persons of an equal class, and 
 even in the inverse order of the classes. Thus the customs 
 of Hindu society suppose that a man, from various consid- 
 erations for the payment of debt, for instance may vol- 
 untarily make himself the slave of another, but this can be 
 done only in the direct order of the classes ; that is, a mem- 
 ber of the second class can make himself a slave only to a 
 member of the first class ; a member of the third class only 
 to one of the first or second ; and a member of the fourth 
 only to one of the first, second, or third class. On some 
 accounts also the law permits the servitude of men of the 
 military, commercial, and servile classes to one of an equal 
 class. Once however that a man has ceased to be his own 
 master, he may be subjected to slavery in the inverse order 
 of the classes, that is, a man of inferior caste may hold in 
 slavery a man of superior caste. Thus a man of the mili- 
 cary class holding a slave of the commercial class may 
 deliver him to be the mancipated servant of a freeman of 
 the servile class. According to the spirit of Hindu insti- 
 tutions, and the spirit as well as the letter of Hindu law, a 
 state of servitude is natural to men of the servile class * 
 without exception or limitation ; but then no individual of 
 that class can be a slave to an individual of any of the oth- 
 er classes without special legal grounds, independent of the 
 general liability. The numerous aboriginal tribes of India 
 are regarded as members originally of the military class, 
 who, by their omission of holy rites and neglect of Hindu 
 institutions, have gradually sunk to the lowest of the four 
 
 * Institutes of Menu, Chap. vm. v. 414. 
 2 
 
14 SLAVERY 
 
 classes ; and they are practically held to be liable to slavery 
 to the Hindu race. There are, further, certain outcastes so 
 degraded that they are considered wholly unworthy to per- 
 form even the most menial offices of slavery, and they are 
 in consequence practically exempted from liability to that 
 state, just as much as a member of the sacerdotal class, 
 although from a directly opposite cause. ^ 
 
 The modes in which those who are liable to slavery may 
 become actually and legally slaves, are various. With 
 reference to the legal modes of creating the actual state of 
 slavery, one Hindu legislator, followed by various other 
 authorities, has enumerated fifteen different sorts of slaves, 
 and another has reduced them to seven. Keeping in view 
 the former division, I shall, for the sake of brevity and 
 perspicuity, follow the latter. None of the different sorts of 
 slaves about to be enumerated are to be confounded with any 
 description of servants. Hindu legislators carefully distin- 
 guish on the one hand between the service which a pupil 
 of sacred knowledge owes to his spiritual teacher, which an 
 apprentice in any art or trade owes to his instructor, which 
 a hired servant owes to his master, and which a commis- 
 sioned servant owes to his employer, and on the other hand 
 the service which a slave must give to his owner. The 
 servant, of whatever description, can be legally required to 
 perform only work which is religiously and ceremonially 
 pure, involving no loss or degradation of caste : the slave 
 may be required to perform all work, whether pure or im- 
 pure* however offensive or degrading. 
 
 The first sort of slave is one who has been made captive 
 under a standard or in battle ; not every person conquered 
 in battle, whether he take quarter or not, but one who claims 
 quarter on the condition of becoming a slave. Under this 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, Vol. II. p. 370375 j p. 349; 
 Institutes of Menu, x. 43, 44, 5056. 
 
IN IN DI A. 15 
 
 head also is classed one who in gaming has staked his own 
 personal freedom, declaring that if vanquished in the con- 
 test he shall become the slave of his opponent ; or he may 
 s fo ke not his own freedom, but his property in a slave, and 
 the winner becomes the owner of the slave so staked. The 
 second sort of slave is one maintained in consideration of 
 service ; that is, one who has agreed to slavery in conside- 
 ration of maintenance, whether in a season of scarcity or 
 abundance; but in every such case consent is a requisite 
 condition, since dominion cannot be acquired by mainte- 
 nance alone. The third sort of slave is one born in the 
 house, that is, one born of a female slave in the house 
 of her master. By this rule the progeny of female 
 slaves take the condition of their mothers. The fourth 
 sort of slave is one bought for a price, sold by his 
 father and mother, or by either of them, or by himself. 
 Children thus sold, by either or both parents, may become 
 slaves, although they did not consent to it at the time ; and 
 a person self-sold may either offer his services as a slave 
 for a fixed term, or may leave the time indefinite and stip- 
 ulate for a fixed remuneration, or may sell himself abso- 
 lutely and without limitation or restriction. To this sort 
 also belongs the case of a slave pledged by his master to a 
 creditor for a loan received, to be his slave during the 
 period of the loan, which pledge is considered ultimately to 
 become of the nature of a sale. The principal sum being 
 considered as the price, there is in fact the complete act of 
 relinquishment at a subsequent time after a prior receipt of 
 the price. The fifth sort of slave is one given by his 
 father and mother, or by either of them, or by himself, and 
 acquired by the acceptance of such donation. He who 
 agrees to slavery in consideration of relief from distress, is 
 self-given ; for he gives himself on account of the favor 
 conferred in delivering him from distress. Under this 
 head also is included the case of a freeman, who, from at- 
 
16 SLAVERY 
 
 tachment to the female slave of another, acquiesces in 
 slavery for her sake ; that is, the marriage of a freeman 
 with a female slave imposes the condition of slavery on 
 the husband ; and in like manner a free woman, or one 
 who is not a slave of the same master, becoming the bride 
 or wife of a slave, also becomes a slave to- her husband's 
 owner. To the fourth and fifth classes belong also the case 
 of boys bought for a price or given in donation, for the pur- 
 pose of being adopted as the sons of him who has pur- 
 chased or received them, but who, in consequence of some 
 failure in the form of adoption prescribed by the law, can- 
 not carry his original intention into effect. They have 
 ceased to belong to those who sold or gave them away ; 
 in consequence of a failure in the form of adoption, they 
 cannot become sons; and the law in that case directs that 
 they shall become slaves. The sixth sort of slave is one in- 
 herited from ancestors, that is, a slave of the father or other 
 ancestor passing in succession to the son or other heir. 
 The seventh sort of slave is one enslaved by way of pun- 
 ishment, that is, one who has agreed to become a slave to 
 acquit a fine or discharge the debt by his labor. This may 
 be deemed to include the case of one who has been relieved 
 from great debt, that is, redeemed from his creditor's cus- 
 tody on account of a great debt, and therefore becoming a 
 slave to the person who has satisfied the creditor. It also 
 includes the case of a man who, after having consecrated 
 himself to a life of religious asceticism and mendicity, for- 
 sakes that mode of life, for instance, by taking a wife and 
 living as a householder. If a member of the sacerdotal 
 class thus violates a sacred vow, he is to be lacerated by 
 the feet of dogs and banished from the kingdom, but if a 
 member of the military or commercial tribe, he is to be 
 condemned to slavery.* 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, Vol. II. p. 340346 ; p. 368 - 
 Menu's Institutes of Hindu Law, Chap. vm. v. 415. 
 
I N I N D I A. 17 
 
 The powers possessed by masters or owners over their 
 slaves are absolute. Hindu law " treats the slave as the 
 property of his master, familiarly speaking of this species 
 of property in association with cattle, under the contemptu- 
 ous designation of bipeds and quadrupeds. It makes no 
 provision for the protection of the slave from the cruelty 
 and ill-treatment of an unfeeling master, nor defines the mas- 
 ter's power over the person of his slave ; neither prescrib- 
 ing distinct limits to that power, nor declaring it to extend 
 to life or limb. It allows to the slave no right of property 
 even in his own acquisitions, except by the indulgence of 
 his master."^ " Those slaves who correspond to the desig- 
 nation of adscripti glebce, or hereditary serfs," " are subject 
 to the laws of ancestral real property, and cannot be 
 transferred except under similar restrictions." "All other 
 descriptions of slaves would appear to class with personal 
 property;"! and, as has been shown, may be sold for a 
 price, pledged for a debt, or staked at play. There is no 
 bar to the institution of a judicial proceeding by a slave 
 against his master, relative to his own peculiar interests ; 
 and although, in defining competent and incompetent wit- 
 nesses, the law does not expressly declare a slave to be 
 either the one or the other, yet in the opinion of living 
 expounders of the law, and in the practice of the courts, his 
 evidence is held to be good and legal against, but not for, 
 his master. t 
 
 The modes of enfranchisement from slavery provided by 
 the law are various, and with reference to them, all slaves 
 
 * Colebrooke, cited in Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 743 ; Cole- 
 brooke's Digest of Hindu Law, Vol. II. pp. 365 368 ; Macnaghten's 
 Translation of the Mitacshara in Hindu Law, Vol. I. pp. 227, 229. 
 
 t Macnagh ten's Hindu Law, Vol. I. p. 115. 
 
 \ Macnaghten's Translation of the Mitacshara in Hindu Law, Vol. 
 I. pp. 227, 242245 ; Vol. II. pp. 317, 318. 
 2* 
 
18 SLAVERY 
 
 are divided into two classes, those whose slavery is perma- 
 nent and hereditary, and those whose slavery is temporary 
 and personal. To the former or permanent class, belong 
 those who have been born of female slaves in the houses 
 of their masters; those who have been bought for a price ; 
 those who have been received in donation; those who have 
 been inherited from ancestors ; and those who for a pecu- 
 niary consideration have bartered their personal freedom. 
 These five sorts may be legally held in perpetual slavery ; 
 but various circumstances may lead even to their enfran- 
 chisement. First, none of them can claim release from 
 slavery as of right, but they may any or all of them be at 
 any time enfranchised by the sole favor and act of their 
 master, who in performing the ceremony of manumission 
 is pronounced a benevolent man. " Let the benevolent 
 man who desires to emancipate his own slave, take a vessel 
 of water from his shoulder," (the usual way in which water 
 is carried by a slave,) " and instantly break it " (denoting 
 the discontinuance-of servile duties). " Sprinkling his head 
 with water containing rice and flowers, and thrice calling 
 him free," (thus confirming his emancipation,) "let the mas- 
 ter dismiss him with his face towards the east. Thencefor- 
 ward let him be called ' one cherished by his master's 
 favor :' his food may be eaten and his favors accepted ; 
 and he is respected by worthy men." This simple and 
 graphic ceremony, performed for so important a purpose, is 
 finely illustrative of ancient Hindu manners. Manumis'- 
 sion at the pleasure of the master ma) r , of course, be 
 extended to temporary as well as hereditary slaves. The 
 second ground of enfranchisement does not leave it optional 
 to the master, but makes it obligatory on him, and a right 
 on the part of his slave. This right is conferred if the 
 slave should, at the risk of his own life, save the life of his 
 master from some impending danger. It is necessary to the 
 effect, that the life of the slave should be endangered in the 
 
I N I N D I A . 19 
 
 attempt to save that of his master, and in that case he is not 
 only entitled to release from slavery, but shall also receive 
 the share of a son. in his master's wealth. If the master 
 should refuse him emancipation and a share of the inheri- 
 tance, the slave may institute a judicial proceeding against 
 his master, and the law would recognise his claim. Under 
 the supposed circumstances, these rights are possessed by 
 the temporary as well as by the hereditary slave. The 
 third ground of enfranchisement makes it equally obligatory 
 on the master, and equally the legal right of the slave. If 
 a female slave bears a son to her master, and if he has no 
 legitimate or adopted son, under those circumstances the 
 son of the female slave is free from his birth, and the 
 mother, in consideration of her progeny, is enfranchised. 
 In this case, also, there is a remedy at law against the 
 master refusing emancipation. On these three grounds 
 alone, the indulgence of the master, the saving of his life, 
 or the bearing to him of a son, can any one of the five 
 descriptions of permanent and hereditary slaves receive 
 manumission. 
 
 The modes in which temporary or personal slaves may 
 be enfranchised, are also various. First, one maintained 
 in a famine, that is, saved from death by food supplied 
 during a scarcity of provisions, and thereby subjected to 
 slavery, is liberated by the gift of a pair of oxen. Second, 
 one maintained in consideration of service, that is, a person 
 consenting to perform the work of a slave for the sake 
 of subsistence, is released on relinquishing his subsist- 
 ence. This case is distinguishable from that of a hired 
 servant only by the nature of the work performed. Third, 
 a slave for a fixed period is emancipated by fulfilling 
 the stipulated term. Fourth, a slave-debtor is released 
 from servitude by paying the debt with interest. Fifth, 
 a slave for the sake of his bride is emancipated by divorc- 
 ing his wife or separating himself from her; and, by 
 
 
20 SLAVERY 
 
 analogy, a free woman who has become a slave for the sake 
 of her slave-husband is liberated by divorce or separation, 
 but there is no express authority to that effect. And sixth, 
 one who has voluntarily subjected himself to slavery for any 
 other than a pecuniary consideration, for instance, for a 
 religious purpose, one who has-been made captive in war, 
 and a slave who has been won in a stake, are emancipated 
 on giving a substitute, that is, another slave equally capable 
 of labor. ^ 
 
 Such is a summary of the leading provisions of Hindu 
 law on the subject of slavery. 
 
 The leading provisions of Muhammadan law on the same 
 subject will now engage our attention, differing both in prin- 
 ciples and details from those of the Hindu law. 
 
 t There are only two descriptions of persons recognised 
 as slaves under the Muhammadan law : first, infidels made 
 captive during war; and secondly, their descendants. 
 These persons are subjects of inheritance and of all kinds 
 of contracts, in the same manner as other property. The 
 general state of bondage is subdivided into two classes, and 
 slavery may be either entire or qualified, according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Qualified slaves are of three descriptions. The fast is he 
 between whom and his master there may have been an agree- 
 ment for his ransom, on the condition of his paying a certain 
 sum of money, either immediately, or at some future period, 
 or by instalments. If he fulfil the condition, he will become 
 free, otherwise he will revert to his former unqualified state 
 
 * Digest, Vol. II. pp. 347369, 
 
 f The following summary of Muhammadan slave-law is derived, 
 with slight modifications, from Mr. Macnaghten's Principles and Pre- 
 cedents of Muhammadan Law, the only authority on Muhammadan 
 law relating to this subject within my reach. See Book I. Chap. IX. 
 pp. 6568. 
 
IN INDIA. 21 
 
 of bondage. In the mean time, his master parts with the 
 possession of, but not with the property in him. He is not 
 however in the interval a fit subject of sale, gift, pledge, or 
 hire. The second description of slave is he to whom his 
 master has promised post-obit emancipation. Such promise, 
 however, may be made absolutely, or with limitation ; in 
 other words, the freedom of the slave may be made to de- 
 pend generally on the death of his master, or it may be made 
 conditionally to depend on the occurrence of the event within 
 a specified period. This description of slave is not a fit 
 subject of sale or gift, but labor may be exacted from him, 
 and he may be let out to hire, and in the case of a female, 
 she may be given in marriage. Where the promise was 
 made absolutely, the slave becomes free on the death of the 
 master, whenever that event may happen ; and when made 
 conditionally, if his death occurred within the period speci- 
 fied. The general law of legacies and debts is applicable to 
 this description of slaves, they being considered as much the 
 right of the heirs as any other description of property. No\r, 
 the law of legacies is, that they cannot be made to a larger 
 amount than one-third of the testator's estate without the 
 consent of the heirs; and of debts, that all debts due by the 
 testator must be liquidated before the legacies can be claim- 
 ed. It follows that those slaves to whom their master has 
 promised post-obit emancipation, can only be emancipated to 
 the extent of one-third of the value of their persons when the 
 master leaves no other property, and they must perform 
 emancipatory labor for the benefit of the heirs, to the extent 
 of the other two-thirds ; and when the master dies insolvent, 
 they do not become free until, for the benefit of the deceas- 
 ed's creditors, they have earned by their labor property to 
 the full amount of their value. The third description of 
 slave is a female slave who has borne a child or children 
 to her master. The law is the same regarding this descrip- 
 tion of slave as regarding the second, with this difference in 
 
22 SLAVERY 
 
 her favor, that she is emancipated unconditionally on the 
 death of her master ; whether he may or may not have left 
 other assets, or whether he may have died in a state of in- 
 solvency or otherwise. But the parentage of the children 
 of such slave is not established in her master unless he 
 acknowledge the first-born. 
 
 Entire or unqualified slaves are infidels who have been 
 made captive in war, and their descendants, and who have 
 no claim to emancipation on any of the grounds just men- 
 tioned. They are absolutely and perpetually, without quali- 
 fication or limitation, slaves ; and besides those who answer 
 to this description, Muhamrnadan law recognises no others 
 as such. 
 
 According to Muhammadan law, slaves labor under almost 
 every species of legal incapacity. They cannot marry with- 
 out the consent of their masters. Their evidence is not 
 admissible, nor their acknowledgment, (unless they are 
 licensed,) in matters relating to property. They are not 
 generally eligible to fill any civil office in the state; nor 
 can they be executors, sureties, or guardians, (unless to the 
 minor children of their master, by special appointment ;) nor 
 are they competent to make a gift or sale, nor to inherit or 
 bequeath property. But as some counterpoise to these dis- 
 qualifications, they are exempted from many of the obliga- 
 tions of freedom. They are not liable to be sued except in 
 the presence of their masters; they are not subject to the 
 payment of taxes ; and they cannot be imprisoned for debt. 1 * 
 Any description of slave, however, may be licensed either for 
 
 * Mr. Macnaghten here adds "In criminal matters, the indul- 
 gences extended to them are more numerous j" but he has not stated 
 what those indulgences are, and I have no means of ascertaining. By 
 Muhammadan law, a master who has killed his slave is exempt from 
 kisas, or retaliation, to which he would be subject if he had killed any 
 other person but his slave, a provision which does not indicate a spirit 
 very indulgent to the slave in criminal matters. 
 
I N I N D I A . 23 
 
 a particular purpose, or generally for commercial transac- 
 tions ; in which case they are allowed to act to the extent 
 of their license. Masters may compel their slaves to marry. 
 Unqualified slaves may he sold to make good their wives' 
 dower and maintenance, and qualified slaves may be com- 
 pelled to lahor for the same purposes. A man cannot marry 
 a female slave so long as he has a free wife ; nor can he 
 under any circumstances marry his own slave girl; nor can 
 a slave marry his mistress. Persons who stand reciprocally 
 related within the prohibited degrees^ cannot be the slaves 
 of each other. When issue has been begotten between the 
 male slave of one person and the female slave of another, 
 the maxim of partus sequitur ventrem applies, and the 
 former has no legal title to the children so begotten. 
 
 It is a question how far the sale of a man's own person is 
 lawful w r hen reduced to extreme necessity. It is declared 
 justifiable in the Moheet-oo-Suriiklisee, a work of unexcep- 
 tionable authority. But while deference is paid to that 
 authority by admitting the validity of the sale, it is never- 
 theless universally contended that the contract should be 
 cancelled on the application of the slave, and that he should 
 be compelled by his labor to refund the value of what he had 
 received from his purchaser. It is admitted, however, by all 
 authorities, that a person may hire himself for any time, 
 even though it amount to servitude for life ; but minors so 
 hired may annul the contract on attaining majority. 
 
 * "A man may not marry his mother, nor his grandmother/ nor 
 his mother-in-law, nor his step-mother, nor his step-grandmother, nor 
 his daughter, nor his granddaughter, nor his daughter-in-law, nor his 
 granddaughter-in-law, nor his step-daughter, nor his sister, nor his 
 foster-sister, nor his niece, nor his aunt, nor his nurse. Nor is it law- 
 ful for a man to be married at the same time to any two women who 
 stand in such a degree of relation to each other, as that, if one of them 
 had been a male, they could not have intermarried." Macnaghten's 
 Muhammadan Law, p. 57. 
 
24 SLAVERY 
 
 ' 
 
 Such is a summary of the leading provisions of Muham- 
 madan law on the subject of slavery. 
 
 It now remains to show what is the British law of 
 slavery in India; and this might be stated in a single sen- 
 tence, viz., that it is a confirmation, with modifications, of the 
 Hindu and Muhammadan laws of slavery ; but in order to do 
 justice to the British government of India, and to furnish a 
 clear conception of the whole case, it is necessary to explain 
 the principle on which that confirmation professes to be 
 based. 
 
 An extensive territory by cession or conquest had, througji 
 the agency of the East India Company, become subject to 
 the crown and sovereignty of Great Britain. A primary 
 and essential duty of every just government towards its sub- 
 jects is that of publishing and enforcing an equitable system 
 of law, adapted to their actual condition and circumstances, 
 and calculated to protect them in the secure enjoyment of 
 their rights, natural and acquired. In the view of this 
 obligation, by various statutes in the reign of George III., a 
 supreme court of judicature, consisting of a chief justice and 
 three other judges, was established at Calcutta, and the 
 benefit of the laws of England, as far as applicable to India, 
 was extended by the legislature to all persons residing 
 within the town of Calcutta, and subsequently to all British 
 subjects, natives of Great Britain, or their descendants, resi- 
 dent in India or elsewhere within the limits of the East India 
 Company's exclusive trade. But the laws of England were 
 justly deemed inapplicable to the native population, who, 
 whether Muhammadans or Hindus, were previously in pos- 
 session of their respective written laws, under which they 
 had acquired property by descent, purchase, gift, and other 
 modes, and which they had been educated and habituated to 
 regard and venerate as sacred. There was accordingly, in 
 the statutes above mentioned, a reservation of the laws and 
 
I N I N D I A . 25 
 
 usages of the native inhabitants of Calcutta in cases of " in- 
 heritance and succession to lands, rents, and goods, and all 
 matters of contract and dealing between party and party, as 
 well as the rights and authorities of fathers and masters of 
 families;" that is, in all such cases, native laws and usages 
 were to be recognised and maintained. In 1772, the laws 
 and usages of the native inhabitants of the provinces were 
 as distinctly recognised. In that year, a plan for the admin- 
 istration of justice in the provinces was adopted, and it was 
 provided " that in all suits regarding inheritance, marriage, 
 caste, and other religious usages or institutions, the laws of 
 the Koran with respect to Muhammadans, and those of the 
 Shaster with respect to Gentoos, shall be invariably adhered 
 to. On all such occasions the Moulavies" (interpreters of 
 Muhammadan law) " or Brahmins" (interpreters of Hindu 
 law) "shall respectively attend to expound the law, and they 
 shall sign the report, and assist in passing the decree." In- 
 stead of the judicial plan of 1772, a more comprehensive 
 system of law and regulation was established by the Marquis 
 Cornwallis in 1793, and in that system also the following rule 
 was laid down for preserving to the natives their own laws 
 and usages: "In suits regarding succession, inheritance, 
 marriage, and caste, and all religious usages and institutions, 
 the Muhammadan laws with respect to Muhammadans, and 
 the Hindu laws with regard to Hindus, are to be considered 
 the general rules by which the judges are to form their 
 decision." This, then, was an original, and has always 
 continued to be a primary, rule of British law in India ; and 
 if the fundamental principle of all civil laws is, that they 
 ought to be " suitable to the genius of the people " subject 
 to their authority and operation, the wisdom, the justice, and 
 the humanity of adopting and adhering to it, must be pro- 
 nounced equally honorable to the British nation and govern- 
 ment, and conducive to the protection and contentment of the 
 natives of India. 
 3 
 
26 SLAVERY 
 
 Under this rule, however, this wise, just, and humane 
 rule for giving the natives the benefit of their own civil laws 
 regarding succession, inheritance, marriage, caste, and all 
 religious usages and institutions, the question early arose 
 whether it was applicable to cases of slavery. In 1798, this 
 question was referred to the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, the 
 supreme court of civil judicature on all questions of native 
 law, and it was explicitly admitted by that court that slavery 
 was not included in the letter of the rule. Slavery, as we 
 have seen, both in the Hindu and Muhammadan systems, 
 has provisions of law proper to that subject, and distinct 
 from those which regulate succession, inheritance, marriage, 
 and caste. Nor can slavery be deemed one of the religious 
 usages or institutions either of the Hindus or Muhammadans. 
 The rule is not, at least directly and strictly, applicable to 
 questions of personal freedom and bondage, and the Sudder 
 Dewany Adawlut had the strongest ground for denying that 
 slavery was included in the letter of the rule. And yet, in 
 the face of this admission or denial voluntarily made by the 
 court, that body, as if straining a point, not to protect the 
 interests of the community, not to extend the shield of jus- 
 tice over those whom the mere letter of the law would have 
 left unguarded, but to inflict a lasting curse on society, and 
 to rivet the fetters of the slave, whom, by their own acknow- 
 ledgment, the plain and direct letter of the law would have 
 liberated from his bonds that body, as if straining a point 
 for such a purpose, delivered the opinion that the spirit of 
 the rule for observing the Muhammadan and Hindu laws 
 was applicable to cases of slavery, and this construction was 
 confirmed by the governor-general in council, under date 
 the 12th April, 1798. This construction has never been 
 reversed, and it is the foundation on which slavery in British 
 India legally rests at the present 
 
 * Harington's Analysis of the Laws and Regulations, Vol. I. p. 1, 
 5, 6, 20, 67, 68 ; Macnaghten's Hindu Law, Vol. I. p. 113. 
 
I N I N D I A . 27 
 
 There are many views connected with the law and prac- 
 tice of slavery in British India that remain yet to be 
 presented. All that I have now attempted has been to give 
 a general outline of the original native systems of slavery, 
 and of the legal grounds on which those systems have been 
 perpetuated by the British government ; and thereby to 
 establish the fact of the existence of slavery in British 
 India, the groundlessness of the claim put forth that slavery 
 has ceased throughout the British dominions, and the 
 obligation on the British people to renew their efforts in 
 order to remove this taint which still clings to the national 
 character the obligation on all good men of every nation 
 to shame the British government to act up in India to the 
 professions in connection with this subject of which they 
 are so profuse elsewhere. Slavery not only exists in India, 
 but it has been unnecessarily and wantonly perpetuated 
 by a decision of the judges and resolution of the govern- 
 ment, in avowed disregard of the plain letter of the law. The 
 sanction of the British name, and of the power and authority 
 of the British government, professing to be a Christian 
 government, has thus been unworthily given to the anti- 
 quated systems of slavery originating in the barbarous and 
 intolerant policy of the Hindu and Muhammadan govern- 
 ments ; and this has been done in alleged conformity with 
 the spirit of the rule which secures to the natives of India 
 the enjoyment of their own civil laws and usages, but in 
 real opposition, not only to the letter, but even to the spirit 
 of that wise, just, and humane principle. For what is the 
 spirit of that law, apart from its mere letter, but to protect, 
 not any one class, but all classes, in the rights which 
 legitimately belong to them ? And to place any one class, 
 however poor, however ignorant, however degraded, at the 
 absolute and irresponsible disposal of another class, is alike 
 inconsistent with wisdom, with justice, and with humanity 
 
28 SLAVERYININDIA. 
 
 inconsistent with the fundamental principle of all civil 
 law and the primary object of all civil society, the equal 
 protection of all, and therefore inconsistent with the con- 
 stitution of a government which, like that of British India, 
 professes to recognise that principle and to aim at thai 
 object in its actual administration. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 TO THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Examination of the Legality of Hindu and Muhammadan Slavery 
 under the British Government in India. 
 
 Sm, The purport of what has been advanced on the 
 subject of slavery, is, that slavery exists in British India, 
 under the forms of law, and with the knowledge, authority, 
 and sanction of the British government. I propose now 
 to consider the grounds on which this legal sanction has 
 been given to slavery in British India. 
 
 At the bar of public reason and justice, are the grounds 
 sufficient on which the British government has given its 
 sanction to Hindu and Muhammadan slavery in India? I 
 do not appeal here to any abstract principle of natural jus- 
 tice or equality between man and man, which would put an 
 end. to all slavery, but I ask whether the legal grounds on 
 which this sanction has been given, are adequate ? I think 
 it may be shown that there are reasons for questioning the 
 validity of the decision on which the legality of the whole 
 system of Indian slavery now rests. 
 
 It has already been seen that the principle of the British 
 government is to give the natives of India the benefit of 
 their own laws regarding succession, inheritance, marriage, 
 caste, and all religious usages and institutions ; the Mu- 
 hammadan laws with regard to Muhammadans, and the 
 3* 
 
30 SLAVERY 
 
 Hindu laws with regard to Hindus, being considered the 
 general rules by which the judges are to form their decis- 
 ions. A second principle is, that while the civil law of both 
 classes is thus specifically recognised, both Hindus and 
 Muhammadans are subjected to the Muhammadan criminal 
 law, on the ground that the administration of criminal 
 justice would not admit of two systems essentially differing 
 from each other in the definition of crimes and punish- 
 ments ; and the Muhammadan criminal law was adopted as 
 the basis of a future uniform system, not so much from any 
 consideration of its specific provisions, as from its having 
 been long in force under the Musalman government, and 
 from its being therefore generally known to the inhab- 
 itants of the country. A third principle is, that the British 
 government, while it recognises Hindu and Muhammadan 
 civil law and enforces Muhammadan criminal law, reserves 
 to itself the right, by its own laws and regulations, of modi- 
 fying all these systems of law, and of prescribing forms of 
 procedure, as wisdom and experience may suggest. 
 
 In endeavoring to form a sound and accurate judgment 
 of the legal effect on slavery of this complicated state of 
 Hindu, Muhammadan, and British law, the first fact impor- 
 tant" to be borne in mind is, that until the recognition of 
 Hindu civil law by the British government in 1772, that 
 law had no legal force or obligation wherever the authority 
 of the Muhammadan government extended, during a pre- 
 ceding period of from 700 to 750 years. By this it is 
 not meant to be affirmed that Hindus, during that period, 
 under the Muhammadan government, did not practically 
 observe their own laws of succession and inheritance, 
 marriage and caste, and even of slavery ; but that those 
 laws were not recognised and enforced by the Muham- 
 madan government, and that the only law recognised and 
 enforced by that government, was the law of Islam. This 
 is a necessary consequence of the spirit and principle of the 
 
IN I N D I A. 31 
 
 Muhammadan religion, and of ail Muhammadan govern- 
 ments. By the Muhammadan law a foreign province or 
 country becomes annexed to the Muhammadan dominions 
 by the mere act of conquest and the exercise of even a part 
 of the law of Islam in it ; and to establish the law of Islam 
 within the Muhammadan dominions is mandatory on Mu- 
 hammadan rulers, and not optional to them. Even ques- 
 tions of inheritance among non-Moslem subjects are not 
 left to the decision of any other than a Moslem tribunal, 
 but must be decided according to the Muhammadan law, 
 and by Moslem judges, for every judge must be a Moslem. 
 During the whole period of the Muhammadan history in 
 India, though Hindus were employed in the highest offices 
 of trust and emolument, yet a Hindu judge was never 
 heard of, and assuredly no Muhammadan Kazi could ever 
 have been found to administer the civil laws of the Hindus.* 
 It follows that the Hindu law, including the law of slavery, 
 however it may have been reverenced and observed by the 
 Hindus themselves, or tolerated by the more enlightened 
 Muhammadan princes, had no force or obligation during 
 the whole period of the Muhammadan rule, and that it 
 was in every legal sense a dead letter until it was re-enacted 
 by the British government in 1772, and confirmed by the 
 system of law and regulation promulgated in 1793. Up 
 to the former of these periods, the Hindu law had no vitality. 
 It could not be pleaded in any court of justice. It could 
 not form the ground of any judicial decision. It was 
 legally as if it had never been. 
 
 This was the state of the law in 1765, when the British 
 acquired the government of Bengal, Behar, and part of 
 Orissa ; and Muhammadan law alone continued to be 
 administered under their authority, by native officers under 
 
 * See Observations on the Law and Constitution of India, Chapter 
 I. p. 1025. 
 
32 SLAVERY 
 
 European supervisors, till 1772. This enables us to per- 
 ceive what was the precise effect of the plan for the 
 administration of justice adopted in the last-mentioned 
 year. Previous to that period, Hindu slavery may have 
 existed, and no doubt did exist practically ; that is, by the 
 force of immemorial custom and usage, persons of the 
 Hindu race and religion no doubt held slaves, and by the 
 force of the same ties persons were no doubt found willing 
 to submit to that condition of life under Hindu masters. 
 There was a Hindu institution of slavery just as property 
 descended, marriage was contracted, caste was observed, 
 and religion practised according to Hindu law, and no 
 otherwise. All these institutions existed, slavery as well LO 
 every other, but they existed only as customs, not lavs. 
 They were not recognised under the Muhammadan law, 
 the only law administered by the rulers of the land, and 
 they had only the force which the opinion, the practice, and 
 the mutual consent of the parties concerned gave them. 
 Under these circumstances the British law of 1772 was 
 promulgated, providing " that in all suits regarding inher- 
 itance, marriage, caste, and other religious usages or 
 institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to Muham- 
 madans, and those of the Shaster with respect to Hindus, 
 shall be invariably adhered to." This was confirmed in 
 the code of 1793, and extended, from time to time, to the 
 provinces acquired by arms or by treaty. The effect of 
 this was to secure to Muhammadans living under the 
 British government the continued enjoyment of their own 
 laws ; to free Hindus from subjection to Muhammadan 
 laws; and further, to give legal force and obligation in 
 favor of Hindus to their own laws and institutions. This 
 was not done in general and unexceptional terms, but it was 
 definitely and specifically provided thai each class of the 
 population should have the benefit of its own laws only in 
 suits regarding inheritance, marriage, caste, and religion. 
 
I N I N D I A . 33 
 
 If the terms employed had been absolute and indefinite, 
 this would have amounted to an adoption by the British 
 government of all Hindu and Muhammadan laws, without 
 exception ; but it was expressly stated that it was only in 
 certain descriptions of suits that each class was to enjoy its 
 own laws. If in this specification suits of slave against 
 master, or master against slave, had been mentioned, then 
 the institution of slavery would have been legalized ; but 
 there was no mention of slavery, and thus Hindu slavery, 
 at least, still remained as it had been for hundreds of years, 
 beyond the pale of the law; illegal, existing by custom 
 alone, unauthorized by any known or acknowledged gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It thus appears that the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, the 
 supreme court of native judicature in Bengal, when the 
 subject was referred to it in 1798, had ample ground for af- 
 firming that the law of 1793, which is the same in substance 
 and almost in terms with that of 1772, did not in its letter 
 include slavery ; and we are now also prepared to consider 
 how far that body was justified in pronouncing that the 
 spirit of that law did include slavery. On this very extra- 
 ordinary assumption, let it in the first place be remarked, 
 that the spirit of all law, except that which is the mere 
 expression of brute-force, consists in doing justice between 
 man and man. There is probably not an instance of a law 
 enacted by any nation or government except for the purpose 
 of enforcing some real or supposed obligation, or protecting 
 some real or supposed right. In this general view of the 
 spirit and end of all law, there cannot be any doubt that 
 the person called a slave has a better right to his freedom 
 and the fruit of his own labor, than another person called 
 a master has to deprive him of them. But waving this 
 general view, and looking only at the particular law under 
 consideration, it maybe further affirmed that the only legit- 
 imate way of ascertaining the spirit of this or of any law, 
 
34 SLAVERY 
 
 is by attending to its letter ; and that to attempt, as in the 
 present instance, to divorce the letter from the spirit, and to 
 find in the spirit that which is confessedly not contained in 
 the letter, is inconsistent with the plainest dictates of reason 
 and common sense. By seeking for the spirit of a law 
 elsewhere than in its letter, where is the limit that can be 
 put to conjectural or interested interpretations, emendations, 
 and additions? If then, adhering to this rule, we seek the 
 spirit of the law in its letter, what does the letter teach us ? 
 What spirit does it breathe ? It breathes a spirit eminently 
 friendly to civil and religious liberty, and in the same 
 degree honorable to the British nation and government 
 from which it emanated. If the British government of 
 India had imitated the Muhammadan government which it 
 displaced, whatever it might have connived at, it would have 
 refused all legal toleration both of the Hindu and Muham- 
 madan religions, and would have subjected both classes of 
 the native population to one unvarying system of English 
 law, thus subverting all native institutions, and introducing 
 endless confusion into native society. Instead of pursuing 
 such a course, the very first law which the English govern- 
 ment in India promulgates on its own authority, is one 
 which grants both to Hindus and Musalmans full legal 
 protection in the free profession and exercise of their 
 respective religions, and at the same time assures to them 
 the enjoyment of their own laws and usages regarding 
 the descent of property, marriage, and caste, which include 
 those relations and transactions of life, the legal regulation 
 of which according to established custom is essential to the 
 peace and good order, the happiness and contentment of 
 society. There can be no doubt that policy as well as 
 wisdom, a sense of the weakness and instability of incipient 
 power as well as the liberality of their own dispositions 
 and principles, dictated these provisions to the English ; but 
 while this is admitted, let it not at the same time be forgot- 
 
I N I N D I A . 35 
 
 ten that at the very height of the paramount authority 
 which they now possess in India, the same wise, and just, 
 and enlightened principles of civil and religious liberty are 
 publicly recognised and faithfully maintained. The errors 
 and crimes of the English in India have been neither few 
 nor small ; but the principle of their government contained 
 in this law breathes a spirit equally wise and just, honora- 
 ble and humane. By what perversion of mental vision is it 
 that, while the letter of this law makes no mention of 
 slavery, the spirit of it has been misunderstood and misre- 
 presented so as to call into legal existence a system of 
 slavery, that of the Hindus, which probably for a period of 
 700 years had possessed only an illegal existence ? By 
 what obliquity of judgment, by what torturing interpre- 
 tation is it, that while the spirit of this law breathes only 
 toleration, protection, and kindness to every other class and 
 individual in the native society of British India, the man 
 who is illegally held in bondage by a Hindu master has his 
 fetters rivetted by it,- and the unjust power of his master over 
 him confirmed and perpetuated? By what fatal blindness, 
 by what perverted ingenuity, by what criminal inattention 
 is it, that while the British government of India was raising 
 a monument to its own glory, in the establishment of a law 
 at once just and generous, such a false gloss was put upon 
 its spirit by the judges, and adopted by the government, as 
 turns that glory into shame, by giving its sanction to Hin- 
 du slavery, and legalizing the bondage of hundreds of thou- 
 sands of oppressed and injured men and women? Such 
 are the deplorable effects flowing from the construction put 
 upon the spirit as contra-distinguished from the letter of 
 this law by British judges, legislators, and statesmen in India. 
 Such a distinction, however untenable, as I conceive, on 
 sound legal principle, may yet be defended and justified on 
 the ground of the practical good which it would secure. 
 It is possible to conceive that the letter of a law rigidly 
 
36 SLAVERY 
 
 interpreted would inflict palpable injustice in the way either 
 of inclusion or exclusion, either by including a case plainly 
 not contemplated by the legislator, or by excluding a case 
 which the legislator as plainly designed to embrace in its 
 provisions. Under such circumstances, pending a remedy 
 by a fresh act of legislation, the interpreter of the law 
 would be justified in correcting its spirit to the disregard of 
 its letter ; and accordingly, under every government there is 
 a discretionary and corrective authority lodged somewhere, 
 to temper the strict and indiscriminating operation of the 
 letter of the law, and to bring it into a conformity with its 
 real spirit. But who ever heard, except under the most 
 flagrant tyrannies, of the spirit of a law being in- 
 voked against its letter, not to guard against a possible 
 injustice, but to inflict a certain, a wide-spreading, a canker- 
 ing, withering, destructive national injustice ? Not to 
 guard personal freedom, but to outrage it ? Not to protect 
 the rights of industry, but to trample upon them ? Not to 
 protect the poor against the rich, the few against the many, 
 the weak against the powerful, but to overwhelm the ille- 
 gally oppressed with legal bonds, and to tighten, not to 
 loose, the bonds of the oppressor ? 
 
 The preceding remarks refer exclusively to the legaliza- 
 tion given to Hindu slavery by the interpretation put on the 
 judicial regulations of 1772 and 1793; but the case is very 
 different with regard to Muhammadan slavery. Slavery is 
 a recognised institution of Muhammadan law, and Muham- 
 madan law, as we have seen, was in full force under the 
 Muhammadan government, and continued to be enforced 
 under the British government by the agency of Muham- 
 madan judges at least till 1772. It may be made a 
 question what was the precise effect on Muhammadan 
 slavery of the law passed in that year, providing that in all 
 suits regarding inheritance, marriage, caste, and religious 
 usages and institutions, the laws of the Koran should be 
 
I N I N D I A . 37 
 
 invariably adhered to with respect to Muhammadans. 
 There can be no doubt that the fact that Muhammadan law 
 had continued to be enforced and administered up to that 
 date, renders it probable that the Muhammadan law of 
 slavery would not be abrogated without an express decla- 
 ration to that effect ; and it may even be contended with 
 some plausibility that as the law of slavery is merely one 
 of the forms of the law of property in as far as the master 
 is concerned, the recognition of the Muhammadan law for 
 Muhammadans, in suits regarding succession and inheri- 
 tance to property, is a virtual and de facto recognition of the 
 Muhammadan law of slavery. On the other hand> it may 
 be alleged that slavery is not expressly mentioned, and that 
 it is too important not to have been mentioned if it had been 
 intended to include and legalize it as one of the civil insti- 
 tutions of the country ; and it may be further urged in 
 favor of a tacit disallowance of the Muhammadan law of 
 slavery in the law of 1772, that in the same law there is an 
 analogous tacit disallowance of the Muhammadan laws of 
 inheritance and marriage, for instance, with regard to Hin- 
 dus, by expressly allowing the latter the free enjoyment of 
 their own laws and usages in such matters. TKe Hindu 
 laws of inheritance and marriage are expressly re-enacted, 
 w r hich amounts to a tacit or implied abrogation of Muham- 
 madan law in as for as it had been previously applied to 
 such subjects ; and in like manner it migfa not unreason- 
 ably be deemed that the silence of the Uw of 1772, re- 
 garding Muhammadan slavery, was a virtual abrogation 
 of it. On the principle that, in doubtful questions of law, 
 that interpretation should be maintained which is most con- 
 formable to natural right and liberty, /t would be justest and 
 safest to hold that the Muhammadan law of slavery was not 
 recognised as a civil institution under the British government 
 by the law of 1772, and by the confirmatory code of 1793. 
 However this question may be regarded, there cannot be 
 4 
 
38 SLAVERY 
 
 any doubt that the Muhammadan law of slavery has been 
 formally recognised by the British government as a portion 
 of the Muhammadan criminal law. For, in the first place, 
 the law of 1772 expressly recognises slavery as a mode of 
 punishment. As this is the first legal recognition of slavery 
 by the British government in India, and as it contains pro- 
 visions which every Englishman must read with a salutary 
 shame, and every friend of his fellow-man with a just 
 indignation, the clause in question shall be quoted here 
 entire : 
 
 " That whereas the peace of this country hath for some 
 years past been greatly disturbed by bands of Deceits, who 
 not only infest the high roads, but often plunder whole 
 villages, burning the houses and murdering the inhabitants; 
 and whereas these abandoned outlaws have hitherto found 
 means to elude every attempt which the vigilance of govern- 
 ment hath put in force, for detecting and bringing such 
 atiocious criminals to justice, by the secrecy of their haunts, 
 and the wild state of the districts which are most subject to 
 their Incursions ; it becomes the indispensable duty of govern- 
 ment to try the most rigorous means, since experience has 
 proved every lenient and ordinary remedy to be ineffectual : 
 That it be therefore resolved, that every such criminal, on 
 conviction, shall be carried to the village to which he belongs, 
 and be there executed for a terror and example to others ; 
 and for the fuither prevention of such abominable practices, 
 that the village of which he is an inhabitant shall be fined 
 according to the enormity of the crime, and each inhabitant 
 according to his substance; and that the family of the 
 criminal shall becom?. the slaves of the state, and be disposed 
 of for the general Imefit and, convenience of the people, 
 according to the discretion of the government"* 
 
 This clause of the law of 1772 has been quoted solely in 
 
 * See Colebrooke's Digest ol the Regulations, Supplement, p. 7. 
 
IN INDIA. 39 
 
 proof of the fact that slavery was thus early recognised by 
 the British government of India. But who can fail to per- 
 ceive that it proves more than this ? It proves that some at 
 least of the Englishmen of those days were heartless mon- 
 sters, unworthy to be called men, not only fining every 
 inhabitant of an entire village, without discrimination, for 
 the crime of one of their number which the criminal himself 
 had been made to expiate by his death, but in the calm 
 deliberation of a legislative act ruthlessly condemning the 
 innocent and helpless children of the criminal to perpetual 
 slavery for the crime of their parent. I do not recollect to 
 have met with any example of legislation in modern times to 
 be compared with this for inhuman, cold-blooded, atrocious 
 cruelty. It must be added, that this was an addition^ by 
 British rulers to Muhammadan law, and an addition so 
 grossly unjust that the Muhammadan judges who, under 
 their control and authority, administered the law, refused, for 
 this and other reasons, to conform the sentences which they 
 pronounced to the law which had been prescribed to them. 
 In consequence of this opposition, it is doubtful whether it 
 was ever enforced,! but if it was not, its inoperation was not 
 for want of strenuous efforts on the part of its principal 
 author, the notorious Warren Hastings, to enforce it. Find- 
 ing the native judges too just, humane, and independent for 
 his purposes, he wrote an official letter or minute t with ex- 
 press reference to the article that. has just been quoted of the 
 Judicial Regulations, which declares that Deceits or gang- 
 robbers shall suffer death, and their families be condemned 
 to perpetual slavery, and proposed that these punishments 
 should be "literally enforced," and that where they are not 
 included in the sentences of the native court, they should be 
 
 * See Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. p. 308. 
 
 f See Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. pp. 300, 301. 
 
 | See Colebrooke's Digest of the Regulations, Supplement, p. 114. 
 
40 SLAVERY 
 
 superadded to those sentences by an immediate act of govern- 
 ment The natural abhorrence of men at unnecessary cruelty 
 seems to have prevented the success of his truculent efforts, 
 and this stain upon the British name and British legislation 
 was wiped away by the Judicial Regulations of 1793, which 
 provided other punishments for gang-robbery. 
 
 Another recommendation which Warren Hastings offered 
 was carried into effect, and it still further proves the recogni- 
 tion of slavery by the British Indian government even in those 
 early days of its power. He proposed that every convicted 
 felon and murderer not condemned to death by the sentence 
 of the court, and every criminal who had been already sen- 
 tenced either to work during life upon the roads, or to suffer 
 perpetual imprisonment, should "be sold for slaves, or trans- 
 ported as such to the Company's establishment at Fort Marl- 
 borough," that is, at Bencoolen, in the island of Sumatra. 
 "By this means," he coolly argued, "the government will 
 be released from a heavy expense in erecting prisons, keep- 
 ing guards in monthly pay, and in the maintenance of 
 accumulating crowds of prisoners. The sale of the convicts 
 will raise a considerable fund if these disorders continue; 
 if not, the effect will be yet more beneficial."^ Such were 
 the crude notions and the barbarous forms of penal legisla- 
 tion among civilized Englishmen in 1772 and 1773 ; and 
 their influence was felt to a very late period. At Bencoolen, 
 the best and most extensive plantations of the nutmeg and 
 clove are worked by slaves. There the East India Com- 
 pany had a body of negro slaves, held in contempt and 
 detestation by the natives, who considered them as a species 
 of incarnate devils, and lost no opportunity of doing them 
 an injury.t It was to add to this slave population, that the 
 East India Company continued to transport convicted felons 
 
 * Colebrooke' s Digest of the Regulations, Supplement, p. J 15, 
 f Hamilton's Gazetteer, Vol. I. p. 172; VoL II. p. 597, 
 
I N I N D I A . 41 
 
 from the continent of India to Bencoolen, until that place, 
 with all their other settlements on the island of Sumatra, 
 was delivered up to the Dutch in 1825. 
 
 It is essential to our present purpose to notice the legal 
 forms in which Muhammadan slavery continues to be recog- 
 nised by the British Indian government of the present day; 
 and this is done by the adoption of the Muhammadan as the 
 British Indian criminal code, and by the amendment relating 
 to slavery which has been introduced into it. The entire 
 body of Muhammadan criminal law, with exceptions, has 
 been adopted by the British Indian government. Instead of 
 abrogating the Muhammadan criminal law, which, however 
 defective, had been long in force, and was therefore well 
 known to the people, the courts of judicature established on 
 the part of the East India Company throughout their 
 territorial possessions, are required, in the administration of 
 criminal justice, to be guided by the Muhammadan law, 
 excepting cases wherein a deviation from it may have been 
 expressly authorized by the regulations of the British 
 government. Now, according to Muhammadan law, if a 
 rnan kill the slave of another, capital punishment, or, in the 
 language of that law, retaliation of death, is incurred; but 
 retaliation of death in cases of murder, being considered with 
 respect to slaves the right of their masters, they are at liberty 
 to remit the claim and forgive the offender, or to compound 
 with the consent of the murderer for a compensation. Still 
 further, if a master murder his own slave he is not liable to 
 retaliation of death. The demand of retaliation is further 
 barred if the person murdered be the joint slave of the 
 murderer and others ; the right failing in proportion to the 
 murderer's share, and retaliation of death not admitting of 
 being inflicted in part only. The same principle is appli- 
 cable if the person killed be a slave appropriated by the 
 owner to the public service, that is, capital punishment is 
 4* 
 
42 SLAVERY 
 
 not incurred.^ It must b evident that this makes the life 
 of the slave the sport of caprice and passion, without any 
 protection from the law ; and accordingly the Regulations of 
 the East India Company have enacted that in those cases in 
 which a convicted murderer would not be liable under the 
 Muhammadan law to suffer death by retaliation, solely on 
 the ground of the murdered person having been the slave 
 of the murderer, or of any other person, or a slave appro- 
 priated for the service of the public, the* murderer shall be 
 sentenced to suffer death. This amendment of the Muham- 
 madan criminal law affords only just and equal protection to 
 the slave,, and its enactment was equally wise and humane ; 
 but it will be observed, that it contains a distinct legal re- 
 cognition of slavery, and of slavery as founded on and 
 authorized by Muhammadan law. It corrects certain grossly 
 partial and unjust provisions of the Muhammadan law of 
 slavery, and ipso facto it recognises all the remaining pro- 
 visions of that law. The Muhammadan law of slavery then 
 is undoubtedly the law of British India. It is recognised 
 as such in those legislative acts called the Rules and Regula- 
 tions of the East India Company, passed by the local govern- 
 ment, confirmed by the Court of Directors, approved by the 
 Parliament of Great Britain, and thus having all the force 
 and effect of law in British India. 
 
 The conclusions at which we have arrived regard, first, 
 Hindu, and second, Muhammadan slavery. It has been 
 shown that Hindu slavery is not legal under the British 
 government, but that the force of a practical legality has 
 been given to it by the mistaken application to this subject 
 of the law which secures to Hindus the benefit of their own 
 laws in suits regarding inheritance and succession, marriage, 
 caste, and religion. The effect of the unfortunate interpreta- 
 tion given to this law, is unnecessarily to legalize Hindu 
 slavery. It is not by a positive, direct, and unequivocal law 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. pp. 261, 262, 264, 314. 
 
I N I N D I A . 43 
 
 of the British government that Hindu slavery has been 
 legalized, but by a doubtful interpretation of a law, the letter 
 of which is silent on the subject, but the spirit of which is 
 conceived to include slavery. A different, and as I believe 
 a more correct, interpretation would make Hindu slavery 
 illegal, and would at once entitle to their liberty thousands 
 of slaves now held in bondage by Hindu masters. I know 
 that much may be said about the generally mild character 
 of Hindu domestic slavery, of which I shall hereafter treat, 
 and which, to whatever extent it really may exist, I am not 
 disposed either to deny or to conceal ; but the question here 
 is not whether slaves held by Hindu masters are well or ill 
 treated, but whether they are entitled to the use of their own 
 limbs and the fruits of their own industry. Much also may 
 be said about the danger of disturbing property by a mere 
 interpretation of law ; but it is by a mere interpretation of 
 law that thousands of persons held as slaves by Hindu 
 masters have been for two generations, and are to this day, 
 deprived of their liberty, and it is to remedy this state of the 
 law that a more thorough investigation of the case is now 
 urged. The subject, which is merely one of oppressed 
 humanity, is so remote from the usual fiscal objects which 
 almost absorb the attention of the British Indian govern- 
 ment, that the required investigation is not likely to be 
 made, unless demanded by public opinion, the public opinion 
 of India, of England, and of the friends of human liberty in 
 every part of the civilized world. The investigation, if 
 made, may result differently from what I anticipate, by 
 establishing the correctness of the interpretation which I call 
 in question ; but believing, as I firmly do, in the incorrectness 
 of that interpretation, knowing that it is the sole legal ground 
 on which Hindu slavery rests, and that the disallowance of 
 it would be the simplest, the safest, and the least offensive 
 mode of abolishing the whole system of Hindu slavery, I 
 have deemed it my duty to bring forward the subject as I 
 
44 SLAVERY 
 
 have now done, that the necessary stimulus may be applied 
 to those who wield the powers of the Indian government, 
 whether in England or in the East. 
 
 The conclusion at which we have arrived regarding 
 Muhammadan slavery, however apparently different, is in 
 fact equally friendly to the early termination of that system 
 of slavery. It has been shown that the only legal slavery 
 existing under the authority of the British government in 
 India, is Muhammadan slavery, that is, slavery as recognised 
 and sanctioned by Muhammadan law. But under the 
 Muhammadan law there are only two descriptions of per- 
 sons recognised as slaves : first, infidels made captive during 
 war; and secondly, their descendants. All other descrip- 
 tions of slavery, such as that created by the mere force of 
 immemorial custom or usage, by bond-debts, by purchase 
 of free children, by kidnapping, by importation, all are 
 illegal ; and all that is required to liberate such slaves, is, 
 that they should understand their legal condition, should 
 have the courage to claim and exercise the freedom that 
 belongs to them, and that in claiming and exercising it they 
 should be supported and countenanced by the authorities 
 constituted to administer justice. With regard to the two 
 descriptions of slavery recognised by the Muhammadan law, 
 it cannot be affirmed that such slaves are to be found through- 
 out India at the present day. The first description is that 
 of infidels made captive in war; but the Muhammadan 
 power has ceased to exist in India for three quarters of a 
 century, except in the case of four tributary and dependent 
 princes, who have never carried on any religious war, nor 
 made slaves of their captives. Previous to that period, the 
 Muhammadan power was either in name or in reality su- 
 preme and paramount, and the wars that were waged for 
 centuries were, almost without exception, between Muham- 
 madan princes, the rival pretenders to supreme authority, 
 and not directed against infidels. From the accession of the 
 
I N I N D I A . 45 
 
 house of Timur in 1525, there was no religious war carried 
 on by Muhammadans against Hindus, except during the 
 period intervening between 1678 and 1681, by Aurungzeb, 
 against the Rajputs, a Hindu race of Central India. In the 
 first campaign, conducted by the emperor in person, he was 
 signally unsuccessful ; in the second, his arms were more 
 prosperous ; and after the third, he was necessitated to grant 
 them a peace ; nor, as far as I have been able to discover, is 
 there any proof in history that he made any of his captives 
 slaves. The most recent example of a proselytizing Muham- 
 madan sovereign was Tippoo Sahib, the ruler of Mysore, 
 who employed coercion to make both Hindus and native 
 Christians Musalmans; but it does not appear that he made 
 any of them slaves, and after his death there were found in 
 the Mysore territories only about 17,000 Muhammadan 
 families in a total number of 482,612 families, and of 
 2,171,754 inhabitants. It is thus physically impossible 
 that there should exist at the present day any slaves 
 who have become such by being captured by Muham- 
 madans in war. The second description of slaves is that 
 of persons descended from those who had been made slaves 
 by such means. It is not to be denied that by a mere 
 possibility such persons may exist as slaves at the present 
 day; but how is their descent, the proof of which is neces- 
 sary to the legality of their slavery, to be established ? It is 
 in the highest degree improbable that such proof should 
 exist, and as it belongs to the master to establish by proof 
 the legality of the grounds on which he holds another in 
 unwilling servitude, this description of slavery also, if not 
 absolutely non-existent, which is probable, is yet untenable 
 by legal proof. Thus, under the Muhammadan law, the 
 only legal kinds of slavery are either non-existent or un- 
 provable, and the only actual kinds of slavery are illegal a 
 state of things which a wise and humane government would 
 promptly turn to account to put an end to slavery altogether, 
 
46 SLAVERY 
 
 in name and fact as well as in law ; and which a govern- 
 ment neither wise nor humane, or one inattentive to the 
 rights of humanity and to the dictates of a wise policy, must 
 be taught to employ for that purpose. 
 
 It is fit that I should state that the views I have presented 
 both of the Hindu and Muhammadan laws of slavery are 
 not new, although the practical inferences deducible from 
 them have been wholly neglected. In 1808 and 1809, Mr. 
 Richardson, then judge and magistrate of the district of 
 Bundlecund, proposed for the adoption of the Bengal govern- 
 ment a " Regulation for checking and reforming the abuses 
 that have crept into practice and at present exist with re- 
 spect to slavery within the British dominions subordinate to 
 the presidency and government of Fort William;" and in 
 the correspondence which ensued on this subject he took 
 the ground that the Hindu law of slavery should be set 
 aside as having been long dormant under the Musalman 
 government, and that operation should be given only to the 
 strict provisions of the Muhammadan law as the established 
 system enforced by the British criminal courts, not only in 
 cases affecting personal freedom, but even in such as extend 
 to life and death. Mr. Harington, the author of a valuable 
 analysis of the Laws and Regulations of the British Indian 
 government, controverted this doctrine, resting his judg- 
 ment on the opinion pronounced by the supreme court of 
 native judicature, " that the spirit of the rule for observing 
 the Muhammadan and Hindu laws was applicable to cases 
 of slavery, though not included in the letter of it," with- 
 out perceiving that that opinion itself had no tenable 
 foundation to rest upon. Thus he argues that " if the 
 spirit of the rule for observing the Muhammadan and 
 Hindu laws which has guided the East India Company's 
 courts of judicature, since their first establishment in these 
 provinces, be applicable to cases of slavery, the fair and 
 impartial application of it will require, as heretofore, the 
 
IN INDIA. . 47 
 
 Same regard to the Hindu law as to the Muhammadan, 
 when the claimants may be of either persuasion ;" the very 
 point thus assumed being the very point to be proved in 
 order to the validity of the argument. " The actual exis- 
 tence," Mr. Harington' goes on to argue, " of numerous 
 slaves in the possession of Hindu landholders, contradicts 
 the supposition that the Hindu law of slavery had remained 
 dormant under the Musalman government ;" whereas this 
 is only one of several illegal forms of slavery which then 
 existed, and which even still continue to exist. The 
 possession of stolen property does not establish the honesty 
 of the holder. The readiness to inflict and even to sub- 
 mit to injustice does not convert wrong into right. " I am 
 not aware," he adds, " of any preference given by the 
 judicial regulations now in force to the Muhammadan law 
 where the parties are Hindus, except in the administration 
 of criminal justice." Now this exception is the v precise 
 exception which applies to the case under discussion, even 
 according to his own showing, for he had expressly admit- 
 ted in a preceding paragraph" that all claims and disputes 
 respecting slavery," " as involving the right of personal 
 freedom, maybe considered in that respect within the proper 
 jurisdiction of the criminal courts," and consequently as 
 falling under the exception which establishes a preference 
 in favor of Muhammadan law, and gives it a force which is 
 not conceded to Hindu law.^ 
 
 With respect to Muhammadan law, which he had more 
 thoroughly studied, Mr. Harington's views are clearer and 
 more explicit, and they fully and strongly confirm all the 
 statements I have advanced. " With respect to slaves," he 
 says, " it must be remembered that those referred to in the 
 Muhammadan law, and in a strict view of it alone to be 
 considered legal slaves, are infidels conquered and made 
 
 * Harington's Anaty'sis, Vol. I. pp. 68 73. 
 
48 SLAVERY 
 
 captive in war. They are held to be the property of the 
 captors by right of conquest." " Nor can any other title 
 legalize the slavery of a freeman, whether Musalman or 
 infidel, so as to bring it within the provisions of the 
 Muhammadan criminal law."^ Mr. Macnaghten, another 
 high authority on native law, employs still more decided 
 language. "The question of Muhammadan slavery seems 
 to be but little understood. According to strict law, the state 
 of bondage, as far as Musalmans are concerned, may be 
 said to be almost extinct in this country, (India.) They 
 only are slaves who are captured in an infidel territory in 
 time of war, or who are the descendants of such captives. 
 Perhaps thefe is no point of law which has been more 
 deliberately and formally determined than this." " Of 
 those who can legally be called slaves but few at present 
 exist. In the ordinary acceptation of the term, all persons 
 arc counted slaves who may have been sold by their parents 
 in a time. of scarcity, and this class is very numerous. 
 Thousands are at this moment living in a state of hopeless 
 and contented, though unauthorized, bondage. That the 
 illegality of this state of things should be known is certainly 
 desirable."! 
 
 I have thus, as I proposed, examined the grounds on 
 v/hich a legal sanction has been given to slavery in Brit- 
 ish India, and have shown that those grounds demand 
 reconsideration. That reconsideration will not be given 
 with the requisite earnestness, promptitude, and friendly 
 regard for the rights of personal freedom, unless the stim- 
 ulus of public opinion shall be applied. " A vis inertia" 
 says Mr. A. D. Campbell, speaking from an experience of 
 twenty-two years in the exercise of numerous and grave 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. p. 262, note. 
 
 f Macnaghten' s Principles and Precedents of Muhammadan Law, 
 Preliminary Remarks, pp. xxx xxxix. 
 
I N I N D I A . 49 
 
 functions under the Indian government "a vis inertia 
 hostile to all change seems inherent in the local governments 
 of India, imbibed perhaps from the people subject to their 
 rule, whose characteristic peculiarity is a tenacity of long- 
 established customs. Even when improvements are sug- 
 gested by the constituted authorities, the voice of their 
 servants has little weight in favor of new measures. Re- 
 sponsibility is avoided by following the beaten track, and 
 silence is the safest reply to those who propose a deviation, 
 from it, even for the sake of humanity. The outcry raised 
 in India against the Suttee was long powerless, until it 
 returned reverberated from the British shore : and that 
 against slavery will continue disregarded, unless it receives 
 support from all the energy of the home government." 3 * 
 The fact of this deplorable apathy is undoubted, and is 
 attested by all experience ; the explanation of it, as arising 
 from the contagious example of the natives, is more than 
 questionable. It is to be traced to the radical vice of the 
 British government of India, which is, that that govern- 
 ment has been exercised^ sometimes avowedly, always in 
 fact, for the profit of English rulers, not for the benefit of 
 the Indian people. The proof of this is found in the fact 
 that " long-established customs " have never been permitted 
 to stand in the way of any plan or project promising an 
 increase of revenue ; while an objection of this nature, nay, 
 even the semblance of such an objection, when the objection 
 is wholly without foundation, is deemed all but insuperable, 
 and sometimes wholly so, in opposition to any design pro- 
 posing the amelioration of the condition of the people. 
 What have rulers with the increase of revenue uppermost 
 in their thoughts and most prominent in their objects and 
 calculations, what have rulers acting on such a principle 
 to do with a question of humanity, which has no direct or 
 
 * Report from Select Committee on Affairs of the East India Com- 
 pany; Appendix, Public, pp. 576, 577. 
 5 
 
50 SLAVER YIN INDIA. 
 
 apparent connection with their primary and ultimate pur- 
 pose, which merely proposes to strike off the shackles 
 from some hundreds of thousands of their subjects, and to 
 raise them from the degradation of slaves to the dignity of 
 men and members of civil society ? This is a vice which 
 pervades equally the home and the local governments of 
 India, perhaps the former in a higher degree, because 
 those who conduct the home government have seldom that 
 vivid perception of the evil which local residence and ob- 
 servation alone can bestov/. Its strength has been shown 
 by the neglect with which a recommendation of the Impe- 
 rial Parliament on the subject of slavery has been treated. 
 In the original draft of the bill for renewing the East India 
 Company's charter in 1S33, there was a clause providing 
 for the total abolition of slavery throughout British India. 
 In the progress of the measure through the House of Lords, 
 that clause was struck out and another substituted, which 
 appears as the SSth clause of the present charter act, 
 enacting that " The governor-general in council shall, and 
 he is hereby required forthwith to take into considera- 
 tion the means of mitigating the state of slavery, and of 
 ameliorating the condition of slaves, and of extinguishing 
 slavery throughout the said territories so soon as such 
 extinction shall be practicable and safe; and from time to 
 time to prepare and transmit .to the said Court of Directors 
 drafts of laws and regulations for the purposes aforesaid," 
 &c. &c. Such was one of the conditions on which the 
 charter was granted in JS33, and up to the present tjme 
 nothing has been suggested by the home government or 
 done by the local government to mitigate the state- of slavery, 
 to ameliorate the condition of slaves, or to extinguish slavery. 
 Thje recommendation has been practically inoperative upon 
 slaves and slavery in India from 1833 to 1840. Nothing 
 has been done, and nothing will be done effectually, until 
 public opinion be aroused to demand justice for India and 
 attention to the wants and the wrongs of her people. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 TO THOMAS POWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Administration of Hindu and Muhammadan Slave-Law under the 
 British Government in India. 
 
 SIR, We have hitherto considered Indian slavery as it 
 is presented in the letter of Hindu, Muhammadan, and 
 British law. I propose now to exhibit that law as inter- 
 preted and administered in British Indian courts of justice. 
 As a necessary preliminary to this view, I shall mention the 
 source from which I draw my materials, and thus enable 
 you to judge of the degree of confidence to which my state- 
 ments may be entitled. 
 
 The general regulations for the administration of justice 
 made and ordained by the president and council in Bengal 
 on the 21st August, 1772, provided that, in all suits in 
 which the Muhammadans arid Hindus were to have the 
 benefit of their own laws, " the Moulavies or Brahmins," 
 (that is, the learned Muhammadan or Hindu law-officers 
 attached to the courts,) " shall respectively attend to expound 
 the law ; and they shall sign the report and assist in passing 
 the decree."^ This provision was embodied in the code 
 of 1793. "The Muhammadan and Hindu law-officers, 
 attached to the several civil courts, are required to expound 
 the law of their respective persuasions; and the judges are 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Regulations and Laws, Supplement, p. 5. 
 
52 SLAVERY 
 
 directed to be guided by their exposition, in all cases wherein 
 they have no reason to doubt the accuracy of it. But if in 
 any case they entertain such doubt, either from objections 
 of the parties, founded on other law opinions exhibited by 
 them ; or from a reference to the known books of Muharn- 
 madan and Hindu law ; or from whatever cause, if the court 
 trying the suit consider the exposition given by its imme- 
 diate law-officer insufficient; it is declared at liberty to 
 obtain a further exposition from the law-officers of the 
 superior courts, by a reference of the case to them through 
 the judges of those courts. But no point of law is to be 
 referred to individuals not acting in a public capacity, and 
 to whom, consequently, no responsibility attaches ; although 
 law opinions, quoting or referring to authorities, may be 
 received from parties in support of their claims, and, if it be 
 deemed proper by the courts receiving them, referred to 
 their law-officers, or to those of the superior courts/' "The 
 translations of books of law, Hindu and Muhammadan, 
 made under the encouragement of the British government, 
 have materially contributed to give effect to this principle, by 
 enabling the judges of the civil courts to inform themselves 
 upon general points of Muhammadan and Hindu law, 
 and to investigate the expositions of the native law-officers 
 attached to their respective courts.'^ Among the works 
 that have appeared illustrative of Hindu and Muhammadan 
 law, are two by Mr. William Hay Macnaghten, of the 
 Bengal civil service, containing, in. addition to other valuable 
 matter, what he calls Precedents of Hindu and Muhamma- 
 dan Law, that is, cases submitted to Hindu and Muhammadan 
 law-officers of British courts, with the opinions which those 
 officers have expressed. The care with which these cases 
 and opinions have been brought together, will be estimated 
 from Mr. Macnaghten's own remarks. In his work on 
 Hindu law, he says : " The Precedents have been selected 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. p. 67. 
 
I N I N D 1 A . 53 
 
 from an enormous mass of crude materials. When it is 
 mentioned that I have examined every opinion that has been 
 delivered in every court of judicature subordinate to the 
 presidency of Bengal, from the year 1811 up to the present 
 day," (his work appeared in 1S29,) " it may be a matter of 
 wonder that the selections are not more numerous and 
 more valuable. But the task* of rejection has been found 
 very laborious. At least nine-tenths of the opinions were 
 ascertained, on examination, to be erroneous, doubtful, un- 
 supported by proof, or otherwise unfit for publication; while, 
 in not a few instances, the nature of the case itself was 
 involved in obscurity, from the circumstance of the reply 
 alone being forthcoming ; the whole record of the case hav- 
 ing been made over to the law-officer, with a view to enable 
 him to find out and report the law upon the point or points 
 at issue between the parties. The admitted opinions have 
 been carefully examined ; and they will, it is hoped, be in 
 general found to have at least the merit of accuracy." ^ Li 
 like manner, in his work on Muhammadan law, which was 
 published four years earlier, (1825,) he says: " The Pre- 
 cedents consist of legal expositions which have been actually 
 delivered in the several courts of justice. I have selected 
 such as appeared to me of the greatest importance, and those 
 which seemed to embrace doctrinal points most likely to 
 recur. With a view to retain the sense as far as practicable, 
 I have left them in the original shape of question and reply; 
 and none have been admitted but such as appeared to me, 
 (assisted by all the legal talent I could procure,) to admit of 
 no doubt as to their accuracy."! The cases of slavery, 
 then, to which I arn about to call your attention, are cases 
 which have been actually brought before British courts of 
 
 * Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of Hindu Law, Prelimi- 
 nary Eemarks, pp. xxiii, xxiv. 
 
 f Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of Muhammadan Law, 
 Preliminary Remarks, p. Ixxi. 
 
54 SLAVERY 
 
 law in India for adjudication; cases which the English 
 judges of those courts have submitted to the native law- 
 officers expressly appointed to expound the law, for their 
 opinions ; cases on which those native law-officers, under the 
 solemn obligation which their office imposes faithfully and 
 truly to declare the law, have formed and expressed their 
 deliberate opinions. Still further, it is a very small selec- 
 tion of such cases and opinions that has been made from a 
 great mass of materials by a judicial officer of the Bengal 
 government, eminently competent far such a task ; a selec- 
 tion of cases made on the principle of their importance, and 
 the probability of their recurrence ; and a selection of 
 opinions which, amid many that were erroneous or doubtful, 
 were deemed accurate and trustworthy. I do not know any 
 higher security that you could desire for the correctness of 
 my statements regarding the actual administration of the 
 law of slavery under the British government in India. I 
 shall give the cases in full, and the substance only of the 
 opinions, as the latter are generally too long for quotation 
 entire ; and I shall add such remarks as may appear to be 
 necessary for illustration. The cases and opinions relating to 
 the Hindu law of slavery will be first given, and then those 
 relating to the Muhammadan law. 
 
 , / 
 Precedents relating to the Hindu Law of Slavery. 
 
 CASE 1. 
 
 Q. "A person living in service was supposed by the in- 
 habitants of the place to be the slave of the individual whom 
 he served. In this case, is he to be treated as a slave from 
 the fact of such notoriety ? And if so, is the master com- 
 petent to dispose of him by sale ?" 
 
 This was a case which occurred in 1824, at Dacca, one 
 of the principal cities of Bengal; and the opinion of the 
 Hindu lawyer to whom it was referred consists simply in 
 Sin enumeration of fifteen descriptions of slaves, recognised 
 
I N I N D I A . 55 
 
 by Hindu law, and an intimation that nothing more definite 
 can be said, on the ground that it is not distinctly mentioned 
 in the question to what sort of slavery the individual alluded 
 to belonged. It is evident that this information was not 
 possessed, and the case is one similar to a very large majority 
 of the total number of cases of Hindu slavery, in which 
 individuals are held in bondage, and disposed of by sale, not 
 under any known or recognised law, but by the tyrannical 
 right which custom and notoriety are assumed to bestow. 
 Should it erer have been made a question in a British court 
 of justice whether such slavery shall receive a legal recog- 
 nition ? The Hindu lawyer administers an intelligible 
 reproof to the British judge who could submit such a case, 
 by refusing to acknowledge it as belonging to any of the 
 legal forms of Hindu slavery. 
 
 CASE II. 
 
 Q. " A female slave being the property of two individuals, 
 one of them disposed of her in marriage to the slave of 
 another person, and ordered her to go to her husband's 
 house, where she is still living. The other proprietor 
 brought an action in a court of justice claiming her. In 
 this case, does the plaintiff's right consist over half her 
 person, or is he entitled to half the price of her person?" 
 
 This case occurred in 1818, in Chittagong, one of the 
 eastern districts of Bengal. The opinion of the Hindu law- 
 yer is, that one of two owners of a female slave giving her 
 away in marriage without the consent of his coparcener, the 
 other still retains his right, not to half her person, but to 
 half her labor, or half her value. You will observe here the 
 application and judicial recognition in modern times of one 
 of the most ancient and characteristic rules of Hindu slavery, 
 viz., that a woman who is not a slave of the same master, 
 becoming the wife of a slave, thereby becomes a slave to her 
 
56 SLAVERY 
 
 husband's owner, in this case only to the extent to which 
 the consenting owner had legal property in her. 
 
 CASE III. 
 
 Q. "A slave being the property of three individuals, one 
 of them, with his own free will, emancipated him from 
 servitude to the extent of his legal share. In this case, is 
 the slave released from his obligations to the other two pro- 
 prietors ? If not, how are the two remaining masters to 
 claim their right of servitude ?" 
 
 This case occurred in 1813, in Mymunsingh, another of 
 the eastern districts of Bengal. The judicial decision is, 
 that the emancipation of a slave by one of three masters 
 does not render him free with respect to the other two, who 
 must be served according to their shares in him. Such 
 instances of joint partnership in a slave would appear to be 
 common, and the decision, however equitable towards the 
 masters, has the effect of interposing obstacles to emancipa- 
 tion, by rendering the consent of all the masters indispensable 
 to its completion. 
 
 CASE IV. 
 
 Q. " A female slave, having been emancipated from servi- 
 tude, suffered much for the necessaries of life, and sold her- 
 self, with her two daughters, one of them five and the other 
 seven years of age, with her late master's consent. In this 
 case, is the sale of daughters of such years available in law, 
 or not? Have the daughters an option, on attaining the 
 age of majority, to set aside the sale of their persons ?" 
 
 This case occurred in 1819, in the district of Chittagong, 
 already mentioned. The decision is, that the children of an 
 emancipated slave, sold as slaves by their mother with her 
 late master's sanction, are not entitled to their freedom on 
 coming of age, and have no power to nullify the contract. 
 The first remarkable feature in this legal opinion is, that the 
 permanent validity of the sale of the daughters by the 
 
I N I N D I A . 57 
 
 mother is made dependent on her late master's concurrence, 
 although it is expressly stated that he had emancipated the 
 mother, and apparently implied that her emancipation inclu- 
 ded that of the daughters, since, if not, the power of selling 
 them would not have belonged to the mother, and the obliga- 
 tion of supporting them would have rested on the master. 
 If the mother only was emancipated, then the daughters 
 remained the property of her former master, and his consent 
 became necessary to their sale by their mother for her own 
 support. What a picture of society does this exhibit! What 
 a depth of physical wretchedness, or of moral obtuseness, or 
 of both ! A mother emancipated from slavery again selling 
 herself for the necessaries of life ; receiving the gift of her 
 own daughters from her former master, to be in like manner 
 sold for the relief of her wants sold at the age of five and 
 seven by their own mother into perpetual slavery, perhaps 
 to vice and infamy ; and the perpetuity of the sale under 
 such circumstances affirmed by Hindu law, and confirmed 
 by the authority of a British court of justice ! 
 
 CASE v. 
 
 Q. " A person procures a contract of marriage to be entered 
 into between his slave and the daughter of a free person, 
 and -subsequently sells his slave's wife to another. In this 
 case, has the master of the slave derived any right of pro- 
 prietorship over the person of the slave's wife by reason of 
 her being subject to his slave ; and is the sale of such 
 woman allowable by law?" 
 
 This case also occurred in 1819, in Chittagong ; and the 
 decision, according to Hindu law, is, that a free woman 
 becoming the wife of a slave, becomes a slave to her hus- 
 band's master, who has full power to alienate her by sale, 
 and the sale is good and valid. This is another of those 
 cases which, without the evidence before us, we should find 
 it difficult to believe that the authority of the British govern- 
 
58 SLAVERY 
 
 merit would be employed to enforce. A free woman, igno- 
 rant, most probably, of the law which affects such cases, is 
 inveigled into marriage with a slave by the slave's master, 
 who subsequently sells her for his own profit, and this sale 
 is pronounced good and valid by the organ of Hindu law, 
 and recognised as such by the British government and its 
 judicial officers ! Will the British people, when they know 
 the fact, sanction it? Will not the indignation of the 
 civilized world shame the British government into the 
 abrogation of a law so cruel and disgraceful ? 
 
 CASE VI. 
 
 Q. "Four brothers purchased a female slave, who subse- 
 quently brought forth a son and daughter. Of the four 
 brothers, one sold his property over the slaves to the other 
 three, while the male slave was only eleven years old, and 
 afterwards he (the slave) married a free woman and then 
 died. Of the three proprietors, two left no heir at their 
 death, and one is survived by a son. In this case, is he 
 (the brother's son) competent to sell the widow of the slave, 
 or not?" 
 
 The date of this case is not given ; the locality in which 
 it occurred was the jurisdiction of ihe Dacca court of appeal. 
 The decision is, that the slave's widow may be sold by the 
 next heir of the deceased proprietors. This is another case 
 in which a free woman, in virtue of her marriage with a 
 slave, was reduced to slavery, and ultimately sold as a slave, 
 or at least by the decision of a British court pronounced 
 legally salable. 
 
 CASE VII. 
 
 Q. "A slave, having left his master's house, resided in 
 another place, and supported himself by his own labor, for the 
 period of ten or twelve years, during which time his master 
 neither sent for him nor required his attendance, though it 
 
I N I N D I A . 59 
 
 was known to him where the slave was living. In this 
 case, does it follow that the master has relinquished his 
 right of property; or, on the other hand, is a sale of the 
 slave by the master under such circumstances valid and 
 binding?" 
 
 Neither the date nor the locality of this case is given. 
 The decision is, that under the circumstances described, the 
 master has forfeited his right of ownership, and the sale is 
 illegal. The general rule of Hindu law is that the right to 
 movable property lapses after a period of ten years, pro- 
 vided there was wilful neglect on the part of the owner for 
 that period ; but not if his non-interference was unavoidable. 
 
 CASE VIII. 
 
 Q. " An inhabitant of Sylhet wishes to sell his female 
 slave and her family, consisting of four sons 'and a little 
 girl, for a fixed sum, to another person. The slaves make 
 an application to the court, stating that they are willing to 
 serve their own master, but that the latter from enmity has 
 come to an understanding with the intended purchaser, to 
 have the family removed from the place of their nativity, 
 and the individuals sold at separate places. Can the slaves, 
 according to Hindu law as current in Sylhet, object to such 
 a sale ? May they, in case their master is determined to 
 part with them, select another person whom they prefer to 
 be their purchaser ? Or may they purchase their own 
 liberty, if they can raise the sum demanded ?" 
 
 This case occurred in 1S25, in Sylhet, another of the 
 eastern districts of Bengal. It was referred by the magis- 
 trate of Sylhet for the consideration and orders of the su- 
 perior court, who took the opinion of their Hindu law-officers, 
 which was in substance as follows. They state that, as 
 has been already shown, (Letter I, pp. 17 19,) according 
 to Hindu law, there are five sorts of slaves who cannot 
 effect their own emancipation by paying the price set upon 
 
60 SLAVERY 
 
 them by their master, since the master's right of authority 
 in those cases extends to the property of his slaves, and 
 consequently their possession of property applicable to such 
 a purpose, except as an indulgence from him, is legally 
 impossible. Of those five sorts, one is that of slaves born 
 in the house, to which class the slaves alluded to in the 
 question are understood to belong ; and hence they cannot 
 purchase their own liberty, while the master, in right of his 
 ownership and free-will, can sell the slaves, although willing 
 to serve him. But Hindu law provides a limitation to the 
 master's power. It declares, in the words of an ancient and 
 high authority, that "judgment is not to be formed, relying 
 on the Shaster (or law) alone; for a failure of justice is 
 produced when an inquiry is not adapted to circumstances." 
 This principle is declared applicable to the case under con- 
 sideration, and it is accordingly pronounced that if the sale 
 of the slaves by their master to a purchaser chosen by him 
 would occasion great misery to the slaves, then he should 
 be required to receive the price from a purchaser chosen by 
 the adult slave, or from any other purchaser to whom the 
 objection does not apply. This opinion of the law-officers 
 was confirmed by the superior court, who state " that the 
 slaves whom it is proposed to sell to one whose intentions 
 they suspect and dread, may be allowed to select a purchaser 
 with whom they are satisfied, and that in this their proprie- 
 tors must acquiesce." The fact that such a question 
 between master and slave could be and was raised in a 
 court of justice and that it was thus decided, shows in one 
 respect the mild character of Hindu slavery in the district 
 of Sylhet under the British government; and it also shows 
 the severity of its character in another respect, for the an- 
 swer does not go the length of stating that slaves are 
 competent to purchase their freedom from their masters 
 against the consent of the latter. Hindu law as adminis- 
 tered by the British government does not enable the slave to 
 
I N IN D I A. 61 
 
 claim his liberty on tendering the full value of his person to 
 his master. 
 
 CASE IX. 
 
 Q. " 1. What descriptions of slaves are authorized by the 
 Hindu law ? 2. What legal powers are the owners of 
 slaves allowed to exercise upon the persons of their slaves, 
 and particularly of their female slaves? 3. What offences 
 upon the persons of slaves, and particularly of female slaves, 
 committed by their owners or by others, are legally punish- 
 able, and in what manner ? 4. Are slaves entitled to 
 emancipation upon any and what maltreatment ? And 
 may the courts of justice adjudge their emancipation upon 
 proof of such maltreatment? In particular, may such judg- 
 ment be passed upon proof that a female slave has, during her 
 minority, been prostituted by her master or mistress, or that 
 any attempt of violence has been made upon her person by 
 her owner ?" 
 
 The questions embraced in this case were proposed in 
 1809, by the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, or the East India 
 Company's supreme court of civil judicature in Bengal, to 
 its Hindu law-officers who are the highest in station, and 
 may be pronounced the most learned and accomplished 
 native lawyers in the country. 
 
 1. With regard to the descriptions of slaves authorized by 
 Hindu law, the answer does not differ in substance from 
 the account already given in a former letter, which need not 
 here be repeated. 
 
 2. On the legal powers belonging to the owners of 
 slaves, a distinction, recognised by Hindu law, is made be- 
 tween pure and impure work. Impure work consists in 
 cleaning the house, the gate-way, the necessary, and the 
 road ; removing the dirt and rubbish and all other impuri- 
 ties ; attending the master at his pleasure and rubbing his 
 limbs; and all other work is pure. Slaves, whether male or 
 female, and slaves only, may be legally required to perform 
 
 6 
 
62 SLAVERY 
 
 impure work, and in case of disobedience or fault the mas- 
 ter may legally correct the slave by corporal punishment 
 with a rope or the small shoot of a cane, or by ignominious 
 \ exposure. If the master should inflict a severer punish- 
 ment, he is liable to be fined at the discretion of the ruling 
 power. 
 
 3. Regarding the offences that may be committed on 
 the persons of slaves, and how legally punishable, ihe law- 
 officers merely reiterate the statement that a master has no 
 power to command the slave to do any other than the 
 impure work already described, or to punish him in any 
 other mode than that already mentioned, and that, in the 
 event of his exceeding his powers, he is liable only to pecu- 
 niary fine. However extreme the offence then which a 
 master may commit on the person of his slave, Hindu law re- 
 cognises and sanctions no other punishment than pecuniary 
 fine. If the master should wilfully occasion the death of 
 his slave, what then is the punishment? Even in that 
 case I do not find that Hindu law provides any other pun- 
 ishment than pecuniary fine. But it may be supposed that 
 the British government has in that respect amended the 
 Hindu law of slavery- The British government has cer- 
 tainly amended a similar provision of the Muhammadan 
 law of slavery, but there is no such amendment of the 
 Hindu law of slavery. On the one hand I find the high- 
 est judicial authority in India affirming that the spirit of 
 the rule for observing the Muhammadan and Hindu laws 
 is applicable to cases of slavery, and this construction 
 formally confirmed by the governor-general in council, 
 thereby legalizing the two systems of Muhammadan and 
 Hindu slavery. On the other hand I find the British gov- 
 ernment enacting an amendment of the law of slavery, 
 making a master liable to death who shall take away the 
 life of his slave, but limiting the application of this amend- 
 ment to cases that shall occur " under the Muhammadan 
 
 
I N I N D I A . 63 
 
 law." It follows that the corresponding provision of the 
 Hindu law remains unrepealed and unamended, and that a 
 Hindu master who shall wilfully take away the life of his 
 slave could be legally punished only by pecuniary fine. 
 
 4. In answer to the question what offences against the 
 persons of slaves would entitle the slave to emancipation, 
 it is briefly and pointedly declared that there are no such 
 offences. In certain cases, pecuniary fine may be inflicted ; 
 and if a female slave bears a child by her master, both 
 mother and child become free ; but the prostitution of a 
 female slave, violence to her person by her master or with 
 his permission, or any maltreatment whatever, does not 
 affect the state of bondage, nor even give the ruling power 
 the right to grant the manumission of the slave. 
 
 .Such is the Hindu law of slavery, as expounded by the 
 most learned and distinguished Hindu lawyers in Bengal, 
 at the requisition of the highest judicial authority under 
 the British government of India, by whom it is conformably 
 administered and enforced. 
 
 Precedents relating to the Muhammadan Laiv of Slavery. 
 
 CASE I. 
 
 Q. " A Musalman having been sent by the ruling power 
 to subdue some rebellious Hindus, and having obtained a 
 victory over them, took several of their body prisoners. 
 Among them there was one boy of tender years whom he 
 made his own slave, and afterwards, having instructed him 
 in the principles of the Muhammadan faith, he adopted 
 him as his own son, and in his education and other matters 
 he treated him with the care and consideration of a parent. 
 Under these circumstances, can the boy so recognised as 
 the son of the person above alluded, to, be considered as his 
 slave agreeably to law ? " 
 
 In this and in all the following precedents relating to the 
 
64 SLAVERY 
 
 Muhammadan law of slavery, there is no information given 
 respecting the time when or the place where each case 
 occurred. The opinion of the Muhammaadan law-officers 
 on the case submitted to them is very decidedly expressed. 
 They state, in the first place, that it by no means appears 
 clearly from the question that the boy was legally reduced 
 to slavery ; and in the second place, the treatment of him 
 as a son was a legal emancipation, even without any decla- 
 ration to that effect, or any intention on the part of the 
 master that such an effect should flow from it. 
 
 CASE II. 
 
 Q. " 1. What descriptions of slaves are authorized by the 
 Muhammadan law ? 2. What legal powers are the own- 
 ers of slaves allowed to exercise upon the persons of their 
 slaves, and particularly of their female slaves ? 3. What 
 offences upon the persons of slaves, and particularly of 
 female slaves, committed by their owners or by others, are 
 legally punishable, and in what manner? 4. Are slaves 
 entitled to emancipation upon any and what maltreatment ? 
 And may a court of justice adjudge their emancipation 
 upon proof of such maltreatment ? In particular, may such 
 judgment be passed upon proof that a female slave has, 
 during her minority, been prostituted by her master or mis- 
 tress, or that any attempt of violence has been made upon 
 her person by her owner ?" 
 
 The questions included in this case are the same as those 
 contained in Case IX. of Precedents relating to the Hindu 
 Law of Slavery; and the answers may be regarded as those 
 of the highest native living authorities on matters of Mu- 
 hammadan law. 
 
 1. The answer to the first question embraces an enume- 
 ration of certain descriptions of slavery recognised by the 
 Muhammadan law, and of certain other existing descrip- 
 tions of slavery which are declared to be unlawful. The 
 
I N I N D I A . 65 
 
 only source of legal slavery is the capture of infidels in war, 
 who, under such circumstances, may be put to death, or set 
 at liberty subject to a capitation-tax, or made slaves ; and 
 in the last case they may either be sold, or given away, 
 or may descend by inheritance. This is applicable to both 
 sexes, and the offspring of a female slave by any other person 
 than her master is also subject to slavery. According to this 
 exposition, there are five, and only five, descriptions of legal 
 slavery: an enslaved infidel captive; such a slave bought; 
 or received in gift; or inherited; and the offspring of any 
 such female slave, provided the master is not the father. 
 Those kinds of actual slavery 'which are declared unlawful 
 according to Muhammadan. law, are the following. The 
 custom is stated to prevail in most Musalman countries, (of 
 which India, even at the present day, is regarded as one,^) 
 of purchasing and selling the inhabitants of Ethiopia, Nubia, 
 and other negroes, and the ostensible causes are either that 
 the negroes sell their own children, or that they are taken 
 prisoners by fraud and deceit, or that they are seized by 
 stealth from the sea-shores. All such cases of slavery are 
 pronounced illegal, and sales and purchases arising out of 
 them invalid. Again, the practice among free men and 
 women of selling their own offspring during times of famine 
 is declared illegal, for children are not the property of their 
 parents, and all sales or purchases of them, as of any other 
 article of illegal property, are consequently invalid. Such 
 sales and purchases are doubly illegal, inasmuch as the 
 slavery they create is illegal, and it is generally created for 
 illegal purposes, such as prostitution. Another form of 
 slavery arises from the custom which prevails in India of 
 hiring children from their parents for a very considerable 
 period, such as for seventy or eighty years, and under this 
 pretext making thum and their progeny slaves. It is de- 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. p. 295. 
 6* 
 
66 SLAVERY 
 
 clared that such a contract of hire becomes null and void 
 when the child arrives at years of discretion, as the right of 
 paternity then ceases. A fourth illegal form of slavery is 
 that which is produced by a free man selling his own per- 
 son either in times of famine or when oppressed by a debt 
 which he is unable to discharge, or hiring himself for any 
 great length of time, such as for seventy years. Such a 
 sale is declared improper, and such a contract for service 
 should be made illegal by limiting contracts of hire of free 
 men to a month, one year, or at the utmost to three years. 
 
 2. In answer to the second question regarding the legal 
 powers of the owners of slaves, it is stated that various 
 enumerated domestic, mechanical, and agricultural services 
 may be exacted from slaves by their masters ; and that the 
 person of a female slave, provided she has arrived at the age 
 of maturity and has not been given in marriage to another, 
 is subject to the will of her master. The effect however of 
 such cohabitation is, that if the children be the avowed and 
 acknowledged offspring of the rightful owner, they are free, 
 and the mother becomes free also at his decease. 
 
 3. In answer to the third question regarding offences 
 that may be committed on the persons of slaves, it is stated 
 that if a master oppress his slave by employing him in any 
 duty beyond his power and ability, by requiring him to do 
 that which is unlawful, by punishing him further than by 
 moderate correction, or by cohabiting with his female slave 
 before she has arrived at the years of maturity and thereby 
 seriously injuring her or causing her death, the ruling 
 power may at discretion inflict such punishment on him as 
 shall be deemed adequate to satisfy principles of public 
 justice. 
 
 4. In answer to the fourth question regarding those 
 offences against the persons of slaves which would entitle 
 them to emancipation, it is declared that the commission of 
 the supposed crimes by the master subjects him to punish- 
 
I N I N D I A . 67 
 
 ment at the discretion of the ruling power, but does not 
 authorize the manumission of the slaves; nor has the ruling 
 power any right or authority to. grant them emancipation, 
 unless the slavery were originally illegal. 
 
 CASE III. 
 
 Q. "1. The father of Deendar Khan, (the plaintiff,) was 
 a Hindu, who in a year of scarcity, out of necessity, sold 
 his son to Buduri Khan and Musummaut Asalut, to whose 
 property GholamHoossein Khan, (the defendant,) lays claim. 
 Does Deendar Khan by such sale legally become a slave or 
 not ? 2. According to law, what circumstances are essen- 
 tial and necessary to the ceremony of emancipation?" 
 
 This case involves two questions, unconnected with each 
 other. In answer to the first, it is declared that no person 
 legally free can become legally enslaved by sale in a time 
 of scarcity; and in answer to the second, that words indi- 
 cative of the act of emancipation, without the execution of 
 any deed or the use of any formalities, are sufficient to 
 give it effect, in whatever language expressed. 
 
 CASE I V . 
 
 Q. "It is a well known principle of law that free persons 
 cannot on any account be sold; yet it appears to be a gene- 
 rally received opinion that the selling and purchasing of 
 mankind in times of distress or difficulty are allowable. 
 Does the latter doctrine rest on any legal foundation?" 
 
 In the answer to this case, the general doctrine is admit- 
 ted to be sound and authentic that purchase confers no right 
 of dominion over mankind, but in conformity with certain 
 works of authority and with a tradition of Imam Muham- 
 mad, an exception to the general principle is admitted in 
 the cases of freemen suffering under extreme distress or 
 hard pressed by their creditors, who are permitted to dispose 
 of their own liberties by sale. This is directly opposed to 
 
68 SLAVERY 
 
 the answer given to the first question under Case II., in 
 which it is expressly declared that "it is improper for any 
 free man to sell his own person, either in times of famine, 
 or though he be oppressed by a debt which he is unable to 
 discharge. For in the first of these cases, a famished man 
 may feed upon a dead body, or may even steal what is 
 necessary for his support ; and a distressed debtor is not 
 liable to any fine or punishment." 
 
 CASE v. 
 
 Q. " Does the estate of Inayut Oollah go to the widow of 
 Wasil Beg, who was educated by the deceased proprietor ?" 
 
 In this question Wasil Beg is assumed to have been the 
 purchased and legal slave of Inayut Qollah, and both master 
 and slave being dead-, the inquiry is, whether the widow of 
 the slave, through her husband, shall be deemed entitled to 
 inherit the estate of his master. This is not a question of 
 slavery or no slavery, but of inheritance or no inheritance. 
 If it had been the former, the principle recognised under 
 Case I. would have applied, as the slave appears to have 
 been treated by his master with much affection and regard ; 
 but as a question of inheritance, it is declared that slavery is 
 an impediment to inheritance, and consequently as the 
 slave could not, neither can the slave's widow in his right, 
 inherit his master's estate. The nature of this case very 
 strikingly illustrates the mild character of domestic slavery 
 in Muhammadan countries, and the privileges which it is 
 supposed to confer. 
 
 CASE VI. 
 
 Q. " A prostitute hires the daughter of another woman 
 for the sum of twenty rupees, and causes her to follow the 
 same line of life as' herself. Is such transaction lawful?" 
 
 ^It appears from the answer that a deed of sale passed 
 between the parties, that the girl was only six years of age 
 
I N I N D I A . 69 
 
 when she was let out to hire, and that the term agreed on 
 was ninety-five years. The transaction is pronounced ille- 
 gal on two grounds : first, on the ground that parents have 
 no right to dispose of the persons or property of their 
 children beyond the age of puberty, the extreme verge of 
 which is fifteen years according to Muhammadan law; arid 
 second, on the ground of the illegality of the purpose for 
 which the sale was made. The girl therefore, on attaining 
 the age of puberty, would be at liberty to annul the contract. 
 
 CASE VII. 
 
 Q. " A person has a family by his wife, and also a family 
 by one or two concubines to whom he was not married. 
 These concubines were slave-girls, but it is not clear 
 whether they were the property of the person in question 
 or of another. The question is, can the issue of these con- 
 cubines inherit the property of their father on his death ?" 
 
 This question involves in fact two separate cases, ac- 
 cording as the concubine is supposed to be the slave of the 
 father or of another person. In the- latter case, the children 
 cannot inherit, first, because they were not bom in wedlock, 
 and their parentage cannot be established in that person ; 
 and, second, because their mother being a slave, they also 
 are the slaves of their mother's owner, and their slavery is 
 a bar to inheritance. In the former case, the condition of 
 slavery was either legal or illegal. If legal, and if the 
 father claimed or acknowledged the offspring of his slave as 
 his children, then after his death they would be entitled to 
 a portion of inheritance. If illegal, then concubinage was 
 unlawful without marriage, the parentage cannot be estab- 
 lished in the alleged father, and such children consequently 
 are not heirs. It is here worthy of note, that in Case IV. 
 the legality of that slavery is recognised which is created 
 by a person selling himself when in distress or on account 
 of debt ; but in the present case, when a question is made 
 
70 SLAVERY 
 
 respecting the right of inheritance belonging to the child of 
 a slave-mother, the only legal slavery recognised is that 
 which was created by capture in an infidel country. 
 
 CASE VIII. 
 
 Q. "The slave-girl of a Musalman, the right to whom he 
 had acquired by inheritance, married the slave of another 
 person, and both the wife and husband took up their abode 
 in the house of the proprietor of the female slave, where 
 she brought forth children in consequence of the matri- 
 monial intercourse. The proprietor of the male slave 
 superintended the marriage-ceremony and defrayed all the 
 expenses attendant on the occasion, inclusive of the usual 
 donations presented to the bride's mother. Under these 
 circumstances, whether is the proprietor of the female slave 
 or of the male slave entitled to the proprietory right in the 
 issue of the marriage ? Has the mother of the female 
 slave any right to take pecuniary donations and to contract 
 her daughter in marriage, she herself being the slave of the 
 person who is the proprietor of her daughter ?" 
 
 The answer is, that neither is the mother of the female 
 slave entitled to dispose of her in marriage, nor has the 
 master of the male slave any claim to the progeny. The 
 consent of the master of the female slave can alone render 
 the contract of marriage binding, and to him alone belongs 
 the issue. 
 
 / 
 
 CASE IX. 
 
 Q. " 1. According to the Muhammadan law, if a child is 
 born of a female slave purchased by her proprietor, is such 
 child the property of the mother or of her master ? 2. Is 
 it lawful to dispose of by sale, or to deposit as a pledge, any 
 human being? " 
 
 These two questions have no necessary connection. In 
 answer to the first, it is stated that, assuming the legality of 
 
IN IN DI A. 71 
 
 the slavery of the mother, her children are the property of 
 her master ; and in answer to the second, that the sale or 
 deposit in pledge of a free man is invalid and void in law. 
 
 CASE x . 
 
 Q. " A free woman having attained the age of majority, 
 that is to say, being fifteen years old, voluntarily and by her 
 own choice, contracts matrimony with a slave, and they 
 live in ihe same house together as husband and wife for 
 the space of a year and a half. Can such marriage of a 
 free woman with a slave be considered a legal and valid 
 contract? " 
 
 The answer is, that such a contract is legal and valid, if 
 made with the consent of the slave's master, who is respon- 
 sible for the bride's claim of dower. In satisfaction of this 
 claim the slave-husband may be sold, and the offspring of 
 such marriage are slaves and belong to the master of the 
 husband. 
 
 CASE XI. 
 
 Q. " A woman of the Hindu persuasion resides in the 
 house of a Musalman and becomes a convert to the faith of 
 Muhammad. After such conversion, she takes up her 
 abode with a Rajput, lives with him as his concubine, and 
 has by him a daughter who is living, as are also both her 
 parents. Under these circumstances, to which of the pa- 
 rents does the daughter belong ? If the daughter belongs 
 to the Rajput, is he entitled to sell her to another or not ? 
 If he is entitled to do so, can the purchaser of her dispose 
 of her to another by sale ; and if during her minority she 
 lives with the purchaser, is she, on her attaining the age of 
 puberty, at liberty to free herself from slavery or not ? Ac- 
 cording to the Muhammadan law, what sort of slaves are 
 fit subjects of purchase and sale ?" 
 
 In answer to these questions, it is stated that, as between 
 
72 SLAVERY 
 
 the parents, the mother is entitled to the charge of the 
 daughter until she attain the age of puberty; but that 
 neither parent is permitted to sell such child, and that all 
 transactions arising out of such a sale are null and void. 
 
 I have thus completed the view which I proposed to give 
 of the actual administration of the law of slavery in British 
 Indian courts of justice ; and the cases and opinions I have 
 adduced sufficiently establish not only the existence of two 
 distinct systems of slavery in India under Hindu and Mu- 
 hammadan law respectively, but the recognition, adoption, 
 and enforcement of the main provisions of both systems 
 by the British Indian government. The civilized work], 
 and the British people in particular, expect, and have a right 
 to expect, that the influence of the English government in 
 India shall be employed to abolish barbarous and cruel 
 social institutions, originating in ancient times, in false re- 
 ligions, and in governments incapable of appreciating, and 
 little disposed to maintain, the rights of humanity; and 
 the efforts made to abolish Hindu infanticide, and the suc- 
 cessful abolition of the burning of Hindu widows with their 
 deceased husbands, show that the obligation is not wholly 
 unrecognised, and that the expectation, has not been wholly 
 disappointed. Strange to say, an exception is found in 
 slavery, an institution against which British legislation and 
 diplomacy for nearly the last forty years have been un wea- 
 ried ly directed, and in opposition to which the British 
 government would be understood to hold its head more 
 erect, to pursue its measures with stricter honesty and with 
 more determined consistency, than all the other nations of 
 Europe and America. The British trade in slaves lias boon 
 abolished by the fiat of Parliament; the freedom of the 
 slaves in the British West Indies has been purchased by the 
 unexampled generosity of the British people ; and all the 
 world hears of the persevering efforts of the British govern- 
 
I N I N D I A . 73 
 
 ment to interest other civilized nations to co-operate in 
 extinguishing the traffic in human flesh ; and yet this very 
 same government, at the very same moment, by its own sole 
 authority, is wantonly giving life and activity to two differ- 
 ent systems of slavery existing among a hundred million 
 of Asiatics, subject to the imperial sway of the crown of 
 Great Britain. I know that this is done by a delegated 
 government, but it is not the less done by a British govern- 
 ment. I know that this is done without the cognizance of 
 the British people, but it is not the less done with the 
 knowledge and implied sanction of the British Parliament. 
 It is to be hoped that the British people, the British Par- 
 liament, and the British government will awake to the 
 demands of justice and humanity in India as well as in 
 Europe and America. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 TO THOMAS POWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Ameliorations of the Law and Practice of Slavery under the British 
 Government in India. 
 
 SIR, The view which I have proposed to give of the law 
 of slavery in India will be completed by considering the 
 ameliorations that have been introduced by the British 
 government of India. Although there are very strong 
 grounds for judging- that the sanction given by the British 
 government to Hindu and Muhammadan slavery in India is 
 wholly gratuitous, uncalled for, and illegal ; yet the evils of 
 the institution have been frequently and distinctly acknow- 
 ledged, and measures have been from time to time adopted, 
 with greater or less success, to limit the extension, to mitigate 
 the condition-, and to put an end to the abuses of slavery. 
 The examination of these will show what has been done, 
 and when compared with the practice of slavery to be here- 
 after investigated, will enable us the better to understand 
 how much has been left undone. 
 
 The first of the measures referred to is the prohibition of 
 the exportation of the natives of India as slaves. India was 
 formerly a country exporting slaves, but I am not possessed 
 of any information respecting the practice, except that which 
 is contained in the government proclamation prohibiting it, 
 under date 22d July, 1789. " Whereas information, the 
 
SLAVERYININDIA. 75 
 
 truth of which cannot be doubted, has been received by the 
 governor-general in council, that many natives, and some 
 Europeans, in opposition to the laws and ordinances of this 
 country and the dictates of humanity, have been for a long 
 time in the practice of purchasing or collecting natives of 
 both sexes, children as well as adults, for the purpose of 
 exporting them for sale as slaves in different parts of India, 
 or elsewhere" &c.^ It does not appear whether this traffic 
 had a native or a European origin. The proclamation goes 
 on to declare that those engaged in it shall be prosecuted 
 with the utmost rigor in the supreme court, at the expense 
 of the Company ; if British-born subjects, the penalty is that 
 they " shall be forthwith ordered to Europe ;" and if not 
 subject to the court's jurisdiction, they shall be apprehended 
 by the magistrate of the place or district in which the 
 offence shall have been committed, and kept in confinement, 
 to be dealt with according to the laws of the country. The 
 very mild penalty to be inflicted on British-born subjects 
 convicted of such an offence deserves to be noted, consisting 
 merely in sending them back to their native country ; but 
 this was at a period when public opinion against the slave- 
 trade was not mature. A reward of a hundred rupees is 
 offered for the discovery df every such offender, and fifty 
 rupees for every person thereby delivered from slavery or 
 illegal confinement. British commercial houses and private 
 merchants are called upon to co-operate ; commanders of 
 vessels are to be refused an English pilot unless they declare 
 on oath that they have no slaves on board ; and native pilots 
 are to be deprived of the privilege of piloting if they con- 
 nive at this traffic. This proclamation, to which the force 
 of an enactment was given, appears to have been adequate 
 to the purpose.! 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. pp. 756759, and 749, 750. 
 
 f Mr. Colebrooke, in 1812, referring to this measure, says, " Many 
 years ago, a clandestine export by sea 'to the French Islands was 
 
76 SLAVERY 
 
 I am not aware that there is any reason to believe that 
 the natives of India have since been exported as slaves, 
 unless we suppose an infringement of this law in the recent 
 exportation of Hill Coolies from India to New South Wales, 
 to the Mauritius, and to the British West Indies; but in this 
 case the labor was hired, and the traffic open and in form legal, 
 although the evils attendant on it and arising out of it were 
 so serious as instantly to demand and to receive the interpo- 
 sition of public opinion and of parliamentary discussion for 
 its suppression. 
 
 However undoubted the efficacy of this proclamation 
 issued and enforced by the executive government of India, 
 the state of the law on this subject does not appear to be 
 satisfactory. Mr. Harington states, (Vol. III. p. 759,) that 
 the substance of the proclamation was included in Section 74, 
 Regulation 22, 1795 ; but in the revised edition of his 
 Analysis, published four years afterwards in 1821, the 
 following passage occurs, (Vol. I. p. 72, note) : " A pro- 
 clamation, forbidding under penalties the exportation of 
 natives of India to be sold as slaves, was issued by the 
 governor-general in council, under date the 22d July, 1789. 
 But the existing regulations do not contain anij sptr(fic 
 provisions on this point. I have therefore proposed in Sec- 
 tion 19" (of a draught of a regulation suggested by .Air. 
 Harington for the guidance of the courts of judicature in 
 cases of slavery,) "to declare the exportation from the British 
 territories of any person born in those territories to be dis- 
 posed of or dealt with as a slave, a criminal offence, punish- 
 able on conviction in any of the criminal courts established 
 under the British government ; unless the person so exported 
 shall have been produced before a magistrate, and registered 
 
 detected; and being immediately prohibited by proclamation, and the 
 first subsequent instance which was discovered being prosecuted to 
 punishment, it was entirely suppressed, and no surmise of its revival 
 has since been entertained/' 
 
 
I N I N D I A . 77 
 
 as a slave." Now, as far as appears, neither the law recom- 
 mended by Mr. Harington, nor any similar law for the guid- 
 ance of the Indian courts of judicature in cases of slavery, 
 was ever enacted ; and if the statement of this high authority 
 v r as correct in 1S21, that the existing regulations did not 
 then contain any specific provisions on this point, it is equally 
 certain that they do not now contain any such provisions, 
 and consequently that the exportation of the natives of India 
 as slaves, although prohibited and effectually suppressed, is 
 not illegal in virtue of any express enactment by the Indian 
 government. There is no inconsistence between this con- 
 clusion and the previous statement by Mr. Harington, that 
 the substance of the proclamation of 1789 was included in 
 Regulation 22 of 1795, since that regulation appears to 
 refer only to the province of Benares ;^ and the absence of 
 a general statutory prohibition of the exportation of the 
 natives of India as slaves, while there is such a prohibition 
 applicable to a single interior province, and while the traffic 
 itself has been practically prevented, is a striking illustration 
 of the laxity with which this subject has been treated by the 
 government of India. 
 
 It may be proper to add in this place a reference to the 
 provisions on this subject contained in the penal code pre- 
 pared by the Indian law commissioners, and published by 
 command of the governor-general of India in council in 
 1S37. This code has not yet received the force of law, but 
 is now under consideration with that view. It proposes to 
 provide that " whoever kidnaps any person, intending or 
 knowing it to be likely that the consequence of such kidnap- 
 ping may be the slavery of that person, shall be pun- 
 ished with imprisonment of either description," (that is, either 
 rigorous imprisonment or simple imprisonment,) " for a term 
 which may extend to fourteen years, and must not be less 
 than two years, and shall also be liable to fine." That kind 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Regulations, Vol. II. p. 902. 
 7* 
 
78 SLAVERY 
 
 of kidnapping to which this punishment is annexed, is thus 
 defined : " Whoever conveys beyond the limits of the 
 territories of the East India Company, or takes on board of 
 any vessel with the intention of conveying beyond the limits 
 of the said territories, any person, without the free and 
 intelligent consent of that person, or of some person legally 
 authorized to consent on behalf of that person, or with such 
 consent, but knowing that such consent has been obtained 
 by deception or concealment as to the place of destination 
 or the future treatment of that person, is said to krdnap that 
 person from the territories of the East India Company." 
 (Chapter XVIII. paras 354, 357.) 
 
 On this branch of the subject it may be confidently affirm- 
 ed that the external traffic in slaves, that is, the exportation 
 of natives of India as slaves, has entirely ceased, but that it 
 is desirable that the law should be brought into greater con- 
 formity with this condition ef things. 
 
 The second class of measures consists of those that have 
 been adopted to prevent the importation of slaves into India. 
 Slaves have been imported into India both by land and sea, 
 and the provisions of the existing laws are different for these 
 two branches of the traffic. 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke was of opinion that the importation by 
 sea was very limited in extent. " The importation by sea/' 
 he says, " consisted of a very few African slaves, brought by 
 Arab ships to the port of Calcutta. Having been led to 
 make some inquiries into this traffic previous to- its abolition, 
 I had reason to be satisfied that the whole number of slaves 
 imported was very inconsiderable ; not exceeding annually 
 a hundred of both sexes. I found cause at the same time 
 to be convinced that the means by which slaves are pro- 
 cured on the eastern coast of Africa, for the Arab dealers 
 who supply Arabia and Persia, and who used to bring 
 the small number mentioned to this port, are not less abomi- 
 nable and nefarious than those practised on the west coast 
 
I N I N D I A . 79 
 
 of Africa; consisting for the most part in the forcible 
 seizure of the slaves, either in predatory war undertaken 
 for the purpose, or by open robbery, often attended with the 
 murder of the parents."^ The language employed in the 
 Resolutions of the honorable the vice-president in council, 
 recorded on the 9th Sept., 1817, gives a somewhat different 
 view of the extent of this traffic. " A traffic was carried on," 
 says the vice-president in council, " in slaves, by importing 
 them by sea from the eastern coast of Africa, from Mada- 
 gascar, and from the Eastern Islands, into the islands and 
 territories in the East Indies, subject to his Majesty or to the 
 honorable the East India Company ;" and this traffic, it is 
 afterwards added, " was in fact of a nature and tendency 
 scarcely less objectionable than the trade which had been car- 
 ried on between the ivestern coast of Africa and the West 
 India Islands"^ To destroy this traffic, Regulation 10 of 
 1811 was enacted, to have effect within the territories im- 
 mediately subject to the presidency of Fort William, and 
 similar provisions were, at the suggestion of the governor- 
 general in council, subsequently enacted for the same pur- 
 pose within the territories immediately subordinate to the 
 governments of Fort St. George and Bombay. By this 
 regulation, the importation of slaves, whether by land or by 
 sea, was prohibited under a penalty of imprisonment for six 
 months, and a fine to government according to the circum- 
 stances of the offender, not exceeding the sum of two hun- 
 dred rupees; commutable, if not duly discharged, to impri- 
 sonment for the further period of six months, on the 
 expiration of the former part of the sentence. Persons 
 imported as slaves were to be discharged or sent back, and 
 captains of private ships, previously to landing their cargoes, 
 were to be required to execute a penalty-bond of five thou- 
 sand rupees not to sell slaves. In so far as this regulation 
 
 * Harin^ton's Analysis, Vol. III. pp. 748, 749. 
 f Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 755. 
 
80 SLAVERY 
 
 provides for the punishment of the importation of slaves by 
 sea, it was superseded by the statute 51 George III. chap. 
 23, which was expressly extended to India. By the first 
 section of this statute it is enacted " that if any subject or 
 subjects of his Majesty, or if any person or persons residing 
 or being within this United Kingdom, or in any of the islands, 
 colonies, dominions, forts, settlements, factories or territories 
 now or hereafter belonging thereto, or being in his Majesty's 
 occupation or possession, or under the government of the 
 United Company of merchants trading to the East Indies, 
 shall from and after the first day of June next," (viz. 1811, 
 but extended to the 1st January, 1812, for places to the 
 of the Cape of Good Hope,) "by him or themselves, or by his 
 or their factors or agents, or otherwise howsoever, carry 
 away, or remove, or aid or assist in the carrying away or 
 removing as a slave or slaves, or for the purpose of 1 
 sold, transferred, used, or dealt with as a slave or slaves, any 
 person or persons whatsoever from any part of Africa, or 
 from any other country, territory, or place whatsoever, 
 either immediately or by transhipment at sea, or other 1 
 directly or indirectly; or shall import, or bring, or aid or 
 n>sist in the importing or bringing into any island, colony, 
 country, territory, or place whatsoever, any such person or 
 
 persons as aforesaid, for the purpose aforesaid then, and 
 
 in every such case, the person or persons so offending, and 
 their counsellors, aiders, and abettors, shall be and are hereby 
 declared to be felons, and shall be transported beyond seas 
 for a term not exceeding fourteen years, or shall be confined 
 and kept to hard labor for a term not exceeding five years 
 nor less than three years, at the discretion of the court be- 
 fore whom such offender or offenders shall be tried and con- 
 victed." This is the law now in force under the Bengal 
 presidency rendering the importation of slaves by sea felony. 
 In the fourth section of this act, the removal of a person 
 
IN INDIA. 81 
 
 already a slave from one part of the West Indies to another 
 is allowed ; but this exception does not apply to the East 
 Indies, and consequently an owner of slaves embarking at 
 one port of British India for another on the Indian continent, 
 or proceeding from one island to another in the Eastern 
 Archipelago, attended by a domestic slave, subjects himself 
 to the penalty of felony. It must be acknowledged that this 
 is a severe provision so long as slavery itself is continued in 
 India; and I am not aware that the exception already pro- 
 vided in regard to the West Indies has been subsequently 
 extended to India, or that there has been any explanatory 
 enactment of the provisions of the statute as meant to have 
 operation in India and the Eastern seas. It has probably 
 been felt that any relaxation would open the door to abuse, 
 or give countenance to existing abuses. 
 
 It has already been mentioned, in citing the opinion of 
 Mr. Colebrooke on the extent to which the importation of 
 slaves by sea was carried, that Arab dealers were chiefly 
 engaged in this traffic, for the supply not only of India, but 
 of Persia and Arabia also; and accordingly, advantage "was 
 very laudably taken by the East India Company's govern- 
 ment on the occasion of concluding a Treaty with the Arab 
 Tribes of the Persian Gulf, dated the 8th of January, 1820, 
 to introduce an article (article IX.) making the slave-trade 
 piracy, and pledging the Arabs not to engage in it. The 
 article runs thus: " The carrying ofTof slaves, men, women, 
 or children, from the coasts of Africa or elsewhere, and the 
 transporting them in vessels, is plunder and piracy, and the 
 friendly Arabs shall do nothing of this nature." It is not to 
 be supposed that such a stipulation, unaccompanied by any 
 sanction, and opposed to all the habits and interests of these 
 Arab tribes, will be very rigidly observed ; but the formal 
 and authoritative declaration of a sound principle cannot be 
 wholly valueless, were it to serve no other purpose than as 
 
82 SLAVERY 
 
 a foundation on which hereafter to erect some more efficient 
 prohibition of the trade. * 
 
 I find it also stated in your recent work on the African Slave- 
 trade, p. 38, that " in 1822, a treaty was concluded by Captain 
 Moresby, R. N., on behalf of the British government, with the 
 Imaum (of Muskat,) by which the slave-trade with Christian 
 countries was declared abolished forever throughout his domin- 
 ions and dependencies; but this arrangement it must be re- 
 membered does not in any way touch upon the slave-trade car- 
 ried on by the Imaum's subjects with those of their own faith." 
 
 When Regulation 10 of 1811 was enacted, the inland 
 traffic in slaves from Nepaul was chiefly contemplated. 
 " The importation by land," says Mr. Colebrooke, " was 
 principally from the territories of Nepaul, whence a regular 
 traffic in slaves appears to have been carried on ; and 
 occasionally from the western and middle parts of India, 
 whenever a local scarcity of provisions gave a temporary 
 impulse to a trade which was otherwise in general languid. 
 Although the subject was brought under the notice of this 
 (the British Indian) government by representations from the 
 local authorities in the Nepaul provinces, it is understood 
 that the traffic owed its existence to the oppressive adminis- 
 tration of those very authorities, which drove* the wretched 
 inhabitants of those provinces to the sad resource of selling 
 their children or themselves into slavery, when all other 
 means of meeting the insatiable exactions of their Nepaulese 
 rulers were exhausted. It was however stated that under 
 cover of a trade which originated in this cause, kidnapping 
 was practised ; and at all events, it was highly expedient to 
 prohibit the importation altogether, whether it gave occasion 
 to the commission of this offence, or only served to crown 
 the last act of extortion of Nepaulese governors from their 
 unhappy subjects."! Regulation 10 of 1811, the provisions 
 
 * See Papers regarding the Administration of the Marquis of 
 Hastings in India, Vol. II. pp. cxx, cxxr. 
 f Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 749. 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 S3 
 
 of which have been already summarily stated, was accord- 
 ingly enacted ; and as respects the importation of slaves by 
 land, this regulation is not deemed by the Indian govern- 
 ment to have been superseded by the subsequent enactment 
 of the statute 51st George III. chap. 23. It is indeed ad- 
 mitted by the vice-president in council in the resolutions of 
 9th Sept. 1817, " that some of the terms used in the pream- 
 ble" of that statute "are of a very comprehensive nature; 
 such indeed as on the first view might lead to the inference 
 that the bringing of slaves by land into the territories of the 
 honorable Company, or the removal of them by land from 
 those territories, were acts included within the penalties of 
 the statute in question." But that such was not the inten- 
 tion of the imperial legislature is attempted to be shown by 
 the following considerations. " Had the provisions of the 
 act been intended to apply to the importation or removal of 
 slaves by land in the honorable Company's territories on the 
 continent of India, it cannot be supposed that the legislature 
 would have confined the operation of the fourth section of 
 that act exclusively to the West Indies ; that it would have 
 subjected to the punishment of transportation whole nations, 
 amongst whom domestic slavery had immernorially existed 
 under the sanction of laws recognised by Parliament, and 
 this without any reference to those established laws and 
 usages, and without repealing the acts of Parliament by 
 which the observance of them is guaranteed to the natives; 
 that it would, in short, have subjected the Hindu. and Mu- 
 hammadan inhabitants of the British territories in the East 
 Indies to the severe punishment of transportation for acts 
 which the fourth section of the statute renders legal in the 
 West Indies. But if there could exist any reasonable doubt 
 with regard to the construction of the act which this govern- 
 ment entertains upon a general consideration of its provi- 
 sions taken in connection with each other, and with all the 
 former acts and resolutions referred to in it ; it would be 
 
84 SLAVERY 
 
 difficult to reconcile any other construction of the act wilh 
 the letter of the sixth clause of the act. The admiralty 
 jurisdiction vested in his Majesty's courts of justice at the 
 several presidencies in India would enable those courts to 
 take cognizance of all offences relating to the importation or 
 removal of slaves by sea contrary to the act; but offences 
 against the act which may not be cognizable by the court of 
 admiralty can only be trjed in England, in the mode 
 pointed out by the sixth clause of the 51st George III. chap. 
 23. If therefore this act be construed to extend to the 
 removal or importation of slaves by land in the territories 
 subject to the East India Company, every native carrying 
 or removing a slave from one part of these territories to 
 another is liable to be sent to England, to be tried for felony 
 in the mode prescribed by certain acts of Henry the VIII. 
 and William the III. for the suppression of piracy. It is 
 unnecessary to enlarge further on the difficulties which must 
 arise from any such construction of the act."^ 
 
 On this reasoning it may be remarked, that the language 
 of the act is, and is admitted lo be, clear and indisputable ; 
 that the objections to the literal construction and application 
 of the law have reference solely to the convenience of own- 
 ers of slaves who may violate the law, and in no degree to 
 the rights of those whom the law was and is designed to 
 protect ; that when 1 the honorable the vice-president in 
 council asserts that domestic slavery has immemorially ex- 
 isted among the people of India, under the sanction of laws 
 recognised by Parliament, his excellency has not specified 
 any act or acts of Parliament recognising the Hindu and 
 Muhammadan laws of slavery, although undoubtedly Par- 
 liament has recognised the Hindu and Muhammadan laws 
 of succession, inheritance, marriage, and caste, and all 
 religious usages and institutions, which have been errone- 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. pp. 754756. 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 85 
 
 ously interpreted to embrace the laws of slavery ; thai 
 when his excellency further alleges that the strict con- 
 struction and enforcement of the act 51st George III., 
 chapter 23, would subject whole .nations to the punishment 
 of transportation, his excellency ludicrously exaggerates, 
 since there are not to be found in India whole nations 
 composed of slave-owners, and that of the individuals who 
 are such, few would have occasion to remove with their 
 slaves from province to province, or from country to country, 
 and fewer still, when the law \vas known, would choose 
 by so doing to subject themselves to the penalties of fel- 
 ony ; that the only inconvenience to which the strict letter 
 of the law would subject those slave-owners who are de- 
 sirous of obeying the law, would be to oblige them to travel, 
 not with slaves, but with hired servants, in a country where 
 labor is cheap and abundant; and that the strict enforce- 
 ment of the law, by preventing the removal of slaves from 
 place to place and from country to country, would have 
 afforded increased facilities for the detection of imported 
 slaves, and \vould at the same time have lessened the value 
 of slave-labor, and thereby conduced to the extinction of 
 slavery. With regard to the alleged necessity under the 
 act of sending to England for trial natives importing or 
 exporting slaves by land, it does not appear why this offence 
 should not be tried by the king's courts in India as well as 
 the offence of importing and exporting slaves by sea. Mr. 
 Campbell, in his letter to the commissioners for the affairs 
 of India, expresses the opinion that the act even as regards 
 the latter offence is everywhere in the Madras territory, 
 except at the presidency, inoperative for want of a jurisdic- 
 tion by the local provincial courts to enforce its penalties 
 concurrent with that possessed by the supreme court at 
 Madras. Without however dwelling on these views, it is 
 sufficient to my present purpose to state that the govern- 
 ment of India deliberately and avowedly assumed the power 
 8 
 
86 SLAVERY 
 
 of setting aside the 51st George III. chapter 23, in as far as 
 respects the bringing of slaves by land into the territories 
 of the East India Company, or the removal of them by 
 land from those territories, limiting its penalties to the im- 
 portation and exportation of slaves by sea, and applying the 
 penalties of Regulation 10 of 1811 to the importation and 
 exportation of slaves by land. The effect of this would 
 appear to be, that the importation or exportation of slaves by 
 sea is held by the Bengal government of the East India 
 Company to be punishable under the act of the Imperial 
 Parliament as felony, by transportation for fourteen years, or 
 by confinement and hard labor for a period extending from 
 three to five years ; that the importation of slaves by land 
 is held by that government to be punishable, under its own 
 regulation, by six months' imprisonment and a fine not 
 exceeding 200 rupees ; and that the exportation of slaves 
 by land is not punishable by any legislative enactment 
 whatsoever. 
 
 With regard to Regulation 10 of 1811, which is held to 
 be in force against the importation of slaves by land, it has 
 been made a question whether the intent of the enactment 
 was to prohibit the importation of slaves by land altogether, 
 or to prohibit their importation only for the purpose of being 
 sold, given away, or otherwise disposed of. The supreme 
 court of criminal judicature under the East India Compa- 
 ny's government in Bengal have construed the regulation in 
 the latter sense ; but this construction has been overruled 
 by the decision of the government of India, " that the intent 
 of the enactment was to prohibit the importation of slaves 
 altogether ; and not merely the importation of slaves for the 
 purpose of being sold, given away, or otherwise disposed 
 of."^ It follows that any person bringing slaves into the 
 territories of the East India Company, although merely as 
 domestic attendants, is subject to the penalties of the regula- 
 
 *Haringtoa's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 761. 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 87 
 
 tion, a very remarkable provision in a country where 
 slavery is legal, but justified by the abuse to which a con- 
 trary interpretation of the law would be subject. 
 
 In connection with the subject of the external traffic, it 
 may be mentioned that the East India Company's govern- 
 ment at the close of the Nepaul war in 1815, on the 
 occasion of re-instating the Raja of Gurwal in Northern 
 Hindostan in the possession of that province, of which he 
 had been deprived by the Nepaulese, expressly stipulated 
 that he should govern his subjects with lenity and justice, 
 promote agriculture and commerce, and abolish the traffic 
 in slaves* Such a stipulation establishes the existence at 
 that time of such a traffic, and evinces the desire of the 
 Indian government to put a stop to it. 
 
 Another class of the measures to which I have referred, 
 consists of those by which ameliorations have been intro- 
 duced into the letter and spirit of the law of slavery, as 
 administered in British Indian courts of justice. 
 
 A very important amelioration has been introduced into 
 the letter of the Muhammadan*law of slavery, affording 
 increased protection to the life of the slave. I have already 
 had occasion to state that " according to Muhammadan law, 
 if a man kill the slave of another, capital punishment, or, in 
 the language of that law, retaliation of death, is incurred ; 
 but that retaliation of death in cases of murder being con- 
 sidered with respect to slaves the right of their masters, 
 they are at liberty to remit the claim and forgive the offen- 
 der, or to compound with the consent of the murderer for a 
 compensation. Still farther, if a master murder his own 
 slave, he is not liable to retaliation of death. The demand 
 of retaliation is further barred if the person murdered be 
 the joint slave of the murderer and others ; the right failing 
 in proportion to the murderer's share, and retaliation of 
 death not admitting of being inflicted in part only. The 
 
 * See Hamilton's Gazetteer, Vol. 1. p. 626. 
 
88 SLAVERY 
 
 same principle is applicable if the person killed be a slave 
 appropriated by the owner to the public service, that is, 
 capital punishment is not incurred. It must be evident that 
 this makes the life of the slave the sport of caprice and 
 passion without any protection from the law ; and accord- 
 ingly the regulations of the East India Company have 
 enacted that in those cases in which a convicted murderer 
 would not be liable under the Muhammadan law to suffer 
 death by retaliation solely on the ground of the murdered 
 person having been the slave of the murderer, or of any 
 other person, or a slave appropriated for the service of the 
 public, the murderer shall be sentenced to suffer death." It 
 follows that the murderer of a slave is no longer permitted 
 to receive a free pardon from the slave's master, nor to offer 
 him a pecuniary compensation for the life of his slave, but 
 must suffer the consequences of his own act according to 
 the degree of criminality which may be determined to 
 belong to it, just as if the slave had been a free person. In 
 like manner if a master take the life of his own slave, he 
 will be equally held to the consequences of his own act, 
 without distinction of person or condition. It is deeply to 
 be regretted that a legal sanction should ever have been 
 given to the native systems of slavery, but while slavery 
 continues to be legal the humanity and justice of such a 
 provision cannot be too highly estimated. It has the obvi- 
 ous tendency to check that abuse of power which is incident 
 to the relation between master and slave even in its mildest 
 form, and to diffuse through the community a higher appre- 
 ciation of human life even in its most degraded condition. 
 It must however be observed that it is only the Muhamma- 
 dan law of slavery that has been thus modified, and that the 
 Hindu law of slavery which subjects the master, whatever 
 maybe the offence he has committed on his slave, to no other 
 punishment than pecuniary fine, has been left unaltered. 
 The reason no doubt is t that the Muhammadan is the only 
 
I N I N D I A . 89 
 
 criminal code recognised by the British government of 
 India, and that an offence committed by a Hindu master 
 against the life of his slave would be punished under the 
 amendment of that law which has been just explained, and 
 not under the original law of Hindu slavery, which recog- 
 nises only pecuniary fine for such an offence. But if an. 
 important provision of the Hindu law of slavery may thus 
 be set aside without any express enactment to that effect, 
 what becomes of the general recognition of the Hindu law 
 of slavery by the Sudder Dewany Adawlut, confirmed by 
 the government of India in 1798? We have thus the 
 highest judicial and executive authorities in India declaring 
 that the Hindu law of slavery, without any exception or 
 limitation, is to be upheld; and on the other hand there can 
 be no doubt that if a Hindu master were wilfully to take 
 the life of his slave, the punishment in such case provided 
 by Hindu law would be deemed insufficient, and, however 
 illegally, the penalty attached to such a crime by the amend- 
 ment of the Muhammadan criminal code would be inflict- 
 ed a state of things, I submit, which shows the little 
 consideration given to the law of slavery in India and the 
 necessity of subjecting it to a thorough revision. 
 
 The preceding is the only amelioration of the state of 
 slavery under the Bengal presidency arising out of a modi- 
 fication of the letter of the law relating to it, but other 
 ameliorations have been introduced by the milder and more 
 protective spirit in which the law has been administered. 
 It was shown before, that the judicial regulations of 1772, 
 framed and enacted by the government of Warren Hastings, 
 provided not only for the capital punishment of gang-rob- 
 bers, but also for the perpetual slavery of their wives and 
 children. This was justly characterized by the Marquis 
 Cornwallis as "a new paid very severe provision," and it 
 disappeared in the judicial code of 1793, of which that no- 
 ble'man was the principal author. Still further, the practice 
 8* 
 
90 SLAVERY/ 
 
 appears to have existed both under the native and British 
 governments of selling offenders against the law into slavery 
 as a mode of punishment, or as a means of lessening the 
 expense of criminal justice. Thus we find Warren Hastings, 
 in 1773, recommending that every convicted felon and mur- 
 derer not condemned to death by the sentence of the court, 
 and every criminal who had been already sentenced either 
 to work during life upon the roads or to suffer perpetual 
 imprisonment, should " be sold for slaves or transported as 
 such." Thus also Mr. Chaplin, in his Report on the 
 Dekhan, (p. 150, para. 2S3,) states that under the preced- 
 ing Mahratta government " a woman of Mahratta caste com- 
 mitting adultery or fornication was sometimes condemned 
 to slavery." And Hamilton (Vol. II. p. 627) states that in 
 the provinces of Tavoy and Tenasserim, acquired from the 
 Burmese in 1824, a great source of slavery under the Bur- 
 mese government was " the sale of government criminals." 
 He adds, that this practice was immediately abolished by 
 the British in those provinces ; and although I have no 
 express authority to justify me in affirming its discontinu- 
 ance elsewhere, yet I have no doubt that it has ceased 
 altogether, and that no court of justice in British India 
 would sentence a criminal to slavery as the legal punish- 
 ment of his crime. 
 
 In illustration of the more protective spirit in which the 
 law of slavery is administered under the British govern- 
 ment than it would have been under the native govern men t, 
 two circumstances may be mentioned. The first regards 
 the practice of making eunuchs of young slaves an inhu- 
 man practice, prevalent in all Muhammadan countries, and 
 even now more prevalent in India than is generally sup- 
 posed. The Muhammadan law does not give to a master 
 this power over the person of his slave, but the practice is so 
 conformable to Muhammadan manners, and so necessary to 
 the protection of the licentious pleasures of the great from 
 
IN INDIA. 91 
 
 invasion, that probably no Muhammadan judge would ever 
 afford the slave any redress against his muster, if the impro- 
 bable case occurred of a slave complaining against his master 
 for such an offence. The Nizamut Adawlut, or supreme 
 court of criminal judicature under the Bengal presidency, 
 has expressly declared that the practice is criminal and pun- 
 ishable by the Muhammadan law, and that its provisions 
 will be enforced. The second circumstance regards the 
 exercise of the power of manumission. The expounders of 
 Muhammadan law expressly deny to the ruling power, 
 whatever may be the crime of the master against his 
 slaves, any authority to grant them emancipation, unless 
 the slavery were originally illegal. But the court have 
 assumed this power and acted upon it, having in one in- 
 stance made the liberation of a female slave who had been 
 cruelly treated by her mistress, part of the sentence against 
 the latter.^ 
 
 These ameliorations in the letter of the law and in the 
 spirit of its administration, to whatever extent the state of 
 society will permit them to operate, must contribute to 
 restrain the hand of the master and to lighten the burthens 
 of the slave. 
 
 The preceding remarks refer almost exclusively to the 
 law of slavery and to the improvements that have been made 
 in its letter and spirit under, the Bengal presidency, the 
 largest and most important of the three Indian governments. 
 Respecting the state of the law under the two other presi- 
 dencies, those of Madras and Bombay, for want of the neces- 
 sary authorities to refer to, my information is less precise 
 and complete. The recognition of the Hindu and Muham- 
 madan laws of slavery is common to all the Indian presi- 
 dencies, and the following are the notices that I have been 
 able to collect respecting the amendments or modifications 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. pp. 761, 763, notes. 
 
92 SLAVERY 
 
 of those laws that have been introduced under the two sub- 
 ordinate presidencies. 
 
 Under the Madras government a regulation was passed 
 in 1812, (Regulation II. of 1812,) one of the clauses of which 
 prohibited the exportation of slaves from the province of 
 Malabar. But after the enactment of this regulation, a re- 
 ference was made to the advocate-general of Madras for his 
 legal opinion, and the result was the formal repeal of that 
 enactment, on the just ground that the act of Parliament of 
 the 51st George III. chap. 23, against the slave-trade, suf- 
 ficiently prohibits this traffic by sea, and that its more severe 
 penalties supersede those previously established by the local 
 Indian legislature. Subsequently, this reasoning does not 
 appear to have been deemed satisfactory, for in 1S26 the 
 act 51st George III., chap. 23, was enacted into a regulation 
 (II. of 1826) by the government of Fort St. George, and 
 according to the meaning and definition given of that law in 
 the regulation in question, the offence prohibited is declnn-.l 
 to be that " of carrying or removing from any country or 
 place whatsoever any person or persons as a slave or si: 
 or for the purpose of being sold or dealt with as a slave or 
 a ;" and " which applies," according to the opinion of 
 the advocate-general at Madras, "in all its consequences 
 and penalties to all persons residing within the king's or 
 Company's territories, including therefore the native subjects 
 of the government." With reference to this Indian re-en- 
 actment of an act of Parliament, it may be asked, if the act 
 of Parliament was held to be in force under the Madras pre- 
 sidency before 1826, what was the use of the regulation of 
 that date ? If the act of Parliament was not held to be in 
 force until that date, nnd was then held to be in force only 
 in virtue of that regulation, what becomes of the supreme 
 authority of Parliament ? With regard to the practical effect 
 of these enactments and re-enactments, I regret to a-dd that 
 it is the opinion of Mr. Campbell that the slave-act, by 
 
IN INDIA. 93 
 
 which he designates 51st George III. chap. 23, "as it now 
 stands, must remain a dead letter everywhere in the Madras 
 territory, except at the presidency, until Parliament give 
 power to the tribunals in the provinces to enforce its pen- 
 alties." 
 
 An improvement that has been introduced into the law 
 of slavery under the Madras government respects the capa- 
 city of slaves to give evidence in courts of justice. In a 
 gross and notorious case of 76 slaves and free-born children 
 who had been kidnapped, the depositions and evidence of 
 the individuals themselves were objected to by the provincial 
 court of circuit in 1812, in the absence of other evidence, of 
 the owners of the bondsmen, and of the parents and relations 
 of the free-born children ; and the consequence was that the 
 accused were suffered to go unpunished. This was done 
 although there were instances of persons who had been 
 tried and convicted of murder before the judges of the pro- 
 vincial court upon the complaint and testimony of slaves, 
 and yet in the case referred to, the injured parties were 
 held to be disqualified, by their united and consistent testi- 
 mony, to prove the cruelty and oppression to which they 
 had been subjected. To remove all doubts on this subject, 
 and to abolish those distinctions in. the Muhammadan law 
 which excepted the evidence of slaves, whether as slaves, or 
 because not of the Muhammadan religion, or because they 
 were prosecutors, or stood in the situation of prosecutors from 
 having been injured by their master or the person accused, 
 or because they were women, or on account of any other 
 personal distinction, Regulation VII. of 1829 was enacted 
 by the Madras government, superseding all such distinctions, 
 and giving slaves the right to prosecute and give evidence 
 the same as free-born persons. Gentlemen of extensive and 
 long-continued practical experience have declared that their 
 evidence is to be depended on fully as much as that of free- 
 
94 SLAVERY 
 
 born persons; and the admission of their evidence is another 
 and most important check against cruelty and injustice, 
 especially when combined with the provision which has 
 been made under the Madras as well as the Bengal presi- 
 dency, making the master amenable to punishment if he 
 put his slave to death without a cause. * 
 
 Another evil existing in connection with the state of 
 slavery in the Madras territories, and created by the opera- 
 tion of the British government, has been at least partially 
 and ostensibly corrected, and it is mentioned here because 
 I am desirous of giving the East India Company's govern- 
 ment credit for all that it merely professes to do. On the 
 Malabar coast, in the Balaghat districts, and in the western 
 parts of the table-land of Mysore, predial slaves are held 
 precisely under the same tenures and terms as the land 
 itself, or rather were 'so held before the Company's govern- 
 ment. They were attached to the land and never sold apart 
 from it, and hence that fondness far their natal soil for 
 which they are stated to be remarkable. The Company's 
 government appears to have introduced the practice of 
 disposing of the slaves separate from the soil, the land of 
 their birth; private proprietors readily adopted it; and thus 
 families are frequently broken up, husbands separated from 
 wives, pnmits from children, and brothers from sisters. 
 The occasions on which this innovation was introduced 
 under the name and authority of the government, were in 
 execution of judicial decrees and in satisfaction of revenue 
 arrears. If in any litigated case a decree of court was pro- 
 nounced, or if government had a claim for revenue against 
 a slave-owner, his slaves were sold, according to the neces- 
 sities of their master, in satisfaction of such claims. Some 
 of the more humane and enlightened civil servants of the 
 Company, and one in particular, Mr. Baber, refused to be 
 
 * Report from Select Committee, Appendix, p. 560. 
 
I N I N D I A . 95 
 
 made the instrument of such acts, and remonstrated against 
 them, and in consequence orders were issued by the Mad- 
 ras Board of Revenue, under date the 13th May, 1819, pro- 
 hibiting the sale of slaves in future on account of arrears of 
 revenue in Malabar. The fact of such orders having been 
 issued is creditable to the good intentions of the Board from 
 which they emanated. But it is to be observed that these 
 orders, proceeding from a Board of Eevenue, do not and 
 cannot embrace the case of slaves sold .or liable to be sold in 
 satisfaction of judicial decrees^ that the fact of their having 
 been issued is so little known, that Mr. Baber, though living 
 in Malabar to the end of 1828, never heard of it, until he 
 found it stated in a parliamentary paper laid before Parlia- 
 ment 12th March, 1828; and that there are good grounds for 
 believing that the orders, limited to the single object of pro- 
 hibiting the sale of slaves for arrears of revenue, are practi- 
 cally neglected. It is easier to introduce than to eradicate 
 a vicious innovation which the grasping and exacting spirit 
 of the government tends to uphold, even against its own 
 express orders.^ 
 
 With regard to ameliorations of slave-law under the Bom- 
 bay presidency, my information is still more limited; but I 
 find it stated in Mr. A. D. Campbell's answers to questions 
 on slavery in the East Indies, circulated' by the commis- 
 sioners for the affairs of India, that the Bombay code con- 
 tains enactments which provide that infants shall not bo 
 separated from the mother until a certain age, and which 
 also it is believed prohibit the separation of the wife from 
 her husband.! 
 
 In the southern Mahratta country, which is under the 
 government of the Bombay presidency, the sale of slaves 
 
 * Report from Select Committee, Appendix, p. 564. 
 
 f See Appendix to Report from Select Committee on the Affairs of 
 the East India Company, p. 575, ordered by the House of Commons 
 to be printed 16th August, 1832. 
 
96 SLAVERY 
 
 was expressly prohibited by the governor-general in council, 
 under date the 18th Dec., 1819, and this, says Mr. Baber, 
 in opposition to the opinions of two of the most able and 
 humane men India has ever produced, the Honorable Mr. 
 Elphinstone and Mr. Chaplin. The effect of this measure, 
 or the grounds on which it was adopted in opposition to 
 such weighty authorities, I have not been able to ascertain ; 
 but the silence that appears to have been maintained on the 
 subject implies that this innovation on established customs 
 in favor of the claims of humanity has not been attended 
 with any other than salutary and peaceful results. ^ 
 
 It may be proper to notice in this place that the most 
 opposite doctrines are advanced by high authorities in the 
 Bengal and Bombay presidencies, respecting the legal effect 
 produced by the 51st George III., chap. 23, on the rights of 
 actual slaves in British India. On this point the vice-pre- 
 sident in council of Bengal observes, " that none of the 
 provisions of the acts of Parliament passed for the abolition 
 of the slave-*rade in any manner affect or profess to affect 
 the relation between master and slave wherever that relation 
 may exist by law. Whatever therefore was the law accord- 
 ing to the Muhammadan and Hindu codes (for those over 
 whom they extend) on the subject of domestic slavery 
 before the passing of the act of the 51st George III. chap. 
 23, continues to be the law still ; more especially as those 
 codes have been distinctly recognised and ordered to be 
 observed by Parliament. At the same time it is not credible 
 that any intention existed to abrogate those codes without 
 reference to the established laws and usages of this country, 
 and without repealing the acts of Parliament by which the 
 observance of them is guaranteed to the natives. The 
 native subjects of the British government residing in the 
 territories subordinate to the several presidencies, have in 
 
 * Report from Select Committee, Appendix, p. 565. 
 
I N I N D I A . 97 
 
 fact the same authority over their slaves and the same pro- 
 perty in them that they would have had if the act in ques- 
 tion had never been passed ; and the several zillah and 
 provincial courts are bound to receive arid determine all 
 questions of that nature which are respectively cognizable 
 by them under the existing regulations." Another point on 
 which the vice-president in council of Bengal has pro- 
 nounced a decision, relates to the conduct which should be 
 observed on the occasion of applications being made by the 
 subjects or governments of neighboring states, with which 
 the Indian government is in amity, for the restoration of 
 slaves who have taken refuge within the Company's terri- 
 tories. On this point it is remarked by the Bengal govern- 
 ment, " that the construction which has been uniformly 
 given by the supreme government to the act of the 51st 
 George III. chap. 23, viz., that it was only intended to apply 
 to the importation or removal of slaves by sea, would not 
 involve any alteration in the course of proceedings hitherto 
 adopted in similar cases. A slave by entering the Com- 
 pany's territories does not become free ; nor can he who 
 was lawfully a slave emancipate himself by running away 
 from one country where slavery is lawful to another where 
 it is equally lawful. The property in the slave still con- 
 tinues in the master; and the master has the same right to 
 have it restored to him that any native subject of our terri- 
 tories could have, supposing that right to be established in 
 the mode prescribed by the local laws and regulations." 
 
 Such is the doctrine and practice of the Bengal govern- 
 ment in the interpretation and application of this important 
 act. Contrast with this the view given of the effect of the 
 same statute by the advocate-general of Bombay. After 
 quoting the words of the act, he says : " These words cer- 
 tainly *do not abolish slavery, for West India slavery is 
 recognised in the same act, but they appear to me peremp- 
 torily to interdict all interference on our part as to the res- 
 9 
 
98 SLAVERY 
 
 toration of slaves to their masters; for I cannot see how such 
 interference could be construed otherwise than as aiding 
 and assisting in the carrying away the person so restored, 
 to be used or dealt with as a slave." " On the same prin- 
 ciple, I think, they impose a duty on the magistrate of 
 liberating slaves who complain of being forcibly kept in 
 their master's service. The slave who liberates himself 
 cannot be restored to his master without danger of felony ; 
 and I think he might prosecute any man on the statute who 
 assisted his master to retake him for the purpose of being 
 used as*a slave." 
 
 I am content at present to exhibit, without attempting to 
 reconcile, these conflicting opinions ; but with reference to 
 the assertion of the Bengal government, that the Muham- 
 madan and Hindu codes, including the law on the subject 
 of domestic slavery, "have been distinctly recognised and 
 ordered to be observed by Parliament," and that the obser- 
 vance of the established laws and usages of the country, 
 including slavery, "is guaranteed to the natives," I mun 
 repeat that I have found no such parliamentary recognition, 
 order, or guarantee. As far as I have been :il>l- 
 tain, the only foundation for this allegation is contained in 
 the statute 21st George III. chap. 70, which reserves the 
 laws and usages of the native inhabitants of Calcutta in 
 cases of " inheritance and successi6n to lands, rents, and 
 goods, and all matters of contract and dealing between party 
 and party, as well as the rights and authorities of fathers 
 and masters of families;" in the judicial plan of 1772 for 
 the provinces, which provides " that in all suits regarding 
 inheritance, marriage, caste, and other religious usages or 
 institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to Muham- 
 madans, and those of the Shaster with respect to Gentoos, 
 shall be invariably adhered to;" and in the code of 1793, 
 to the effect that " in suits regarding succession, inheritance, 
 marriage, and caste, and all religious usages and institutions, 
 
I N I N D I A . 99 
 
 the Muhammadan laws with respect to Muhammadans, and 
 the Hindu laws with regard to Hindus, are to be considered 
 the general rules by which the judges are to form their 
 decisions" in all which slavery is not recognised, ordered 
 to be observed, guarantied, nor even so much as mentioned. 
 
 The only acts of Parliament in which I find express men- 
 tion made of slavery and the slave-trade in the East Indies, 
 are the felony act of 1811, just referred to, and the charter 
 act of 1833, which may be cited as the concluding illustra- 
 tions of the ameliorations introduced into the law and prac- 
 tice relating to slavery under the British government in 
 India. The former prohibits the subjects of the Crown, 
 "under the government of the United Company of mer- 
 chants trading to the East Indies," from engaging directly 
 or indirectly in the import or export slave-trade, under the 
 penalties of felony. The latter directs means to be taken 
 to mitigate the state of slavery, to ameliorate the condition 
 of slaves, and to extinguish slavery throughout British India. 
 The charter act of 1833 thus contains a distinct recognition 
 of slavery in India, but it is not, except indirectly and by 
 implication, an authorization of slavery, and it is solely and 
 avowedly a recognition of it for the purpose of enjoining on 
 the Indian government the mitigation and ultimate removal 
 of its evils. 
 
 Such, as far as my information extends, are the modifica- 
 tions that have been introduced into the native systems of 
 slavery by the British government of India. They are not 
 all that have been proposed for its adoption. Since the 
 establishment of the British power in India, there have been 
 found from time to time among the servants of the East India 
 Company able and enlightened men, a Richardson, a Har- 
 ington, and a Leycester in Bengal, a Baber and a Campbell 
 in Madras, who, penetrating below the mere surface of native 
 society, have recognised the existence of slavery, unknown 
 to many of their countrymen resident in India, both official 
 
100 SLAVERY 
 
 and unofficial, and have devised wise and beneficent measures 
 to remedy its evils, substantially denied by many others. 
 They have had to contend sometimes against the opposition 
 of their less enlightened fellow-servants, always against the 
 apathy and ignorance of a selfish and ill-informed government 
 and of a distant and inefficient controlling power, and almost 
 all that they have said, and written, and done, has fallen 
 neglected and unimproved. The views they adopted, the 
 plans they proposed, will hereafter come under considera- 
 tion ; but in the mean time and in this place, although 
 proceeding from functionaries acting under the East India 
 Company's authority, the measures they proposed to mitigate 
 the evils of slavery, and to lead to its extinction, can only be 
 spoken of as ameliorations and improvements which the 
 East India Company's government has neglected, or rejected, 
 and wholly discouraged and discountenanced. 
 
 How strange and anomalous is that state of the law of 
 which we have now taken an imperfect survey ! First, we 
 see the British government, which has placed itself at the 
 head of a crusade against slavery in Europe, Africa, and 
 America, blindly permitting a delegated government to 
 legalize it amongst a hundred millions of British subjects in 
 Asia. Next we see that delegated government legalizing, 
 not one system, but two distinct systems of slavery; calling 
 one of them out of a state of illegality which had lasted 
 seven or eight hundred years, into a state of practical and 
 effective legality; and legalizing both of these systems of 
 slavery, not by a formal, well-considered, and carefully 
 framed enactment, which would have been of course submit- 
 ted for the approbation or disapprobation of the Imperial 
 Parliament, but thus depriving hundreds of thousands of its 
 native subjects of their personal liberty, and consigning 
 them and their posterity to slavery, by a side-wind, by a 
 mere interpretation, and, as I contend, by a gross misinter- 
 pretation of a rule which gives Hindus and Muhammadans 
 
IN INDIA. 101 
 
 the benefit of their own laws in all suits regarding suc- 
 cession, inheritance, marriage, and caste, and all religious 
 usages and institutions, but which makes not the slightest 
 mention of slavery. Next, we see two branches of this 
 delegated government, at Madras and Bombay, professing to 
 give full effect in all its provisions to the act of Parliament 
 which makes the slave-trade felony, and the legal adviser 
 of the latter government even holding that it commands the 
 liberation of discontented slaves, and prohibits the restoration 
 of fugitive slaves ; while another branch of this delegated 
 government, in Bengal, assumes the power, by its own sole 
 authority, to set aside one half of the same act, that which 
 relates to the importation and exportation of slaves by land 
 into the East India Company's territories, in place of which 
 it applies another enactment, with different penalties of its 
 own, and recognises the absolute and unconditional obliga- 
 tion of restoring runaway slaves, not only to their masters, 
 being British subjects, but even to the governments and 
 subjects of foreign states. Next, we see, as an effect of these 
 proceedings, that while under the Madras government the 
 importation or exportation of slaves by land or sea is pun- 
 ishable as felony ; under the Bengal government, the impor- 
 tation and exportation of slaves by sea only is punishable as 
 felony, the importation of slaves by land is punishable as a 
 misdemeanor, and for the exportation of slaves by land no 
 legal punishment whatsoever has been provided. Lastly, 
 while the Madras government continues to permit the sale 
 of slaves by its own officers, at least in satisfaction of 
 judicial decrees, and generally by private slave-owners, and 
 while the Bengal government recognises all transfers of 
 slaves by sale, gift, or succession in the oldest provinces 
 subject to British sway, the provinces most familiar with 
 the spirit and practice of the British government, and in 
 which a prohibition of the traffic in human flesh might have 
 been enacted with the least danger to the public order and 
 9* 
 
102 SI. AVER-Y IN INDIA. 
 
 tranquillity, and the least injury to individual rights; we see 
 the latter government in the Southern Mahratta country, a 
 new acquisition, where the British rule was strange, where 
 Dative customs and usages were little known, where the 
 danger and injury were likely to be the greatest, suddenly, 
 totally, and absolutely prohibit the sale of slaves slaves 
 hitherto deemed "a marketable commodity," and the sale 
 of them "an established custom" and this done, as far as 
 appears, without murmur or objection on the part of the 
 people, without the slightest effervescence of public feeling. 
 If slavery is to continue in India, it must surely be admitted 
 that the state of the law relating to it which I have exhibited, 
 abounding in inconsistencies and contradictions, demands 
 investigation, revision, and amendment. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 TO THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 Number of Slaves in British India. . , 
 
 SIR, In prosecuting the design to consider the whole 
 subject of slavery in India, I now propose to inquire into 
 the custom and practice of slavery, as distinguished from 
 the law relating to it. It is scarcely requisite to remark 
 that the law is not necessarily an exact transcript of the 
 existing state of slavery ; that the law may be more rigid 
 than the practice, or the practice harsher than the law ; 
 that the letter and spirit of the law may be strictly enforced, 
 or that in connection with slavery usages may exist incon- 
 sistent with the law; and that the law may be administered 
 with a proper regard to the protection of the slave from 
 oppression, or with a blamable disregard of his rights. It 
 will be my endeavor to supply the means of pronouncing a 
 judgment on these points. 
 
 The first information which it is desirable to obtain in 
 connection with the 'existing state of slavery is the extent to 
 which slavery exists, the number of slaves to be found in 
 British India. On this point the information within our 
 reach is very imperfect and unsatisfactory. There has been 
 no census of the whole population of British India, and 
 consequently none of the slave-population. There is no 
 registry of slaves. There are no protectors of slaves. 
 There are no taxes on slave-property. There is not, as in 
 
104 SLAVERY 
 
 the United States, any quasi representation of slaves. The 
 only means of forming an estimate of the probable number 
 of slaves is by collecting the separate facts that have been 
 noted by different observers and writers, and endeavoring to 
 deduce from the whole an approximation to the truth. This 
 is accordingly what I shall attempt to do. The authorities 
 I shall cite will include a reference to other circumstances 
 connected with slavery than the number of slaves, but it is 
 to lead to some just view of the extent to which slavery 
 exists that they are now adduced. 
 
 Under the Bengal presidency and within the limits of 
 Bengal proper, I find reference made to the existence of 
 slavery in six different districts, all of them included in the 
 eastern division of Bengal, viz., Dacca, Backergunge, Silhet, 
 Kunirpoor, Dinajpoor, and Purneah. The following details 
 respecting slavery in these districts are derived from 1 
 ilton's East India Gazetteer, second edition, London, 1S28, 
 dedicated to the chairman, deputy chairman, and court of 
 directors of the East India Company, a work of unques- 
 tioned authority, the materials from which it \yas composed 
 consisting not only of printed documents generally a* 
 ble to the public, but also of manuscript records deposited 
 at the India Board, the latter being in fact the official re- 
 cords of the East India Company's Indian governments, 
 transmitted to England for the -information and approval of 
 the home-authorities. 
 
 DACCA JELALPOOR. " In 1801, the total population" of 
 this district " was computed at 938,712 inhabitants," (the 
 population is stated at 1,140,000, Vol. I. p. 190,) "one half 
 Hindu and the other half Muhammadan. A portion of this 
 population are slaves, and the custom of disposing of per- 
 sons already in a state of slavery is common throughout the 
 country. On these occasions regular deeds of sale arc 
 executed, some of which are registered in the court of 
 justice ; and when an estate to which slaves are attached.is 
 
IN INDIA. 105 
 
 sold privately, the slaves are commonly sold at the same 
 time, although a separate deed of sale is always exe- 
 cuted."* 
 
 BACKERTJUNGE AND SILHET. In 1801, Backergunge was 
 estimated to contain 926,000, and Silhet 50*0,000 inhabi- 
 tants. In Silhet, " during the Moghul dynasty, and even 
 at a less distant period, children used to be purchased as an 
 article of commerce and resold at Dacca and elsewhere." 
 " During the Moghul government this district (Silhet) 
 furnished a considerable number of slaves and (as stated 
 by Abulfazel) eunuchs for the royal seraglio. The practice 
 of inveigling away its free natives for the purpose of selling . 
 them at Dacca, Patna, Calcutta, and Moorshedabad, still 
 continues, although, from the vigilance of the British autho- 
 rities, the attempt is rarely successful. An authorized traffic 
 in slaves has existed here from time immemorial ; and one 
 of the magistrates estimated this class at one sixth of the 
 whole population," (that is, upwards of 80,000,) " progres- 
 sively increasing by domestic propagation. The transfer 
 of slaves takes place both with and without the consent of 
 the slaves, but in the latter predicament only the mildest 
 treatment can secure the purchaser any benefit from his 
 acquisition. Occasionally the poorer descriptions of free 
 inhabitants sell themselves when in extreme distress, and a 
 few persons, principally slaves, are inveigled away by bazee- 
 gurs " (tumblers) "and wandering fakeers," (religious men- 
 dicants.) "Women also of the poorer classes, both here 
 and in the Backergunge district, when left widows, sell their 
 children to procure food. Some have been hereditary slaves, 
 for several generations, and are sold along with the estate 
 on which they reside ; others are imported from Cachar, 
 Gentiah, and other territories beyond the limits of British 
 jurisdiction."! 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 475. f Hamilton, Vol. II. pp. 553, 554. 
 
 . 
 
106 SLAVERY 
 
 RUNGPOOR. In 1809, after a laborious investigation, the 
 population of this district was* estimated at 2,735,000. 
 "Among the domestics are both male and female slaves, 
 especially towards Assam, and everywhere along the north- 
 ern frontier. The people of Assam sell many slaves, and 
 those of Cooch Behar are not unwilling to carry on the 
 same trade. Rungpoor being a section of Camroop, (the 
 Hindu -region of sensual love,) public prostitution is so com- 
 mon that in 1S09 twelve hundred houses were occupied by 
 females of that profession, which has assumed the organi- 
 zation of a regular society, with a priesthood adapted to 
 their manner of life. In 295 of these houses, there wore 
 found to be 460 females, between the ages of twelve and 
 twenty-five years ; 218 advanced in life, who acted as 
 servants airl superintendents; and the community also 
 contained thirty-nine old men, thirty-five youths, and four- 
 teen boys, all born of the sisterhood. These prostitutes, 
 although mostly born of Muhammadan parents, ailert Hin- 
 du manners, on which account they abstain from all impure 
 food, and before the age of puberty undergo the ceremony 
 of marriage with a plantain tree. In this district, in 1809, 
 there were sev ht sets of female dancers and singers, 
 
 all prostitutes. Here they are called Nutti, and belong to 
 the same kind of institution as the common prostitutes, and 
 have the same religious guides. All the girls are pur- 
 chased when children. The handsomest and smartest is 
 generally the head of the set, which usually consists of two 
 or three girls and four or five men, who are mostly born in 
 . the caste. There are no dancing or singing bo 
 such as are attached to the sets which perform in honor of 
 the gods and saints, but of these there is a considerable 
 variety and incredible number. The number employed to 
 make a noise on public occasions is stated in statistical 
 tables of the Rungpoor district at 2,664."* 
 * Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 477. 
 
 
IN INDIA. 107 
 
 , 
 
 DINAJPOOR. Jri 1808, the population of this district was 
 estimated at 3,000,000. " Slaves are very few, and were 
 mostly purchased during the great famine of 1769 and the 
 scarcity of 1787 ; but they turned out so idle and careless 
 that their employment was found much more expensive than 
 that of hired laborers. "^ 
 
 PURNEAH. In 1810 the population of this district, after a 
 very laborious investigation, was estimated at 2,904,380 
 persons, in the proportion of forty-three Muhammadans to. 
 fifty-seven Hindus. " Comprehended in the above popula- 
 tion are various classes of slaves, of which one class costs 
 from 1 15s. to 2 5s. ; in another a boy costs from 1 8s. 
 to 2 5s. ; and a girl of eight years from 11s. to 1 15s. 
 They are allowed to marry, and their children become 
 .slaves ; but the family are sefdom sold separately. One 
 class of slaves are by far the most comfortable description 
 of laboring people, and are seldom sold by their owners 
 although they possess the power. "t 
 
 In 1824 and 1825 there were several provinces conquered 
 from the Burmese Assam.. Arracan, and the Tenasserim 
 provinces, including the Mergrii Archipelago. The fol- 
 lowing extracts relate to the slave-trade and slavery found 
 to prevail and still existing in those provinces ; and they 
 are taken, like the preceding, from Hamilton, with one 
 exception, which will be noticed. 
 
 ASSAM. The latest and probably the most correct esti- 
 mate of the population of Assam makes it amount to about 
 800,000. t Hamilton states that in 1809, when Assam was 
 an independent kingdom, a part of the value of the exports 
 from Assam to Bengal consisted of slaves, to the amount of 
 2000 rupees annually. He adds : " All the domestics are 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 515. f Hamilton, Vol. II. pp. 431, 432. 
 \ McCosh's Topography of Assam, p. 129. Calcutta, 1837. 
 
108 SLAVERY 
 
 slaves, and they are numerous, every man of rank having 
 several, mostly. procured among the necessitous, who mort- 
 gage themselves. Some were exported, and before the 
 British predominance, about one hundred of pure caste 
 were annually sold in Bengal. The girls were chiefly 
 bought by professional prostitutes, and cost from twelve to 
 fifteen rupees. A Cooch boy/' (that is, a native of Cooch 
 Behar, a dependent principality situated at the nori! 
 ern extremity of the Bengal district of Kungpoor,) "cost 
 twenty-five rupees, a Kolita " (that is, a member of the abo- 
 riginal priesthood of Cooch Behar) "fifty; slaves of impure 
 tribes were sold to the Garrows."* 
 
 The Bengal government has recently called on its medi- 
 cal servants for reports on the topography of the districts in 
 which they carry on their professional labors; and one of 
 the most valuable of the productions which have been thus 
 elicited is Dr. McCosh's Topography of Assam, publi^ied 
 by order of government at Calcutta in 1837, and contain- 
 ing the following additional information respecting the state 
 of slavery in that province. " Slavery still continues to a 
 very considerable extent in Assam, and these poor creatures 
 
 ought and sold every day for a mere trifle. K 
 native in the receipt of more than ten or twelve ruj. 
 month has one or more of them. All the drudgery of the 
 household and the labor of the field is performed by them. 
 Many of them have been enthralled by mortgaging their 
 bodies for a few rupees ; and for want of the means of 
 accumulating the original sum, increased by exorbitant 
 usury, continue in bondage for life, themselves and their 
 descendants, from generation to generation. Slaves are 
 believed to be kindly treated by their masters ; but, as 
 might be expected, they make frequent attempts to escape. 
 They are valued in the market according to caste ; high 
 caste adults sell for about twenty rupees, boys fifteen, and 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. I. pp. 72 ; 73. 
 
IN INDIA. 109 
 
 gills from eight to twelve. Those of the lower castes do 
 not bring more than one-third of the above estimate. No 
 slaves are allowed to be exported from Assam. "^ 
 
 ARRACAX. " In 1826, the population of Arracan, includ- 
 ing Ramree, Cheduba, and Sandoway, was estimated at 
 100,000 persons." " Slavery is tolerated in all shapes, 
 and when a man wants to raise money he pawns his 
 wifo."t 
 
 TAVOY. " In 1825, the total population of Tavoy, Ye, 
 and Tenasserim, was estimated at 26,000 inhabitants." 
 " The custom of debtor-slavery or mortgaged labor prevails 
 universally ; another great source of slaves was the sale of 
 government criminals ; price of a slave from thirty to sixty 
 rupees. The last was immediately abolished by the Brit- 
 ish, but the first required time, it being a matter of proper- 
 ty,'^ On this it maybe remarked that it required no time 
 to forbid the future creation of any such property. 
 
 MERGUI ARCHIPELAG!O. This is a chain of high, bold, and 
 generally rocky islands on the coast of Tenasserim, which 
 with that province may be deemed to have passed under 
 the government and protection of the British. The follow- 
 ing is the description given of their inhabitants and of the 
 piratical depredations to which they are exposed. " A race 
 of men termed by the Chinese, Cholome and Pase, are to 
 be found scattered throughout the Mergui (Archipelago,) but 
 their dread of the Malay pirates keeps them in constant 
 locomotion to escape slavery. During the northeast mon- 
 soon they are obliged to remove from the vicinity of the 
 principal birds' nest and beche de mere islands, to shun 
 the Malays, Burmese, and Siamese, who capture and make 
 slaves of them. Their numbers, unless collected on one spot, 
 are quite insignificant. Their home is their boat, for they 
 
 * McCosh's Topography of Assam, p. 26. 
 f Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 60. \ Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 627. 
 10 
 
110 SLAVERY 
 
 never form settlements on shore, or cultivate, their chief 
 employment being the collection of sea-slug, birds' nests, 
 and other natural productions of the islands, which they 
 barter with the Chinese traders for cloths and other articles 
 brought from Mergui," the capital of the British province 
 of Tenasserim, " being as yet ignorant of the value of 
 money. They have adopted the Burmese dress and re- 
 ligion, but in their general habits are a harmless and 
 industrious race. Excluding these itinerants, the Mer- 
 gui islands appear almost entirely destitute of inhabi- 
 tants."* 
 
 The province of Bahar joins the western boundary of 
 Bengal, and slavery exists in at least four of the six districts 
 into which it is divided, viz.,' Boglipoor, Bahar, Tirhoot, 
 and Rungpoor. 
 
 BOGLIPOOR. In 1810, the population of this district i 
 estimated at about 2,060,000. " Real slaves of the inal 
 are htre called nufur, and their women laundies. They may 
 be sold in whatever manner the master chooses ; but they 
 are not often brought to market, and are all either of the 
 Dhanak or Rawani castes. The slaves here :. neral 
 
 industrious, seldom run away, and are rarely beaten."! 
 
 BAHAR. In 1811, the district of this name was estimat- 
 ed to contain a population of 2,755,150 persons. " Si 
 of the description called nufur and laundi are crry ?; 
 ous, often liberated, seldom sold, and frequently, o \vinir to 
 the poverty of their owners, left to find a subsistence for 
 themselves." " The Muhammadans in the Bahar district 
 occasionally make converts of pagans, especially by the pur- 
 chase of slaves, who are treated with great kindness ; but 
 this mode of conversion goes on much more slowly than 
 formerly, when the Muhammadans possessed the government 
 and an enormous income, a great part of which was dissi- 
 
 Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 226. f Hamilton, Vol. I, p. 254. 
 
IN INDIA. Ill 
 
 pated on this pecuniary method of propagating their faith. 
 Still, however, there is reason to believe that within these 
 thirty or forty years a considerable increase in the number 
 of the faithful has taken place. By the mere exertion of 
 fakeers, missionaries, or religious mendicants, very little has 
 been or can be done, but by the simple processes of pur- 
 chasing and procreation, any religion might in a reasona- 
 ble, time be extended without giving offence, a very large 
 portion of the nominal Hindu natives being considered by 
 the spiritual directors now in the country as not worth ad- 
 mission into their flocks. A conversion of this description 
 in a temporal view would be evidently disadvantageous, 
 and in a spiritual sense, the methods above alluded to could 
 not with propriety be adopted. The plan, however, has 
 succeeded perfectly well with the Muhammadans, probably 
 more than one-half of the sect having an intermixture of 
 Hindu blood."* 
 
 In 1837, 1 visited this district in the prosecution of an in- 
 quiry into the state of native education, conducted under the 
 orders of government, and I availed myself of the opportuni- 
 ties and facilities I possessed to collect information on various 
 other subjects, of which one was slavery. In one- police 
 subdivision of this district, called Jehanabad, containing 
 a population ascertained by actual census to amount to 
 81,480, I found by the same means that there were 271 male 
 slaves, and 401 female slaves, or 672 in all. If we suppose 
 the same proportion between the slave and free population 
 in the other police subdivisions, and that the total popula- 
 tion is 2,755,150, the total slave population in the Bahar 
 district will amount to 22,722. 
 
 TIRHOOT. The only information that I possess respect- 
 ing slavery in this district, is derived from my own inqui- 
 ries, made in 1837, on the occasion already mentioned. In 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. I. pp. 108, 111 ; Vol. II. pp. 652, 653. 
 
112 SLAVERY 
 
 one police subdivision, that of Bhawara, containing a popu- 
 lation ascertained by actual census to amount to 65,812, I 
 found by the same means that there were 209 male slaves, 
 and 155 female slaves, or 364 in all. If, as in the former 
 case, we suppose the same proportion between the slave and 
 free population, in the other police- subdivisions, and if, with 
 Hamilton, we estimate the total population of the district at 
 2,000,000, the total slave population in the Tirhoot district 
 will amount to 11,061. 
 
 RAMGHUR. This district in 1801 was estimated to con- 
 tain a population of 1,000,000. The following remarkable 
 statement is made respecting the slave population of this 
 district. "Theft is common throughout Ramghur ; but 
 murder more prevalent among a particular class, which are 
 the slaves possessed by chiefs inhabiting the mountainous 
 and inaccessible interior, and of savage and ferocious habits. 
 When petty disputes occur, these slaves are compelled by 
 their masters to perpetrate any enormity, and are more 
 especially employed for the purposes of assassination. Any 
 hesitation or symptoms of repugnance on the part of the 
 slave is attended with instant death, which is equally his 
 fate should he fail in the attempt. On the other hand, if 
 he succeed, he is sought out by the officers of government, 
 and executed as a murderer. The usual pulkv has hitherto 
 been unable to seize the cowardly instigator, and if re< < 
 be had to a military force he retires to the jungles, Neither 
 do the slaves attach the slightest idea of guilt to the mur- 
 ders they are thus delegated to commit ; on the contrary, 
 when taken they invariably confess, and appear to expect 
 applause for having done their duty."* 
 
 Hamilton, in his notices of the provinces of Oude, Allaha- 
 bad, Agra, and Delhi, and of the country between the 
 Sutlej and the Jumna, Kumaon, and the Dehra Doon, in 
 Western and Northern Hindostan, makes no mention of the 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 452. 
 
IN INDIA. 113 
 
 existence of slavery. The subject has received so little 
 attention that his silence does not establish its non-existence, 
 and in the productions of two other writers I find the follow- 
 ing notices of slavery in Gorakhpur and in the Dehra 
 Doon. 
 
 GORAKHPUR. This district was ceded by the Oude gov- 
 ernment in 1801, and includes two subdivisions, Gorakhpur 
 and Azimghur, each equal to the ordinary extent of a district. 
 I have not met with any estimate of the population. The 
 existence of slavery in Gorakhpur appears from a commu- 
 nication addressed by D. Listen, Esq., a European resident 
 in the district, to the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Vol. VI., 
 for 1837, p. 950. This gentleman states that he had been 
 requested by Captain Lawrence, under whose charge the 
 survey of the eastern division of the district is placed, to 
 furnish answers to certain statistical inquiries. In collect- 
 ing the information for this purpose on the subject of the 
 relations between landholders and those who water and cul- 
 tivate their lands, he procured two documents, one a servi- 
 tude bond, and the other a deed of sale of two slaves. 
 In the former, a laborer, for a sum of 51 rupees, places 
 himself, his children, and his plough, always and for every 
 Idiul of labor, at the absolute disposal of the lender. In 
 the latter, the owner of the slaves, for a sum of 43 rupees, 
 sells the wife and son of his slave Bulbhader to the pur- 
 chaser, and the effect of the sale is, that " wherever they 
 go, thence they may be brought back ; as slaves they are 
 sold to perform every kind of work ; wherever they may flee, 
 thence they may be seized and brought back without objec- 
 tion, or complaint, or murmur ; without obstacle may they 
 be brought from under the king's or prince's throne ; who- 
 ever receives these servants, Hindu or Musalman, he may 
 (legally) be adjured the Hindu by the sacred cow, the 
 Musalman by Hasan/' &c. These deeds are expressly 
 10* 
 
Ill SLAVERY 
 
 stated by Mr. Listen to be " such as are daily executed, and 
 in full force" 
 
 DEHRA DOON. In 1836, the Hon. F. J. Shore publish- 
 ed a Report on the Dehra Doon, the result of four years' 
 residence, and originally compiled and submitted to govern- 
 ment in 1827. The population of the Doon was then 24,5S7. 
 The following remarks (p. 32) occur respecting slavery. 
 " Slavery exists but in a small extent at present. I 
 the native governments, little attention seems to have been 
 paid to either Muhammadan or Hindu law regarding si; 
 The master's power was virtually almost despotic over the 
 slave ; their employment was very similar to that of domes- 
 tic servants. A man and his whole family could be 
 for debt or for arrears of revenue, a practice which wafc 
 ried to an intolerable pitch by the Go< Since the 
 
 establishment of the British government, 
 elsewhere, is dying a natural death." On Mr. Shore's 
 authority, such may safely be pronounced to be the c;, 
 the Dehra Doon. That si: ivory in other parts of India, 
 subject to the British government, is not dying a natural 
 death, has been and will 'Still further lp slmxvn. 
 
 In addition to the preceding citatio: nf which has 
 
 reference to a small and separate locality, the followii, 
 marks on slavery occur in Mr. Colebrooke's writings, hav- 
 ing a general reference to the territories subject to tlu> 
 ernment of the Bengal presidency. In 1804, Mr. Colebrooke 
 published Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Com- 
 merce of Bengal, and in the introduction he states that 
 when he uses that name, without any limitation, he means 
 " all the provinces over which Great Britain exercises avow- 
 ed sovereignty committed to the immediate administration 
 of a council at Calcutta; 1 ' in other word?, " the rn 
 immediately governed by the presidency of Fort William, 
 comprehending the whole Subas (provinces) of Bengal and 
 J3ahai ; a part of the adjoining Subas of Ilahabad, Oresa, 
 
I N I N D I A . 1 15 
 
 and Berar, and some tracts of country," (such as part of 
 Morung, Cooch, and other provinces,) " which had main- 
 tained their independence even in the most flourishing 
 period of the Moghul empire."^ In the course of Mr. 
 Colebrooke's remarks on the profits of husbandry in Ben- 
 gal, he was led to contrast the cheap production and frugal 
 manufacture of sugar in Bengal with its expensive pro- 
 duction and manufacture by slave-labor in the West Indies ; 
 but recollecting the existence of slavery in India, he felt 
 himself compelled to make the following admissions : 
 " Slavery indeed is not unknown in Bengal. Throughout 
 some districts the labors of husbandry are executed chiefly 
 by bond-servants. In certain provinces the ploughmen arc 
 mostly slaves of the peasants for whom they labor ; but 
 treated by their masters more like hereditary servants or 
 mancipated hinds tluin like purchased slaves, they labor 
 with cheerful diligence and unforced zeal. In some pla<vs, 
 also, the landholders have a claim to the servitude of thou- 
 sands among the inhabitants of their estates. This claim, 
 which is seldom enforced, and which in many instances is 
 become wholly obsolete, is founded on some traditional 
 rights acquired many generations ago, in a state of society 
 different from the present : and slaves of this description do 
 in fact enjoy every privilege of a freeman except the name ; 
 or at the worst they must be considered as villains attached 
 to the glebe, rather than as bondrrten laboring for the sole 
 benefit of their owners. Indeed, throughout India, the 
 relation of master and slave appears to impose the duty of 
 protection and cherishment on the master, as much as that 
 of fidelity and obedience on the slave, and their mutual 
 conduct is consistent with the sense of such an obligation ; 
 since it is marked with gentleness and indulgence on the 
 one side, and with zeal and loyalty on the other."! I do 
 
 * Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal, p. 1. 
 f Ibid. pp. 129, 130. 
 
116 SLAVERY 
 
 not call in question the generally mild character of slavery, 
 as here described, in the Bengal provinces. I only wish to 
 call your attention to the acknowledged general prevalence 
 of agrestic or predial slavery in some form or another, " in 
 some places," " throughout some districts," and " in certain 
 provinces " of the Bengal presidency, although there can 
 be no doubt, what I am desirous neither of controverting 
 nor concealing, that in most provinces none but freemen 
 are occupied in the business of agriculture. 
 
 We have the benefit of Mr. Colebrooke's testimony to the 
 extent both of domestic and predial slavery in the Bengal 
 provinces, delivered with still greater minuteness, in an 
 official paper written by him in 1812, not, it would appear, 
 entered on the public records, but quoted by Mr. llari 
 in his Analysis of the Laws and Regulations of the B 
 Government, Vol. III. pp. 743748. " \ 
 "domestic slavery very general among both Hindus and 
 
 I mans. More trusty than hired servants, slav 
 exclusively are employed in the interior of the hou 
 attendance on the members of the family, and in all the 
 most confidential services. Every opulent person, 
 one raised above the condition of the simple rity, 
 
 is provided with household slaves; and from this 
 eh icily a; the concubines of Musalmans and Hin- 
 
 dus ; in regard to whom it is to be rem* : that 
 
 concubinage is not among people of those religions an 
 immoral state, but a relation which both law and ri. 
 recognise without reprehension ; and its prevalence is liable 
 only to the same objection as polygamy, with which it has 
 a near and almost necessary connection. In the lower 
 provinces under this presidency, the employment of slaves 
 in the labors of husbandry is nearly if not entirely unknown. 
 In the upper provinces, beginning from Western Bahar and 
 Benares, the petty landholders who are themselves cultiva- 
 
IN INDIA. 117 
 
 tors, are aided in their husbandry by their slaves, whom 
 they very commonly employ as herdsmen and ploughmen ; 
 and landholders of a higher order have in a few instances 
 the pretensions of masters over part of their tenants long 
 settled on their estates, and reputed to be descended from 
 persons who were acknowledged slaves of their ancestors. 
 Their claims to the services of these hereditary serfs are 
 nearly obsolete, and scarcely attended with any practical 
 consequences. The serfs pay rent and other dues for the 
 lands which they till and the pastures on which they graze 
 their herds, and are not distinguishable from the rest of the 
 peasantry, unless by a questionable restriction of the right 
 of removing at choice. But those employed in husbandry 
 by the inferior class of landholders are strictly slaves ; and 
 their condition differs from that of household slaves only as 
 the one is occupied in out-door work, and the other in 
 business of the interior ,of the house. The employment 
 of slaves in handicraft is more rare, but not entirely 
 unknown. It would be difficult to form a computation of 
 the number of slaves throughout the country, or of the 
 proportion borne to the free population. Any steps towards 
 the preparation of an estimate which should approach to 
 accuracy would involve inquiries which must excite alarm, 
 and could not but be attended with circumstances offensive 
 to the people. But taking a more general view, it may be 
 stated, that slaves are neither so few as to be of no conside- 
 ration, nor so numerous as to constitute a notable propor- 
 tion of the mass of population." These views are entitled 
 to great consideration, and it is believed are in general 
 correct ; but some of the facts already adduced show that 
 in certain particulars they require to be qualified. That 
 there are exceptions to the general good treatment of 
 domestic slaves, is apparent from the Gorakhpur case, 
 which was the sale of a wife and son apart from the hus- 
 
118 SLAVERY 
 
 band and father; and it is very obvious that slaves must 
 constitute a very notable proportion of the mass of popula- 
 tion, where, as in Silhet, they amount to one-sixth of the 
 whole, and in those provinces in which Mr. Colebrooke 
 himself has informed us the ploughmen are mostly slaves 
 of the peasants for whom they labor. Notwithstanding 
 these exceptions, the general accuracy of Mr. Colebrooke's 
 picture of slavery in the provinces of the Bengal presidency 
 is unquestionable. - 
 
 The first reference to slavery under the Bombay presi- 
 dency that I have met with, is contained in Macnaghten's 
 Principles and Precedents of Hindu Law, Vol. I. p. 119, 
 note, where it is stated that " the question " of slavery 
 "appears to have been a good deal discussed in the courts 
 subordinate to the presidencies of Madras and Bombay." 
 This merely recognises the existence of slavery within the 
 Bombay territories and the fact of the adjudication of slave 
 in the Bombay courts, without giving any information 
 of the number of slaves or the extent of slavery. 
 
 More detailed information respecting slavery in the terri- 
 tories subject to the government of the Bomb; 
 is fir in ?,lr. Chaplin's Report on the DcK 
 
 embracing most of the provinces conqu"rcd from the 
 Mahrattas in 1818, and placed under the jurisdiction of 
 the Bombay government. The population of these prov i 
 
 'stimated by Mr. Elphinstone and Mr. Chaplin at about 
 4,000,000. The following statements by Mr. Chaplin in his 
 official Report of 1822, relate to the extent to which sin 
 existed, and to the fact that the slave-trade was still carried 
 on in the Dekhan at that time. " The subject of domestic 
 -hvery in the Dekhan w r ould appear to require to be r 
 lated by some legal sanctions, in order, on the one hand, 
 to prevent the oppression of slaves as well as to check the 
 traffic, and on the other hand to obviate the injustice that 
 
IN INDIA. 119 
 
 Would be occasioned to private property by any interference 
 amounting to an absolute prohibition of the sale of what 
 has hitherto been deemed a marketable commodity. From 
 the answers " (given by the collectors of districts) " to 
 queries" (addressed to the collectors by Mr. Chaplin), "it 
 will be observed, that slavery in the Dekhan is very preva- 
 lent, and we know that it has been recognised by the Hindu 
 law and by the custom of the country from time immemo- 
 rial" " The greatest portion of slaves are reduced to that 
 condition in times of famine, when parents sell their chil- 
 dren for the double purpose of saving their lives and 
 themselves from starvation. A great number have within 
 these few years been imported into the Dekhan under these 
 circumstances, and this mode of disposing of a famishing 
 offspring seems beyond all doubt to have been the means 
 of alleviating scarcity. One great evil has, however, 
 resulted, that of kidnapping children for the purpose of 
 selling them in distant countries as slaves. This is a 
 common practice among the Lumans and Brinjarees." 
 " The importation of slaves from foreign states now stands 
 prohibited by the orders of the supreme government. 
 This, however, has increased the price ivitkout putting a 
 stop to the traffic."* 
 
 Mr. Baber, in his answers to questions on slavery in the 
 East Indies, circulated by the Board of Commissioners for 
 the Affairs of India, enables us to form a still more definite 
 idea of the number of slaves in one of the divisions of the 
 Bombay territory, viz., that " lying between the rivers 
 Kistna and Toongbutra, and comprising the late southern 
 Mahratta states, now partly administered by the Honorable 
 Company, and partly by the Putwurdhun family and other 
 principal Jagheerdars ; also the dominions of his highness 
 
 * Chaplin's Report, pp. 148 151. 
 
120 SLAVERY 
 
 the Colapore Rajah." With reference to this division of 
 the Bombay territory, Mr. Baher says : " In the Dooab or 
 southern Mahratta country, including Colapore, the number 
 of domestic slaves I compute at 15,000, or rather more than 
 three-quarters per cent, of the general population, which 
 may be reckoned at about two millions, as follows : the 
 number, in the year 1822, in the Honorable Company'* 
 portion of the Di>oab, was 684,193, and in the Jag: 
 778,183, as reported by Mr. Commissioner Chaplin, exclu- 
 sive of Colapore, about 250,000 more ; since which period 
 (judging from the augmented jumma, or gross annual 
 nue) the increase in the general population of the whole of 
 the southern Mahratta country cannot be less than one-tenth 
 . The same gentleman also reported ' throughout the 
 Dekhan slavery to be very prevalent.' In the southern 
 r\I:ihratta country, all the Jagheerdars, Deshwars, Zamindars, 
 principal Brahmins and Sahookars, retain slaves on their 
 domestic establishments ; in fact, in every Mahratta house- 
 hold of consequence they are, both male and female, 
 especially the latter, to be found, and indeed are considered 
 as indispensable."* 
 
 It is under the Madras presidency that Indian slavery 
 appears under its worst form, and it is there also that we 
 have the most precise statements of the extent to which it 
 prevails. It is found in the British districts of Arcot, 
 Canara, Malabar, Bellary and Tanjore, and in the de- 
 pendent native principalities of Cochin and Travancore, 
 and of Mysore and Coorg. 
 
 ARCOT. In the Appendix to a Report from the Select Com- 
 mittee on the Affairs of the East India Company, ordered by 
 the House of Commons to be printed, August 16, 1832, 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, without date, but written apparently in 1832, 
 and published in Appendix to Report from Select Committee on the 
 Affairs of the East India Company. (Public,) p. 551. 
 
IN INDIA. 121 
 
 there is an abstract of the Evidence given before the Lords 7 
 Committee, 1830, on Slavery, pp. 303, 304. In that abstract, 
 Mr. Hyde is stated to have given evidence to the following 
 effect : " In Arcot there are about 20,000 slaves. They 
 generally go with the land, and are transferred when the 
 land is sold ; they are never sold by themselves, but if the 
 land is sold they go with it. They are so well protected 
 by their masters, that they can scarcely be considered as 
 slaves. The children of slaves are also slaves, but they 
 are never sold. Enfranchisement seldom takes place. 
 Slaves%re not capable of possessing property." The two 
 districts of Northern and Southern Arcot, to which these 
 remarks apply, contained in 1822 a population of 1,347,312. 
 CANARA. Mr. Baber states that " in the Zillah of Canara, 
 the total number of slaves, agrestic and domestic, may be 
 fairly computed at 80,000, or about one in twelve of the 
 gross general population, which, when I left the Malabar 
 coast, in 1828, amounted to nearly a million of souls. In 
 1801, Mr. Ravenshaw, the collector of the southern divis- 
 ion, reported the gross population at 396,672; the northern 
 division may be calculated at one-third of this number; 
 and Mr. Ravenshaw further reported the slave-population 
 to be 52,122, besides 722 illegitimate children, whom, he 
 writes, it was the custom of the Biddenore government to 
 take possession of and sell as slaves ; and also slaves im- 
 ported from Arabia, of whom there were many. ' In 1819, 
 the Honorable Thomas Harris, the principal collector of all 
 Canara, reported the number of slaves at 82,000, of whom 
 20,000 were persons (or rather their descendants) who had 
 been taken in battle, or concubines, or Brahmin and Sooder 
 women, who had lost caste by having connection with men 
 of inferior caste ; the two last descriptions (he adds) were 
 sold under the Musalman government, and their descend- 
 ants continue slaves; and that under Mr. Baber, when 
 11 
 
]22 SLAVERY 
 
 magistrate here, some stop was put to this practice, hut there 
 is no doubt it exists in an underhand manner at this day.' 
 I should here add, that Mr. Harris also stated that ' the 
 number of slaves had never been correctly ascertained/ 
 By a. census, taken in 1807, of all Canara, the total number 
 of inhabitants was found to be 576,640 ; as I have stated 
 above, in 1827 the gross population amounted to nearly 
 a million, making an increase of seventy per cent, in 
 twenty years, while the slave-population has been station- 
 ary."* 
 
 MALABAR. Mr. Baber states that " in the Zfllah of 
 Malabar, Mr. Warden, principal collector, in 1806-7, 
 reported the number of slaves at 96,386, and in 1815-16. 
 at 94,786 ; and his successor, Mr. James Vaughun, in 1819, 
 stated the number to be 100,000, * exclusive of vVynfui, 
 containing about 3,000 more;' and in 1 s late princi- 
 
 pal collector, Mr. Sheffield, ascertained tho number of 
 slaves to be 95,696, exclusive of Wynful, as follows: 
 Pooliar Cherumar, 48,579 ; Kanaka Chenimar, 20,798 ; 
 Terrawa Cherumar, 20,058; Kallady Cherumar, 2,279 ; 
 Vallow Cherumar, 615 ; Betwas or Wettowar, 3,347, ( 
 a moiety of them, as it is only in some diMricts of Malabar 
 they are laid claim to as slaves). In Ninj-7, j,,-. 
 \\lii-h the country, as Mr. Commissioner Thari 
 reported, * had been a prey to civil wars, \vhich burnt with 
 a raging or smothered flame ever since the Compan 
 that province,' the general population was, according to 
 Mr. Warden's estimate, 700,000. In 1^27, it amounted, 
 by Mr. Sheffield's returns, to 1,003,466. In Mnlabar, 
 therefore, the slave-population would seem to have been 
 diminishing, as I find Mr. Warden has already stated in his 
 evidence before the Select Committee of the House of 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, p. 551. 
 
IN INDIA. 123 
 
 Lords, while the increase in the general population has been 
 nearly as great as in Canara."^ 
 
 Mr. A. D. Campbell states that " the creatures in human 
 form who constitute, to the number of 100,000, the agrestic 
 slave-population of that province," (Malabar,) are " distin- 
 guishable, like the savage tribes still to be found in some of 
 the forests of India, from the rest of the human race by 
 their degraded, diminutive, squalid appearance ; their drop- 
 sical pot-bellies contrasting horribly with their skeleton 
 arms and legs, half-starved, hardly clothed, and in a condi- 
 tion scarcely superior to the cattle they follow at the 
 plough."! 
 
 Hamilton states that of the five castes into which the 
 Hindu population is divided in Malabar, the fifth is that of 
 " the Poliars, who are slaves or bondmen, and attached to 
 the soil." "The Pariar, in the plural, belong to a tribe 
 below all caste, all of whom are slaves" " There are six 
 sorts of Chemurs or slaves, like the Pariars of Madras, 
 and no other tribe is bought or sold in Malabar."! 
 
 Mr. Vaughan, as reported above by Mr. Baber, estimated 
 in 1819 the slave-population of Wynaad, a small subdivis- 
 ion of the modern province of Malabar, at 3,000. Either 
 that estimate was incorrect, or the slave-population must have 
 been greatly reduced during the preceding nineteen years ; 
 for Hamilton states that " in 1800, the number of male slaves 
 in this division (Wynaad), above the age of fifteen, amount- 
 ed to 2,266, and the females to 2,264. The number of males 
 below that age was 1,000, and of females 1,050," making in 
 all 6,590. " The total number of free inhabitants at that date 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, pp. 551, 552. 
 
 fMr. A. D. Campbell's Letter to the Board of Commissioners for 
 the Affairs of India, dated 5th Nov. 1832, and published in Appendix 
 to Report from Select Committee on Affairs of the East India Com- 
 pany, (Public,) p. 574. 
 
 $ Hamilton. Vol. II. pp. 179, 181. 
 
124 SLAVERY 
 
 amounted to 8,070 persons," the enslaved being thus nearly 
 as numerous as tjie free population.^ 
 
 BELLARY AND TANJORE. Mr. A. D. Campbell states : 
 " In the Bellary division of the ceded -districts, where I first 
 held that situation," (the situation of collector and magis- 
 trate,) " I have already stated that no agrestic slaves what- 
 ever exist. In Tanjore, on the contrary, they amount to 
 many thousands ; but I cannot from memory give any cor- 
 rect estimate of their number. The house or domestic 
 slaves in neither district can exceed one or two hundred in 
 a population of above a million of souls, in each of these 
 provinces respectively."! 
 
 COCHIN. This is one of the dependent native principal- 
 ities under the Madras presidency. Mr. Baber says : 
 " Cochin I reckon at about 150,000 souls, of whom 12,000 
 are slaves, "t 
 
 TRAVANCORE. This is another of the dependent prin- 
 cipalities. Mr. Baber says : " The only return of the 
 population of Travancore I have met with, is that of Fra 
 Paulino de San Bartolomeo in his work Viaggio alle Inde 
 Orientale, published at Rome, in the year 1796. This per- 
 son resided many years in Travancore, and has certainly 
 given a most minute account of the manners^xustoms, &c. of 
 the inhabitants of that country. He estimated the whole 
 population at 1,600,000 ; and judging from all I have been 
 able to collect in the course of rny inquiries among the 
 Kariakars (ministers), and other intelligent persons, as to 
 the aggregate general revenue as well as on this point, this 
 estimate is probably the extent of the present population. 
 It would no doubt have increased in the same ratio as Mala- 
 bar and Canara have, but for the war of 1809-10, and 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 710. 
 
 t Mr. A. D. Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 573, 
 
 $ Mr. Baber s Letter, as above, p. 552. 
 
IN INDIA. lyO 
 
 other political causes ; and as the whole labor of wet culti- 
 vation is (as in the adjoining province of Malabar) carried 
 on by slaves, (superintended by hired free-born persons 
 called pannikar and chooralakar,) the number of slaves may 
 be takeji at a twelfth of the whole population."^ This will 
 make the slave-population of Travancore amount to not less 
 than 130,000. 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Fenn, who resided between eight and 
 nine years in the interior of the kingdom of Travancore, 
 does not offer any estimate of the total number of slaves in 
 that country, but states : " In Cottayam, where the popu- 
 lation exclusive of the slaves was between 3,000 and 4,000, 
 I have sometimes assembled some hundreds."! 
 
 COORG AND MYSORE. These are dependent principalities. 
 Coorg has been at least temporarily subjugated to Brit- 
 ish power, but its population has not been ascertained. In 
 1814 the population of Mysore was estimated at 2,171,754, 
 since which it has been supposed to have greatly increased. 
 Mr. Baber states that the varieties and sources of domestic 
 slavery which he enumerates "have in former times or do 
 now prevail more or less wherever domestic slavery is 
 found, but chiefly in the Southern Mahra*tta country, both 
 in the Company's and Jagheer portion of it, and in the 
 Kolapore Raja's dominions; also in those of Coorg and My- 
 sore" Agrestic or predial slavery, he adds, " exists through- 
 out, under some slight modifications, the Malabar coast, in 
 the Balaghat district, already mentioned, and even in the 
 western parts of the table-land of Mysore."^ 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, p. 552. 
 
 f Mr. Fenn's Letter to the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs 
 of India, dated 24th Sept. 1832, and published in Appendix to Report 
 from Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company. 
 (Public,) p. 549. 
 
 \ Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, p. 551. 
 II* 
 
126 SLAVERY 
 
 The following citations have a general reference to the 
 slave-population of the entire Madras territories, and furnish 
 additional aids to the formation of a correct opinion respect- 
 ing the extent to which slavery prevails in those territories. 
 
 Hamilton says that the Pariar " are so numerqus that 
 they have been computed at one-fifth of the whole popula- 
 tion of India south of the Krishna." The population 'south 
 of the Krishna may be estimated at 15,000,000, and the 
 Pariar would thus amount to 3,000,000. Hamilton, on the 
 authority of Dr. Francis Buchanan, has further stated that 
 all the Pariar " are slaves."^ 
 
 Mr. Baber, after stating the opportunities and means of 
 information he has possessed, adds, " By these means 
 I have become acquainted, amongst other subjects of interest, 
 with the prevailing slavery throughout, I may say, the 
 western provinces south of the Kistna to the extremity of 
 the Indian continent, Cape Comorin, or, properly, Kany;i 
 Coomari."t 
 
 Colonel James Welsh says : " From Cape Comorin to 
 Goa, including Wynaad and Soonda, I believe that there 
 were nearly 300,000 (slaves), and from the nature of the 
 caste distinctions, (not admitting of any kind of personal 
 contact between the upper and lower orders of the Hindu 
 aborigines of that country,) by far the greater numbers 
 were field slaves. "t 
 
 Mr. A. D. Campbell says : " In the territories under the 
 Madras government slaves are of two distinct descriptions : 
 the one includes the great slave-population termed ' agrestic 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. II. pp. 6, 179; Buchanan's Travels, Vol. II. p. 403. 
 i Mr. Baber' s Letter, as above, p. 551. 
 
 \ Col. Welsh's Letter to the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs 
 of India, dated, Nov. 3, 1832, and published in Appendix to Report 
 from Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company. 
 (Public,) p. 570. 
 
IN INDIA. 127 
 
 slaves,' or such as are usually employed in the field, though 
 occasionally also in other labor. These consist exclusively 
 of Hindus who become such by birth alone, in the peculiar 
 castes which the usage of India has doomed to hereditary 
 bondage. This species of slavery does not exist at all in 
 the central provinces of the Indian peninsula, such as the 
 ceded districts or Mysore, peopled by the Carnatacka 
 nation ; and I believe it is also unknown in the Northern 
 Circars, Nellore, &c., or in the country where the people 
 speak the Telinga language ; but it is common in the south- 
 ern provinces of the peninsula, or wherever the Tamil 
 language is spoken, arid it assumes its worst form on the 
 western coast of the peninsula, or in the provinces of Mal- 
 abar and Canara. The other description of slaves consists 
 of those who may be termed domestic, from being employed 
 only in the house itself. This kind of slavery may be 
 found all over the Madras territory, but it is exceedingly 
 rare."* 
 
 The preceding are all the details that I possess to guide 
 to a just estimate of the total number of slaves in British 
 India. In attempting to form such an estimate, we must, 
 1 think, put out of view the calculation that in Southern 
 India tbere are three millions of Pariar, all of whom are 
 slaves, since this probably does not sufficiently distinguish 
 between those classes of natives who are socially degraded 
 without being slaves, and those who are held as slaves in 
 the strict and legal sense. In estimating the total number 
 of slaves in British India, properly so called, we must also 
 omit the estimates that have been given respecting the num- 
 ber in native states and jagheers, as Cochin, Travancore, 
 Mysore, and Coorg, and the- jagheers of the Southern 
 Mahratta country which are governed by native princes 
 and chieftains. Thus in Travancore it has been estimated 
 
 * Mr. Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 572. 
 
128 SLAVERY 
 
 that there are 130,000 slaves, in Cochin 12,000, in the 
 Southern Mahratta country 15,000, of whom one-half may 
 be assigned to the Mahratta Jagheers and to the dominions 
 of the Kolapore Raja, while of the number in Mysore and 
 Coorg no estimate has been obtained. It is however to be 
 borne in mind, that although the British government cannot 
 be held answerable for the existence of slavery in these 
 dependent native states and principalities, yet its indirect 
 influence over them is powerful, and any measures tending 
 to the improvement of the condition of slaves or to the 
 extinction of slavery in the neighboring British provinces, 
 if accompanied by proper representations to the native 
 princes and chiefs, would probably lead to the adoption of 
 similar measures in their dominions and territories. With 
 these omissions, the following estimates of the number of 
 slaves in British districts and provinces would appear to be 
 approximations to the truth : 
 
 Silhet . . . . 80,000 
 
 !ar v 22,722 
 
 Tirhoot ' ... 11,061 
 
 S. Mahratta country, (British portion) 7,500 
 
 Arcot .... 20,000 
 
 Canara ..... 80,000 
 
 Malabar . . . . 100,000 
 
 321,283 
 
 This is exclusive of the following districts and provinces, 
 respecting which no definite estimate of numbers has been 
 obtained; viz.: Dacca Jelalpoor, where "the custom of 
 disposing of persons already in a state of slavery is com- 
 mon throughout the country;" Baclcergunge, where "wo- 
 men of the poorer classes when left widows sell their chil- 
 dren to procure food;" Rungpoor, where "among the domes- 
 tics are both male and female slaves," and where all the 
 girls belonging to seventy-eight sets of female dancers and 
 singers " are purchased when children ;" Diruypoor, where 
 
IN INDIA. 129 
 
 " slaves are very few ;" Purneah, where there " are various 
 classes of slaves :" Assam, where " all the domestics are 
 slaves," and where, according to the latest account, " slavery 
 still continues to a very considerable extent ;" Arracan, 
 where " slavery is tolerated in all shapes ;" the Tenasserim 
 provinces, where " the custom of debtor-slavery or mortgaged 
 labor prevails universally;" the Mergui Archipelago, where 
 the inhabitants are hunted to be made slaves ; Boglipoor, 
 where slaves are stated to exist; Ramghur, where they are 
 employed by native chiefs for the purposes of private re- 
 venge ; Gorakhpur, where both bond slavery and uncondi- 
 tional slavery exist ; Dehra Doon, where " slavery is dying 
 a natural death ;" Bellary, where domestic slaves do not 
 " exceed one or two hundred;" and Tanjore, where "pre- 
 dial slaves " " amount to many thousands." 
 
 Upon the whole, I am of opinion that the very lowest 
 estimate we can form of the total number of slaves, subjects 
 of the British government in India, is 500,000; and I deem 
 it highly probable that a thorough and faithful census would 
 show that the number does not fall short of ONE MILLION. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 TO THOMAS POWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 The Origin and Sources of Slavery in British India. 
 
 Si R, The next branch of the subject that I propose to 
 consider, is the origin of slavery in India, and the means 
 by which the slave-population has been and is supplied. 
 
 The first fact that presents itself Connected with the ori- 
 gin of slavery in India is, that slaves in India are for the 
 most part natives of the country. In modern times, Africa 
 has been the great source from which a supply of slave- 
 labor has been drawn by the European race for their set- 
 tlements on the American continents and islands, and a 
 portion at least of the slave-population of Arabia and Per- 
 sia is furnished by Arab dealers from the eastern coast of 
 Africa, obtained by the" same abominable and nefarious 
 means that are employed on the western coast, consisting 
 for the most part in the forcible seizure of the slaves, either 
 in predatory war undertaken for the purpose, or by open 
 robbery, often attended with murder. But although a traffic 
 formerly existed to some extent by the importation of slaves 
 from the eastern coast of Africa, from Madagascar, and from 
 the Eastern Islands into the British possessions in India, 
 and although there are grounds for doubting whether it has 
 been fully and effectually suppressed, yet the proportion of 
 slaves in India of the African race is so inconsiderable that 
 
SLAVERY IN INDIA. 131 
 
 they can scarcely be taken into the account in any general 
 estimate of their number and condition. The great body 
 of the slave-population m India is not only Asiatic, but 
 Aboriginal, consisting of natives of the soil, and belong- 
 ing to the race which history, tradition, and observation, 
 language, religion, manners, and institutions combine to 
 show was probably the first that occupied the country, an- 
 terior to the Hindu, Muhammadan, and European races. 
 This fact deserves to be prominently noticed, for important 
 practical consequences may be deduced from it. In other 
 slave-holding countries, the obstacles to emancipation consist 
 not only in the supposed interests of the slave-holders, but 
 in the alleged unficness of the slaves for the rights and duties 
 of freedom, and 'in the alleged difficulty of bringing them 
 into a state of healthy union with the existing institutions 
 of society and with the dominant class of the population. 
 No such difficulty, no such unfitness, can be alleged in 
 India. With regard to fitness for freedom, it is a remarka- 
 ble fact in the civilization of India, that in Malabar, where 
 slavery appears in J its most objectionable form, the Poliar, 
 or slave caste, however debased, are comparatively of higher 
 social consideration than the Pariar and Niadis, who are 
 free. Some of the Pariar are slaves, but the majority 
 probably are free, and they are so numerous that they have 
 been estimated at a fifth of the entire population of Southern 
 India. The Niadis are an outcaste tribe, not numerous, but 
 free. Both are so impure, compared with the slave caste, 
 that if one of the latter touch them, he is defiled, and must 
 wash his head and pray. Further ; although the Poliar, 
 or slave caste, are socially arid by caste inferior to the 
 Tiars or Tears, who are cultivators of thfe land and free- 
 men, and to the Maliars, who are musicians and conjurers, 
 but also freemen, there is no reason to suppose that they are 
 morally and intellectually inferior to these two free castes 
 above them, any more than to the two free castes below 
 
132 SLAVERY 
 
 them, or that they are in any respect less qualified than 
 either to enjoy the fruits of their own industry and the 
 blessings of personal freedom. .The same considerations 
 show that slaves in the South of India, if emancipated, 
 would continue what they now are, a separate and di> 
 caste, with the single difference of freedom, a caste not ori- 
 ginally, it is probable, belonging to the Hindu race, but 
 incorporated into that race, professing the Hindu religion, 
 observing its usages, and obeying its ministers. In the 
 eastern, western, and northern provinces of India, slaves 
 are not a distinct caste, but- they are for the most part domes- 
 tic slave's, profess the same religion as their owners and are 
 certainly equal, if not superior, to a very large majority of 
 the inferior castes of the free population, into which, if 
 emancipated, they would naturally pass, without in any 
 degree disturbing or interrupting the order of native so.' 
 The slaves of India, then, with comparatively few e 
 tions, have not been imported into the country/ They are" 
 not Ul" foreign l)irth and ot strange aspect. They do not 
 
 a different language, profess a different rel 
 ise different customs from the rest of the inhabitants. 
 They are children of the' soil. They belong to the state of 
 society in which they are found; and their emancipation 
 would be only one step one of many that are necessary 
 towards the improvement of their condition, and that of the 
 castes both above and below them, with winch, from the 
 necessity of their position and circumstances, they would 
 easily and kindly coalesce. 
 
 From this view of slaves as natives of the country, the 
 question arises by what means they have been subjected to 
 this condition. The origin of Hindu slavery may with 
 great probability be traced to conquest ; but a full exposition 
 of the grounds of this opinion would lead to an amount of 
 antiquarian and historical discussion which would be un- 
 suitable to my present purpose. Without going into many 
 
IN INDIA. 133 
 
 details, it may be remarked that in the existing condition of 
 the country there are four distinct classes of the popula- 
 tion : first, Christians, the most recent conquerors ; second, 
 Muhammadans, whose authority the former superseded ; 
 third, Hindus, whom the Muhammadans subdued ; and 
 fourth, the Aborigines whom the Hindus conquered and 
 subjected. These four classes include each numerous sub- 
 divisions, and they are largely intermixed, but the distinc- 
 tion of each from the rest is clearly marked. As far as all 
 accessible evidence enables us to judge, the Aborigines were 
 the first occupants of the soil, and the Hindus were their 
 first conquerors ; and in completing their conquest they 
 drove many of the Aboriginal race into the forest and moun- 
 tain fastnesses, where their descendants are still found ; 
 many they consigned to slavery such as now exists, impos- 
 ing upon them at the same time the Hindu religion ; and 
 many they appear also to have incorporated with themselves 
 as free, but still inferior and servile, castes. 
 
 That this is the origin of Hindu slavery is rendered proba- 
 ble by various considerations. Menu, (VIII. 415.) the great 
 Hindu legislator, in enumerating the various descriptions of 
 slaves recognised by Hindu law, begins with " one made 
 captive under a standard," or in battle, as if this was the most 
 important and most numerous class of slaves ; and the com- 
 mentator's illustration of this description of slavery is taken 
 from the Mahabharat, the great national poem of the Hin- 
 dus, where a Hindu warrior is represented as thus address- 
 ing a vanquished prince : " Fool, if thou desirest life, hear 
 from me the conditions : thou must declare before a select 
 assembly and before the multitude, *I am a slave.' On 
 these terms will I grant thee life. This is a settled rule for 
 him who is conquered in battle."* That this rule was 
 applied on a large scale, is evident from many authorities. 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, Vol. II. p. 344. 
 12 
 
134 SLAVERY 
 
 " There are six sorts of Chemurs or slaves," says Hamil- 
 ton, " like the Pariar of Madras, and no other tribe is bought 
 or sold in Malabar. They are said to have been caught 
 and domesticated by Parasu Rama," (the reputed Hindu 
 conqueror of Malabar,) "for the use of the Brahmins, and 
 are probably the descendants of the Aborigines conquered 
 by the Chola kings and driven into the jungles, but at last 
 compelled to prefer slavery and rice to freedom and starva- 
 tion."^ " With regard to agrestic or indigenous slaves," 
 says Mr. Baber, "like those of Malabar, the only ancient 
 books that make any mention of slaves are Kerula-ootpati- 
 wiivahara Malla and Vitynana Shooriam Granddharn, and 
 all that is narrated therein of them, to the best of my recol- 
 lection, (for I have them not to refer to,) is, that they were 
 the first arid sole cultivators in Kerula Rajium" (in the 
 country or kingdom of Malabar,) " having been created " 
 (that is, created or made slaves) " for the use of the Brah- 
 mins."! This is confirmed by the following extract from the 
 Kerala Utpatti, one of the books referred to by Mr. Baber, 
 and of the first part of which a translation appears in Wil- 
 son's Catalogue of the Mackenzie Collection : " They " 
 (that is, the Brahman-colonists who had been settled in 
 Malabar by Parasu Rama) " also established bondage and 
 husbandry, and protected the slaves and husbandmen, and 
 
 appointed villages and heads of villages, and protected 
 
 and preserved them from lessening and falling." (Vol. II. 
 p. 81.) In the same work (p. 92.) there is an enumeration 
 of eighteen inferior castes who came from foreign countries 
 and settled in Malabar, but among these slaves are not found, 
 the reason obviously being that the dominant Brahmans 
 obtained their slaves from among the Aboriginal inhabitants 
 of the country whom they had subdued. 
 
 A similar process, it can be satisfactorily shown, took place 
 in another and distant province, and in more modern times. 
 
 * Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 181. f Mr. Babels Letter, as above, p. 565. 
 
IN INDIA. 135 
 
 " The province of lower Behar, as at present divided, contains 
 a considerable extent of that range of hills that runs across 
 the greater portion of Hindoostan from the Ganges to Malwa 
 and Goojrat. This line of mountainous country has long 
 been known to be peopled by various tribes, whose origin, 
 whose difference from each other, and whose absolute aliena- 
 tion from the Hindus, have been matters of curiosity and are 
 as yet a mystery to all researchers. The press of population 
 upon the adjoining plains has driven multitudes df Hindu 
 families to settle by force or by sufferance in these yet un- 
 cultivated pergunnahs ; and many of these emigrations are 
 sufficiently recent for the local authorities to obtain a tole- 
 rable account of the origin and progress of the settlers in 
 their new position. Of some instances," says Mr. Augus- 
 tus Prinsep, from whose papers this extract is taken, " I 
 propose to give a brief sketch. The facts have been collected 
 by personal acquaintance with the country, and I was 
 induced to observe the customs of this district with attention 
 from the same motive that now leads to a publication of 
 these remarks a belief that a similarity with the early 
 practices of India might be discovered, and, if discovered, 
 might be useful to those who may have to guide our future 
 territorial policy." For the sake of illustration I shall quote 
 only one of the instances which Mr. Prinsep has adduced : 
 " At the beginning of the seventeenth century, or a little 
 more than two hundred years ago, a scion of one of the 
 families of the Bhojpoor Raja, whose estates lay near 
 Rhotas in Shahabad, being urged by the spirit of adventure, 
 and probably discontented with his subdivided heritage, 
 proclaimed his intention of seeking lands above the Ghats, 
 or beyond the range of hills that rise on the south side of 
 the river Soane, and invited followers to join in the under- 
 taking. Some thousands of Rajpoots collected round the 
 standard raised by Bhugwant Roy, who (in the year 1021, 
 Fussily, as the tradition of the pergunnah fixes the date) 
 
I.'IG SLAVERY 
 
 led his army into that part of the Ramgurh district which 
 has been ever since and was perhaps before called Palamoo. 
 One encounter with the inhabitants was sufficient to insure 
 the conquest of the country, which, containing several 
 cultivable and some already cultivated plains between the 
 lines of hills, became a valuable prey to a multitude in 
 search of a vacant territory. The chief of the invaders, 
 assuming territorial dominion, proceeded to divide the lands 
 of the pergunnah between himself and his followers, who, 
 increasing in numbers, as the fame of his success spread 
 abroad, took possession, of all existing villages, to the exclu- 
 sion of their former occupants. The revolution has been so 
 complete, that at the present day the original and wilder 
 inhabitants of the pergunnah are found to have no fixed 
 interest or property in the soil, and earn a livelihood ONLY 
 BY SLAVERY AND HIRED LABOR." " Such was the condition 
 of this province when taken possession of by" (the British) 
 " government, as purchaser at auction, in the year 1814." 
 " The household of the Raja, and of every considerable 
 jageerdar, was a perfect feudal establishment. It v, 
 matter of pride to be surrounded by a train of vassals under 
 the titles of burkuudauzes" (guards,) "fakeers" (devotees,) 
 "shikarees" (huntsmen.,) "and bhals or bad fcroshes" (family 
 poets or bards,) " and a still larger retinue of serfs called 
 //////< Y} .v, whose state of bondage is the counterpart to the 
 condition of the scrri of the eighth and ninth centuries in 
 Europe." Such is the most probable origin of Hindu 
 slavery;, and that Muhammadan slavery originated in a 
 like cause, is still less doubtful, since, according to Muharn- 
 inadan law, " they only are slaves who are captured in an 
 infidel territory in time of war, or who are the descendants 
 of such captives. Perhaps there is no point of law which 
 has been more deliberately and formally determined than 
 this." Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of Muham- 
 madan Law, Preliminary Remarks, pp. xxx, xxxi. 
 
IN INDIA. 13? 
 
 The practical consequences deducible from this view of 
 the origin of Hindu and Muhammadan slavery are of great 
 importance, since we thus see the enormous amount of 
 long-standing injustice and cruelty which has been virtually 
 sanctioned and ratified by the British government in legaliz- 
 ing these two systems of slavery. Neither the origin nor the 
 administration of the British power in India is faultless, but 
 it is a wholly gratuitous and useless supererogation of 
 demerit to endorse the oppression and fanaticism of the 
 Hindu and Muhammadan conquerors of India, by upholding 
 and perpetuating the slavery which they respectively 
 created, however unjust and cruel to the Aborigines, an 
 important subdivision of the native population, and however 
 inconsistent with the spirit and practice of British institu- 
 tions. In reasoning and legislating on this subject, exclusive 
 consideration has been given to the supposed rights of the 
 Hindu and Muhammadan. slave-owners, as if the rights 
 of the enslaved natives of India and of the free people 
 of Great Britain were not equally worthy of attention. 
 When the beleaguered fortress of an enemy is taken, is it 
 not the captor's first business to liberate the prisoners in the 
 dungeon ? The Hindu and Muhammadan conquerors had 
 no better right to enslave than the English conquerors have 
 to emancipate, and emancipation would appear to be the 
 natural consequence of the overthrow of the oppressors. 
 This appears to have been the legal effect of the Muham- 
 madan conquest, for although the custom of Hindu slavery 
 probably continued to exist under the Muhammadan gov- 
 ernment, there is no evidence that its legality was ever 
 recognised ; while the legality of Hindu slavery has been 
 revived and that of Muhammadan slavery has been contin- 
 ued by the British government which should have equally 
 refused its sanction to both. It is not the rights of the slave- 
 population only that have been neglected ; the feelings and 
 the principles of the government and people of Great Britain 
 
138 SLAVERY 
 
 have al*o been outrun !. While Great Britain is moving 
 heaven and earth to aholi>h slavery and the sla\ 
 the West, is it. among other ohjects, to extend, to perpetuate, 
 to confirm Hindu and Muhammadan slavery, that she 
 gates to a few individuals the powers of government over 
 the many millions that acknowledge her sway in the 1 
 The government and the people of Great Britain are called 
 upon to adopt immediate practical measures in ord< 
 repel an imputation, for which appearances have hitherto 
 afforded too much ground. 
 
 The next prolific source of slavery in India is the sale 
 of free children by their parents. The existence of this 
 practice is so notorious, that it seems scarcely necessary to 
 support the statement by any authority. Mr. Colebrooke 
 says: "The number of slaves continually diminishing, a 
 demand constantly exists for the purchase of them, which is 
 supplied chiefly by the sale of children by their parents in 
 seasons of scarcity and famine, or in circumstances of indi- 
 vidual or peculiar distress. "* This must be understood to 
 refer to the Bengal presidency ; and with reference to the 
 Madras territory, Mr. A. D. Campbell states that " indi- 
 viduals generally become domestic slaves by being sold 
 when children by their parents, in years of scarcity ap- 
 proaching to famine, for famine itself in the British territories 
 is happily now nearly unknown."! Unhappily the incor- 
 rectness of the last assertion may be established by the 
 most conclusive evidence, for there is perhaps no country 
 in the world that has been subjected in modern times to so 
 many severe and heart-rending famines as British India, 
 and we may hence infer how considerable the number of 
 those who by means of slavery have been preserved from 
 starvation, and in times of famine have been consigned to 
 
 * Harington's Analysis of the Laws and Regulations, Vol. III. 
 p. 747. 
 
 } Mr. Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 572. 
 
IN INDIA. 139 
 
 slavery. Mr. Coiebrooke very properly vindicates the mo- 
 tives of the parents in selling their children on these occa- 
 sions. " During a famine or a dearth," he says, "parents 
 have been known to sell their children for prices so very 
 inconsiderable, and so little more than nominal, that they 
 may in frequent instances have credit for a better motive 
 than that of momentarily relieving their own necessities, 
 namely, the saving of their children's lives by interesting in 
 their preservation persons able to provide nourishment for 
 them. The same feeling is often the motive for selling chil- 
 dren when particular circumstances of distress, instead of a 
 general dearth, disable the parents from supporting them." 
 He is however mistaken when he goes on to state that 
 " there is no reason to believe that they are ever sold from 
 mere avarice and want of natural affection in the parent. 
 The known character of the people and proved disposition 
 in all the domestic relations, must exempt them from the 
 suspicion of such conduct. But the pressure of want alone 
 compels the sale, whether the immediate impulse be con- 
 sideration for the child, or desire of personal relief. So 
 long therefore as no established fund or regulated system 
 for the relief of the indigent exists, it does not seem 
 practicable to prevent or restrain the disposal of children 
 by their parents, which is lawful by their own laws."^ 
 
 That in India, whence an enormous revenue is drawn, and 
 where numerous expensive establishments are maintained, 
 there is no established fund or regulated system for the 
 relief of the destitute, is one feature of the British govern- 
 ment of that country. That in the absence of such a pro- 
 vision, slavery, which implies so many evils and produces 
 so many more in the state of society where it exists, is held 
 to be a good, and furnishes the only means by which indi- 
 gent parents in times of famine and distress can rescue 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. HI. pp. 747, 748. 
 
1 10 F L A V E K V 
 
 thein.-'lvcs and their children from starvation, and that this 
 resource is employed to such an extent that the sale of 
 children under such circumstances constitutes, in Mr. Cole- 
 brooke's opinion, at least under the Bengal presidency, the 
 chief source of domestic slavery, these are other fea 
 of the same system of government. But surely these facts 
 do not lessen the abhorrence of slavery which every civil- 
 and free man must entertain, but tend rather u> 
 increase the conviction of the pernicious working of a 
 system of government under which that which is evil in 
 itself, the effect of evil, and the cause of evil, becomes by 
 dire necessity a comparative good. 
 
 In the preceding extract, Mr. Colebrooke has expressed the 
 opinion that the selling of children by their par- awful 
 
 by their own laws," and that " there is no reason to b< 
 that they are ever sold from mere avarice or want of natural 
 affection in the parent." In opposition to this view, and in 
 illustration of the evils to which the mere existence of the 
 state of slavery leads, the -following passages may be cited 
 form a high native authority, beinir extracts from a legal 
 opinion delivered by the law-officers of the Sudder Dcwany 
 Adawlut in ,1809. " With regard to Ike custom prcvatli, 
 this country'" (India) "of hiring children from their parents 
 for a very considerable period, such as for or eighty 
 
 years, and under this pretext waking them sic -II as 
 
 iheir progeny also, under the denomination of Khanazad, 
 (domestic, slaves,) the following laws are applicable : It is 
 lawful and proper for parents to hire out their children to 
 service; but this contract of hire becomes null and void 
 when the child arrives at years of discretion, as the right 
 of paternity then ceases." " It is customary also amonir 
 women who keep sets of dancing girls to purchase female 
 children from their parents, or by engagements directly 
 with the children themselves. Exclusively of the illegality 
 of such purchases, there is a further evil resulting from this 
 
IN INDIA. 141 
 
 practice, which is, that the children are taught dancing and 
 singing for others, and are also made prostitutes ; both of 
 which are extremely improper and expressly forbidden by 
 the Zaztf."^ 
 
 The illegality of the sale and purchase of free children is 
 here unequivocally declared ; and it thus appears that the 
 existence of the state of slavery not only opens a door for 
 the relief of the destitute in times of famine and distress, but 
 also affords a pretext and facility to unnatural parents to sell 
 their children and their children's children into perpetual 
 servitude and prostitution. There are other purposes some- 
 times answered by the purchase of children, such as initia- 
 tion into a particular sect or religion. Thus, among the 
 Hindus, there are certain "religious orders, the members of 
 which purchase children to bring them up and initiate them 
 in the religious order to which they themselves belong. 
 Being restricted in their selection of subjects to the higher 
 castes of the Hindus, they do not readily find persons of the 
 requisite caste willing to part with their children, and being 
 in general opulent from the union of the commercial with 
 the religious profession, they are able to tempt the cupidity 
 of parents by a large pecuniary consideration, and often by 
 a provision for life."t In like manner Muhammadans are 
 represented as having largely recruited their ranks by the 
 same means, particularly in the district of Bahar, (Hamilton, 
 Vol. II. pp. 652, 653) ; and with reference to the Madras 
 presidency, it is stated by Mr. Campbell that " under the 
 spirit of proselytisrn which characterizes the Musalman 
 faith, a male infant is no sooner purchased than it is circum- 
 cised ; and whether male or female, it is invariably brought 
 up in the Muhammadan creed, which, if it be a Hindu (as 
 is usually the case,) irrevocably excludes it from all return 
 
 * Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of Muhammadan Law, 
 pp. 314, 315. 
 
 t Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 748. 
 
142 SLAVERY 
 
 to its parents or relations.""* Christian missionaries and 
 philanthropists in India have also established institutions 
 for the reception of native orphans and of children whose 
 parents are willing to part with their offspring, who are 
 brought up and educated as Christians. There have no 
 doubt been instances, probably many, in which, at the same 
 time that the care of the child was undertaken, money was 
 given to the famishing parents, Avhich they may have regard- 
 ed as the purchase-money of their offspring, although it was 
 not so considered by the donor. 
 
 The result is, that from various motives on the part of 
 parents, sometimes from the strength of natural affection, 
 and sometimes from the weakness and want of natural affec- 
 tion, children are sold by the.ir parents; and that for various 
 purposes on the part of those who buy them, sometimes from 
 pure benevolence for the preservation of life, sometimes from 
 sectarian zeal, and sometimes for the degrading occupation 
 of vice and prostitution from their earliest youth, orphans 
 as well as the children of living parents are bought. It 
 does not appear that any good or benevolent purpose con- 
 templated in these transfers might not be, and would not be, 
 equally effected if slavery did not exist; while at the same 
 time the existence of slavery affords an apparent and reputed 
 legal shield under which profligate parents may throw off 
 the obligations of humanity towards their children, fanaticism 
 make its unwilling converts, and vice secure and retain its 
 youthful victims. Is this a state of things which the civilized 
 world will not exclaim against? Is this a state of things 
 of which the religious and moral, the free and slavery-hating 
 people of England will not instantly and loudly demand the 
 abrogation ? 
 
 The next source of slavery in India to be noticed is kid- 
 napping, an evil the extent of which cannot be fully known, 
 
 * Mr. Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 572. 
 
I 
 
 IN INDIA. 143 
 
 but which evidently owes much of its activity to the exist- 
 ence of slavery. Mr. Colebrooke says : " The greatness 
 of the reward" offered by certain religious orders in India 
 for children, " has been supposed to lead to kidnapping in 
 some instances of this nature, though not frequently, since 
 the purchaser requires to be ascertained of the parentage of 
 the child. "^ Slaves as well as free persons are kidnapped 
 in the district of Silhet. " A few persons," says Hamilton, 
 Vol. II. p. 554, "principally slaves, are inveigled away by 
 bazeegurs and wandering fakeers." " The practice of 
 inveigling away its free natives for the purpose of selling 
 them at Dacca, Patna, Calcutta, and Moorshedabad, still 
 continues, although, from the vigilance of the British autho- 
 rities, the attempt is rarely successful." This crime appears 
 to be practised at the present day, under the very eye of 
 government, and in the very heart of Calcutta. " A corres- 
 pondent informs us," says the Calcutta Christian Advocate 
 of August 24, 1839, " that the practice of enticing away 
 young native widows, and of kidnapping and purchasing 
 young destitute native children, for the vilest bazar purposes, 
 is daily carried on to a considerable extent in Calcutta." 
 Cases of this nature sometimes come before the courts of 
 criminal justice. In the annual statements connected with 
 the administration of criminal justice for the lower pro- 
 vinces (Bengal and Behar,) for the year 1836, it appears 
 that in those two provinces, in that year, there were seven 
 cases of "child-stealing, for the purpose of selling in slavery," 
 for which two persons were convicted and sentenced by the 
 magistrates of districts, and ten persons by the commissioners 
 of circuit and session judges. In the same provinces and 
 in the same year there were thirteen cases of " illegal pur- 
 chase or sale of slaves," for which twenty-one persons were 
 convicted and sentenced by the magistrates. The distinc- 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 748. 
 
144 SLAVERY 
 
 tion between these two classes of crime would appear to be, 
 that in the former case free children were stolen for the 
 purpose of being sold in slavery, and that in the latter case 
 persons already slaves were illegally purchased or sold, pre- 
 vious to which it would seem that they must have been 
 taken by force or fraud from their legal owners. These 
 twenty cases and thirty-three convictions occurred in one 
 year in two provinces, exclusive of those which may have 
 occurred within the jurisdiction of the judges and magis- 
 trates of Calcutta, and exclusive also of similar cases in the 
 Eastern and North-Eastern, AVestern and North-Western 
 provinces of the Bengal presidency. Moreover, it is by no 
 means to be assumed that all the cases of the kidnapping 
 of free children or the illegal sale of slaves that actually 
 occurred in Bengal and Behar in 1836, came under judicial 
 cognizance and trial. 
 
 Mr. Chaplin's Report (p. 150) shows that in the Mahratta 
 country subject to the Bombay presidency, the practice of 
 kidnapping has arisen out of the sale of children by their 
 parents in times of famine. " The greatest portion of 
 s," he says, " are reduced to that condition in times of 
 famine, when parents sell their children for the double pur- 
 of saving their lives and themselves from starvation. 
 A great number have within these few years been imported 
 into the Dekhan under these circumstances, and this mode 
 of disposing of a famishing offspring seems beyond all doubt 
 to have been the means of alleviating scarcity. One great 
 evil has however resulted, that of kidnapping children for 
 the purpose of selling them in distant countries as si 
 This is a common practice amongst the Lumans and Brhi- 
 jarees ; but it may be prevented by forbidding the sale of all 
 children of whom a satisfactory account of the manner of 
 procuring them is not given." It is in this province that the 
 sale of slaves has been expressly prohibited, but slavery still 
 
IN INDIA. 145 
 
 'exists, and it is probable that the sale and kidnapping of 
 -children also continue. 
 
 In the Ma3ras territories also, kidnapping exists to a great 
 extent. Mr, Baber states that while he was in India, his 
 duties led to constant official intercourse, upon a variety of 
 subjects, with the political residents at the courts of the 
 neighboring states of Mysore, Coorg, Cochin, and Travan- 
 core, some of which related " to slaves who had been kid- 
 napped in Travancore," a native state, "and sold to British 
 subjects; and even to free-born children of various castes of 
 Hindus, subjects of the Cochin or Travancore Rajas, reduced 
 to slavery in the Honorable Company's dominions, who Had 
 been procured by the most fraudulent and violent means, 
 and deprived of their caste by cutting off the lock of hair 
 (the distinguishing mark of their caste), by making them 
 eat prohibited food, and otherwise disguising and polluting 
 them." He further states, that one of the varieties and 
 sources of domestic slavery in the western provinces south 
 of the Kistna to Cape Comorin, is "kidnapped persons 
 brought by Bingarries and other travelling merchants from 
 distant inland states, and sold into slavery." In 1787, 
 when Fra Paulino wrote his account of Travancore, "several 
 thousands of persons were being sold annually like cattle, 
 and sent out of the country;" and in 1811, Mr. Baber 
 relates that he discovered and suppressed a traffic consisting 
 in the kidnapping of slaves and free-born children from the 
 Cochin and Travancore states, and importing them into 
 Malabar, and this traffic he states had been carried on for a 
 period of twelve years by the overseer of the Company's 
 plantation in Malabar, and under authority alleged to have 
 been granted by the Bombay government. In that year, 
 123 persons who had been stolen were liberated. This, 
 however, was but a small portion of the number originally 
 supplied, many having absconded, and more than half having 
 died, as ascertained from the survivors. The native agent 
 13 
 
146 SLAVERY 
 
 employed acknowledged that in 1811 no less than 400 
 children had been transported to Malabar. This is a traffic 
 which Mr. Baber affirms to have been carried on by an 
 agent of the Company's government, under the authority of 
 the Company's government, for the purposes of the Com- 
 pany's government ; to have been continued for twelve years ; 
 and to have been suppressed in 1811 only after considerable 
 opposition on the part of the local authorities. The Com- 
 pany's agent asserted in his own justification, and Mr. Baber 
 thinks with truth, "that he would produce hundreds of them 
 (slaves) in every town in Malabar, there being few Moppilla 
 (Muhammadan) and Christian houses in which there were 
 not some of them;" and the provincial court judges, who 
 opposed Mr. Baber's benevolent efforts, admitted " that 
 numbers of the inhabitants of Travancore had been intro- 
 duced in a state of and hut too often reduced to this 
 situation by the most criminal means, into Malabar and the 
 adjoining province of Canara." While Mr. Baber wa.s 
 exerting himself to suppress this traffic in Malabar, the 
 Company's province to which the kidnapped persons were 
 brought, the political resident at the court of Travancore, the 
 native state from which they were taken, with equal human- 
 ity and firmness insisted upon the punishment of those 
 British subjects who were carrying on the traffic in human 
 flesh ; " and there can le very little doubt," adds Mr. Baber, 
 " that without such interference, the slave-trade would be 
 revived with all its horrors. "^ 
 
 Mr. A. D. Campbell also states, that " there can be no 
 doubt that children are sometimes kidnapped and sold as 
 slaves without the knowledge of their parents. As superin- 
 tendent of police at Madras, I succeeded in restoring 1 several 
 such children to their parents, among the lowest and poorest 
 of the Hindus; and their anxiety to recover infants whom 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, pp. 550, 551, 552, 553, 556, 557. 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 they in all probability found it very difficult to support, 
 would have done honor to the highest classes of European 
 society. I may add, that from Malabar, a province on the 
 western coast of the peninsula, where the ancient institu- 
 tions of the Hindu government have descended to our own 
 times nearly unimpaired, I recollect one trial having- come 
 before the Sudder Foujdary court in 1830, in which the 
 members of a high-caste Hindu family, to conceal the dis- 
 grace to which they would have been exposed from retaining 
 one of the daughters, whose chastity was more than sus- 
 pected, forcibly carried her off to a distant province, where 
 they were taken up on account of endeavoring to dispose of 
 her as a domestic slave. "^ 
 
 While these pages are passing through the press, the 
 London Times of January 23d, 1840, communicates the 
 following flagrant case, on the authority of a letter, dated 
 Madras, Nov. 15, 1839, from the superintendent of marine 
 police at that place : " I have the honor to be for the 
 present beach magistrate and superintendent of the marine 
 police, and on the first inst. I detected a party smuggling 
 off eight young children to a native brig; these were res- 
 cued, and the parties brought to my office. I sent off a 
 constable, who searched the brig, and rescued five more. 
 The vigilance of the police found ten children secreted in a 
 house in the Black-town. Pursuing our search and investi- 
 gation, I proceeded myself to a house, suspicious that four 
 children were there concealed, and captured one ; the other 
 three were discovered on the following day. From informa- 
 tion which I obtained while the search was proceeding, I 
 sent again on board the brig, and two very young urchins 
 w^ere brought on shore. In all we have rescued twenty- 
 eight, two of them girls, and all between the ages of three 
 and ten years. It appears by all the evidence adduced, that 
 
 * Mr. Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 572. 
 
 
. 
 
 148 SLAVERY 
 
 these poor children have been stolen, decoyed, and purchas* 
 ed ; two from Bimlipatam, twenty-six from Caliogapatam; 
 and I have no doubt, if the case is properly handled in the 
 supreme court, that the nacoda, or master of the vessel, his 
 owner, and his passengers, all Musalmans, will be convicted 
 as slave-dealers, and the brig, the Magdien, will be confis- 
 cated. The children have deposed that they were brought 
 away by the above parties ; some of them say they were 
 stolen, some that they were decoyed away, and a few that 
 their parents sold them ; they have given their former 
 names, and their present names as fixed by their masters; 
 . they are all Gentoos ; they have been converted, or rather 
 forcibly changed, by their masters from that ca*te to Mus- 
 almans. I have the owner, nacoda, the passengers, and 
 crew, in custody; the children are under my office, under 
 my special care, and are as happy as possible; the brig is 
 under my charge. Government have approved and con- 
 firmed all my proceedings, and the collectors of Ganjam 
 and Vizigapatam are duly apprized and have orders from 
 government to prosecute the most vigilant inquiries through- 
 out their jurisdiction. The whole case is new and very 
 important.'* 
 
 The only remark I will make on these facts is, that kid- 
 napping is in several instances directly traced, and probably 
 in all instances is traceable, to slavery; that if there was no 
 slavery, there would be no kidnapping; and that while 
 slavery continues, kidnapping must be expected. Kidnapping 
 is one of the sources of slavery, and increases the number 
 of slaves; but it is also one of ihe fruits of slavery, for it 
 exists only in slave-holding countries, or is practised in free 
 countries to recruit the number of slaves in slave-holding 
 countries. This is one of those instances in which the 
 legal violation of the rights of human nature is practically 
 and morally condemned by the base interests, the bad 
 passions, and the flagitious crimes which it produces, and 
 
IN INDIA. 149 
 
 by which it disorders and outrages society which law is 
 designed to protect and to regulate. There can be no 
 effectual suppression of kidnapping, however much we may 
 profess to abhor it, while we cherish or even only tolerate 
 its cause in the institution of slavery. 
 
 The next source of slavery in India is the importation of 
 slaves either by land or sea. The law relating to the im- 
 portation of slaves has already been considered, and however 
 imperfect and inconsistent its provisions, there can be no 
 doubt that they evince a desire to prevent the traffic. 
 There are, however, grounds for suspecting that it is still 
 carried on, although probably only to a limited extent. 
 
 Formerly the importation of slaves by land into the Ben- 
 gal presidency was chiefly from Nepaul, Assam, and 
 Gurhwal. Assam has now become a British territory, in 
 which slavery continues to exis.t, and the trade in slaves, to 
 whatever extent it maybe carried on from province to prov- 
 ince, is an internal and clandestine traffic, like that which 
 Hamilton (II. 554) states still continues between Silhet and 
 the other districts of Bengal. Gurhwal is under British 
 protection, with a stipulation for the discontinuance of the 
 slave-trade ; and I have no reason to believe that the im- 
 portation from Nepaul has been revived since the original 
 prohibition. Hamilton, however, writing in 1828, states 
 that some slaves " are imported from Cachar, Gentiah, and 
 other territories beyond the limits of British jurisdiction" 
 into Silhet, showing that at that time, according to his 
 authorities, the importation by land, although prohibited, had 
 not ceased. 
 
 The case is the same under the Bombay presidency. 
 Mr. Chaplin says : " The importation of slaves from for- 
 eign states now stands prohibited by the orders of the 
 supreme government. This, however, has increased the 
 price without putting a stop to the traffic;"* that is, with- 
 
 * Chaplin's Report, pp. 150, 151. 
 
150 SLAVERY 
 
 out putting a stop to it in the Dekhan, to which his whole 
 report refers. When Mr. Chaplin speaks of the traffic not 
 having been put a stop to, it is not clear whether he means 
 the importation of slaves from native states by land, or from 
 abroad by sea. It is in the former sense that I here under- 
 stand him. Under the Madras presidency, the importation 
 of slaves by land appears to have been principally carried 
 on from the territories of the Rajas of Cochin and Travan- 
 core, under the instigation of British subjects, and its 
 suppression in 1811 and 1S12 is ascribed entirely to the 
 superintending presence and firm conduct of the British 
 resident, Col. Munro, without which Mr. Baber anticipates 
 its revival. I have no means of knowing whether the 
 British authorities in Malabar and the political resident at 
 Tra van care continue to be on the alert to prevent the 
 renewal of this traffic in human flesh. 
 
 Slaves were formerly imported by sea, by Arab dealers, 
 from the eastern coast of Africa, from Madagascar, and 
 from the Eastern Islands, and there are grounds for believing 
 that this traffic has not wholly ceased, although it is now 
 probably limited to importation from the coast of Africa. 
 In confirmation of this statement I have to remark that, 
 although a very large majority of the slave-population in 
 India is native and aboriginal, yet it is equally certain that 
 there is a small proportion of African birth and blood, 
 loosely denominated Caffrces and Hubshees, or Cafres and 
 Abyssinians. I knew an Armenian family in Calcutta in 
 which there were four such slaves, and although from this 
 single example it would be wrong to infer that the practice 
 of 'slave-holding prevails generally among the Armenians in 
 India, yet the subject deserves inquiry, as I have no reason 
 to believe that the family referred to was peculiar. I may 
 mention also as an additional circumstance, that during 
 part of the time I was resident in Calcutta, I was a tenant 
 of a house belonging to an Armenian landlord, formerly 
 
IN INDIA. 151 
 
 occupied by an Armenian family, and situated in Amratola 
 street, in which and in its neighborhood there are several 
 Armenian families : one of the appurtenances of the house 
 was a Gholam-Khand) or slave-keep, a roomy and not un- 
 comfortable apartment, but with wooden bars and a padlock 
 on the door like the cages of wild beasts. I have also been 
 assured that African slaves are not uncommon in Mu- 
 hammadan families, and I found a confirmation of this 
 statement in the fact that by a census which I made of 
 the population of the city of Moorshedabad, in 1S36, under 
 the authority of government, it was shown that' there 
 belonged to the household of the Nuwab of Moorshe- 
 dabad sixty-three eunuchs, stated by the retainers of the 
 Nuwab's family, from whom the information was obtained, 
 to be of Abyssinian birth. It is not necessary to assert that 
 all the slaves in India of African birth have been imported 
 since the prohibition in 1811 ; but as most of them are 
 young, and many of them, old as well as young, are 
 eunuchs, it is difficult to believe that all were either 
 imported, or are the children of those who were imported, 
 before the prohibition. 
 
 From these facts alone I should infer that the importa- 
 tion of slaves from the coast of Africa into the Ben- 
 gal presidency has not even now wholly ceased; and I 
 proceed in support of this inference to state a case of 
 actual importation which came within my own knowledge 
 in 1826, implying the probability of previous importations 
 to a greater or less extent by the same individual. This is 
 the case of the Arab ship Adramytte, master Ruhim Seyud, 
 which arrived in the port of Calcutta in the month of Oc- 
 tober, 1826, bringing for sale three slave-girls, one Greek 
 and two Africans, belonging to one Hajee Durvesh, a 
 passenger on board the vessel. This person had been 
 known to make frequent voyages to Calcutta, but he had 
 never brought, as far as could be ascertained, any legal 
 
152 S L A V E R Y 
 
 V 
 
 merchandise, and, although professing to be a merchant, had 
 on all occasions apparently come without any cargo, consign- 
 ment, or shipment of any kind. A person who had occasion 
 to go on board this vessel was assured by two of the Las- 
 cars or native sailors belonging to it that there had been 
 three slave-girls brought in the vessel to Calcutta, one of 
 whom was a Christian, and that they had been taken on 
 shore by night a few days after the arrival of the ship at 
 Calcutta. The two Lascars offered to come on shore and 
 give evidence, if required, to that effect; and the informa- 
 tion 'Key gave was communicated to Mr. Constantino Pan- 
 dazie, a Greek gentleman resident in Calcutta, whose feel- 
 ings were interested by the fact that one of the slave.- 
 a Greek. Mr. Pandazie applied to me for my ;u!vi> 
 assistance, and our first object was to get positive and direct 
 information as to the facts from the Lascars, but leave 
 ashore was uniformly refused to them. After some days, 
 however, Mr. Pandazie informed me that a Malay woman, 
 who had for many years associated with the Greek 
 Calcutta, and could ppouk the modern Greek, and wn- 
 acquainted with Hajee Durvesh, had in his absence call 
 the house in which he kept his slaves, and had seen one of 
 MVi-an girls, and conversed with the Greek girl, who 
 stated that she had been bought as a slave by the I T 
 and was kept by .him in a state of slavery and restraint, 
 and entreated that means might be employed to set her at 
 liberty. On the following morning I went to Mr. Panda- 
 zie's house, expecting to see the Malay woman, to take 
 down her statements in writing" and prepare an affidavit to 
 to which she should be sworn with a view to ulterior pro- 
 ceedings ; but in the mean time the Hajee, learning the 
 nature of the evidence that had been obtained against him, 
 had come forward and offered to surrender the Greek girl 
 to the Greeks, which he accordingly did in my presence, at 
 the house of Mr. Lucas, another Greek gentleman who had 
 
IN INDIA. 153 
 
 co-operated with Mr. Pandazie in the matter. He however 
 denied that he had the two African girls, although when 
 the Greek girl was interrogated she affirmed that he had 
 brought them also with him to Calcutta. I was accordingly 
 desirous of employing her evidence to prove the fact, but 
 was disappointed to find that my Greek friends, having 
 obtained the liberation of their country woman, were unwil- 
 ling to proceed any further. Having failed to remove their 
 objections, I laid the whole affair before government, who 
 referred me to Mr. R. C. Barwell, chief magistrate of Cal- 
 cutta, whom they had instructed to investigate the matter. 
 This officer required me to prepare arid swear to an affidavit 
 of the principal facts as above detailed, and then told me 
 that he would not proceed any further in the business, for 
 this reason, that if he should foil to establish the criminality 
 of Hajee Durvesh and those who aided and abetted him in 
 the alleged importation of slaves, the rule of the govern- 
 ment in such case was to make him pay the expenses of 
 the unsuccessful prosecution, and that consequently without 
 the certainty, which did not in this case exist, of obtaining a 
 conviction against the accused, he would not hazard a 
 prosecution at all. I will not remark here upon the spirit 
 or tendency of such a rule ; but will only say that,, however 
 reluctant to drop the subject, I felt myself unable to proceed 
 with it any further, although fully persuaded in my own 
 mind that the case might have been successfully established 
 and the actors convicted and brought to condign punish- 
 ment. All the inquiries I made satisfied me that the 
 importation of slaves from the coast of Africa is still 
 covertly carried on, and the extent can be ascertained only 
 by a more thorough investigation than it was possible for a 
 private, a single, and an unaided individual to attempt. 
 
 With regard to the Bombay and Madras presidencies, it 
 may be remarked, that the whole line of the western coast 
 of India, by its proximity to the coasts of Africa and Arabia 
 
1'5I SLAVERY 
 
 and to the ports of the Eed Sea, presents facilities for impor- 
 tation, which are increased by the existence on that coast 
 of the Portuguese settlements of Goa, Damaun, and Din, 
 under the flag of which nation the slave-trade has con- 
 tinued to be carried on elsewhere. That African slavery 
 exists at Goa is shown by the statements of Captain Henry 
 Be van to the commissioners for the affairs of India. " In 
 the year 1821," says this gentleman, "as adjutant of the 
 corps of pioneers, while employed in the neighborhood of 
 the Portuguese territory of Goa, I enlisted several African 
 slaves or Caffres who offered themselves as pioneers, having 
 an impression that the act was perfectly allowable. A few 
 days after they had joined the battalion a letter was received 
 by the officer commanding the corps, from the governor of 
 Goa, directing their restoration to the Portuguese families 
 from whom they had eloped, being their slaves, and therefore 
 considered irr -the light of private property." They were 
 accordingly restored, and Captain Bevan adds : " I wit- 
 nessed some months afterwards the marks of harsh treat- 
 ment endufed by these unfortunate beings, who had 
 most cruelly lashed at intervals, and their wounds ri 
 each time with red pepper and salt to make their - 
 more refined and excrn \vhich was ordered by their 
 
 masters a^ a punishment for their having absconded, ai, 
 a warning to deter others from committing a like, act." 
 This clearly implies not only the existence of Africa:) 
 slavery at Goa, but the existence of an African slave-trade 
 by which the supply of slaves may be obtained ; and the 
 escape of the above-mentioned slaves from Goa shows the 
 ease with which slaves may be and probably are smuggled 
 from the Portuguese to the British territory. The continued 
 existence of the slave-trade between Africa or Arabia and 
 India is further confirmed by the facts brought out in the 
 trial at Bombay, about ten years ago, of Captain Hawkins, 
 
IN INDIA. 
 
 to the details of which I regret that I have not at present 
 the means of referring. 
 
 These statments are abundantly confirmed hy the infor- 
 mation contained in your recent*work on the African Slave- 
 trade, resting on the authority of Captain Cogan, of the 
 Indian navy, accredited agent in England of the Imaum of 
 Muskat, and on that of Mr. Erskine, political resident at 
 Kattewar, in the province of Guzerat, under the Bombay 
 government. On the authority of Captain Cogan you state 
 that by means of the reserved trade carried on by the 
 Imaum's subjects with those of their own faith, slaves are 
 exported from Africa " to the north- west coasts of India." 
 Now the north-west coasts of India are occupied, exclu- 
 sive of the Ameers of Scinde who exercise an independent 
 sovereignty, by the Baroda and Cutch governments, by 
 the numerous chieftains of Kattewar and Guzerat, and by 
 the Abyssinian, chiefs of Jinjeera, JafFerabad, and Su- 
 cheen, all of them protected, tributary, or in some form 
 dependent on the paramount authority of the British gov- 
 ernment, and their different ports presenting unobstructed 
 inlets to the slave-trade. The Portuguese ports on the same 
 coast, already mentioned, are equally open both to receive 
 and to export slaves. In a despatch to the court of direc- 
 tors from the Bombay government, dated 12th May, 1838, 
 Mr. Erskine says, that " a considerable importation of 
 slaves takes place at Dieu (Diu), both directly from the 
 Arabian Gulf, and from Goa and Damaun, from whence 
 they are brought into the province (of Guzerat). For this 
 I may confidently say I see no remedy whatever, as it rests 
 entirely with the British government to say how far they 
 consider it politic to interfere with their allies, the Portu- 
 guese, on this important question." There is happily no 
 doubt now of the manner in which this question is regarded 
 by the British government. 
 
 Mr. Baber, enumerating the various sorts of slaves found 
 
 
156 SLAVERY 
 
 in the western provinces of the Madras territory, specifies* 
 with others, " persons imported from the ports of the Per- 
 sian Gulf, in the Red Sea, or from the African coast ;" 
 and in another place, after noticing other descriptions of 
 domestic slaves, he adds : " The rest cf the domestic 
 slaves are persons, or their offspring, natives of Arabia, but 
 chiefly of Abyssinia, and called Wadawar and Goolams, who 
 came over with and are either the personal attendants of 
 their masters the Seyuds (who pride themselves upon being 
 descendants from the prophet, and who are very numerous 
 on the coast,) or employed in navigating the Arab, Mop- 
 pilla, or Lubbee vessels, or in the service of the tanguls or 
 high priests of the Moppillas, in all the great Moppilla and 
 other Musalman families in the towns of Mangalore, Mun- 
 jc ( sliwar, Coombla, Bekkul, Cavar, Paiangady, Belliapntam, 
 Cananore, Tellichery, Coilandy, Barragurry, Calicut, Par- 
 perengady, Tiroiwangjtddy, Condooty, Ariacotta, Kootai, 
 Parony, Panany ; and in fact in all the great towns through- 
 out Malabar and Canara, these descriptions of slaves are to 
 be met with." Here the existence of a large and wide- 
 spread class of slaves in the British provinces of Malabar 
 and Canara, who are either natives of Arabia and Abyssinia 
 or the offspring of such, is expressly affirmed, and it may, I 
 think, be at legist asserted as highly probable, that the 
 mnjority of those who are natives of Arabia or Abyssinia 
 must have been imported since the importation ceased to be 
 legal. ^ 
 
 These statements and authorities are the grounds on 
 which I have been led to suspect that the importation of 
 slaves into British India by land and by sea has not entirely 
 ceased ; and if they do not fully establish the fact, they at 
 least make out a case for thorough and searching investi- 
 gation. I may add that the employment of African slaves 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, pp. 551, 557. 
 
IN INDIA. 157 
 
 in Muhammadan families in India is rendered the more 
 probable because it is the custom in the neighboring Mu- 
 hammadan countries. Mr. Lane, in Note 13 to the first 
 chapter of his Translation of the Arabian Nights' Enter- 
 tainments, says : " The slaves of the Arabs are mostly from 
 Abyssinia and the Negro countries ; a few in the houses of 
 very wealthy individuals are from Georgia and Circassia." 
 " Those called Abyssinians appear to be a mixed race 
 between negroes and whites ; and are from the territories of 
 the Gallas. They are mostly kidnapped and sold by their 
 own countrymen." " Most of them " (of the eunuchs) "are 
 Abyssinians or negroes." 
 
 Another source of slavery has been the sale of criminals, 
 outcastes, and their offspring. I have already had occasion 
 to notice the disallowance, by the criminal code of 1793, 
 under the Bengal government, of the regulation proposed 
 by Warren Hastings in 1773, for the sale of criminals and 
 their offspring into slavery, and the discontinuance of the 
 same practice in the Tena^serim provinces after their 
 acquisition by the British. In like manner in the Dekhan, 
 under the Mahratta government, Mr. Chaplin informs us 
 that " a woman of Mahratta caste committing adultery or 
 fornication was sometimes condemned to slavery;" and it is 
 to be inferred that this mode of punishment is not employed 
 under the British government. In the Madras territories, 
 the practice appears to have prevailed under the native 
 government of selling illegitimate children and outcastes 
 into slavery. Mr. Baber mentions, as one description of 
 slaves, " outcaste Hindus, who had been sold into slavery 
 under or by former governments." Mr. Raven shaw, the 
 collector of the southern division of Canara in 1801, states 
 that it was the custom of the Biddenore government to 
 take possession of illegitimate children and sell them as 
 slaves. In 1819, Mr. Harris, the principal collector of all 
 Canara, estimated that of the total slave-population " 20,000 
 14 
 
158 SLAVERY 
 
 were persons (or rather their descendants) who had been 
 taken in battle, or concubines, or Brahmin and Sooder 
 women, who had lost caste by having connexion with men 
 of inferior caste ; the two last descriptions (he adds) were 
 sold under the Musalman government, and their descendants 
 continue slaves ; and that under Mr. Baber, when magis- 
 trate here, some stop was put to this practice; but there is 
 no doubt it exists in an underhand manner at this day ;" 
 that is, as I understand the statement, concubines and out- 
 caste females still continue to be sold into slavery clandes- 
 tinely by private individuals. Mr. Baber further states 
 that, besides kidnapped persons and imported natives of 
 Arabia and Abyssinia and their offspring, " the domestic 
 slaves of Malabar consist of the descendants of outcaste 
 persons who had been excommunicated either through some 
 aberration from caste rules, such as eating with, or the food 
 cooked by, men of low caste, or from cohabitation with men 
 of lower caste than themselves, or within the prohibited 
 degrees of kindred ; nd of Brahmins convicted of robbery 
 and theft, who had V*een sold by former governments into 
 slavery, to Chet'i<v5 Moplas, and to whomsoever would 
 purchase them."*' It follows from these statements that 
 while the British government does not itself sell into slavery 
 criminals, outcastes, concubines, and illegitimate children, it 
 confirms the acts of former governments by perpetuating 
 the slavery of such persons and of their descendants. 
 
 Another source of slavery is the sale of freemen by 
 themselves, either for a sum of money or in redemption of 
 a debt previously incurred. This practice prevails exten- 
 sively in the countries and provinces east of Bengal. " The 
 custom of debtor-slavery or mortgaged labor," says Ham- 
 ilton, " prevails universally " in the Tenasserim provinces, 
 and according to him no attempt has been made to restrain 
 it. It exists in Bengal itself: " Occasionally," says Ham- 
 
 *Mr. Baber's Letter, as above, pp. 551, 556. 
 
IN INDIA. 159 
 
 ilton, writing of Silhet, " the poorer descriptions of free 
 inhabitants sell themselves when in extreme distress.* 
 Mr. Listen, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 
 for 1837, has given a copy of a servitude-bond, such as he 
 states is daily executed and in full force in the district of 
 Gorakhpur, by which a native, for a loan of fifty-one rupees 
 at twelve per cent, interest, conies under an obligation to 
 give his own labor and that of his family to the lender at 
 all times and in all forms, for an indefinite period, until 
 the amount of the loan shall be repaid, principal and inte- 
 rest, in full. The effect of such an agreement would be, on 
 the death of the father, to leave the children in bondage. 
 The Muhammadan lawyers whose opinions Mr. Macnagh- 
 ten has quoted in his Principles and Precedents of Muham- 
 madan Law, after mentioning the practice of parents selling 
 their children, refer also to the practice of freemen selling 
 themselves : " A freeman who has reached the years of 
 discretion may however enter into a contract to serve 
 another, but not for any great length of time, such as for 
 seventy years, as this also is a mere pretext, and has the 
 same object of slavery in view." " Reverting to contracts 
 of hire for service for a long period and the nefarious 
 practice of subjecting freemen to a state of bondage and 
 slavery under this pretence, it appears expedient to provide 
 against such abuses ; and with this view, to restrict the 
 period of service, in all contracts of hire of freemen, to a 
 month, one year, or at the utmost to three years. "^ The 
 statement of these native lawyers both establishes the reality 
 of the practice and denounces it as nefarious and deceptive, 
 and designed to create and perpetuate slavery. Mr. Chap- 
 lin states that in the Dekhan " debtors have sometimes 
 become slaves to their creditors." Mr. Baber in the western 
 provinces of the Madras territory recognises one class of 
 
 * Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of Muhammadan Law, 
 pp. 314, 315. 
 
160 SLAVERY 
 
 slaves as consisting of those " persons who, in consideration 
 of a sum of money or in discharge of a security for the 
 payment of a debt, have bound themselves by a voluntary 
 contract to servitude either for life or a limited period ;" 
 while Mr. Campbell considers that this description of ser- 
 vitude can scarcely be classed as slavery. " Besides the 
 purchase of children in years of scarcity," says Mr. C., "I 
 have heard of natives, to cancel a debt, voluntarily selling 
 themselves as domestic slaves for a certain number of years; 
 but this is unusual ; and though classed as a species of ser- 
 vitude, it more resembles that of persons serving under 
 written articles in Europe, than slavery of even the most 
 qualified description." Mr. Campbell overlooks that the 
 existence of the state of slavery in India, and its non-exist- 
 ence in Europe, wholly destroy the comparison between 
 bond-servitude and service under written articles. Accor- 
 ding to Hindu law, the sale of a freeman by himself not 
 only creates slavery, but the most degraded form of slavery. 
 According to Nareda, an ancient and authoritative Hindu 
 legislator, " that low man, who, being independent, sells 
 himself, is the vilest of slaves: he cannot be released from 
 slavery."* We have further the testimony of the respectable 
 native Muhammadan lawyers above quoted, that the prac- 
 tice of contracting for a service of seventy years is adopted 
 by freemen as a mere pretext to sell themselves into slavery. 
 Even where such an intention does not exist, such bond- 
 servitude must often practically become perpetual slavery 
 by the inability of the bond-servant to discharge the pecu- 
 niary obligations he has incurred to his master. Moreover, 
 the bond-servant, as appears from the Gorakhpur case, con- 
 tracts not only for his own services, but those of his family, 
 whom, until his pecuniary obligations are redeemed, he con- 
 demns to the same doom of slavery with himself. The 
 authority of the native lawyers, whose acquaintance with 
 
 * Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, Vol. II. p. 347. 
 
IN INDIA. 161 
 
 the customs of the country cannot be questioned, and the 
 concurring tenor of Mr. Listen's servitude-bond, prove 
 beyond dispute that this species of servitude is practically 
 one of the sources of slavery in India, and that provision 
 ought to be made against such an abuse. 
 
 The only other source of slavery in India to which I shall 
 refer, is descent from a slave parent or parents. In the 
 actual condition of Hindu and Muhammadan society, as 
 well as in the language of Hindu and Muhammadan law, 
 one of the most common descriptions of slavery is that 
 which consists of those who are born in the house, that is, 
 born of female slaves in the houses of their masters. The 
 rule is, that if a female slave should bear offspring by any 
 other than her legal lord and master, whether the father be 
 a freeman or slave, and whether the slave of the said master 
 or of any other person, in any of these cases, such offspring 
 is subject to slavery. With reference to this source of 
 slavery, Mr. Colebrooke remarks : " Neither the disposi- 
 tion of the people nor their accustomed mode of treating 
 their slaves, tends to impede the rearing of children by any 
 discouragement to marriage. I of course except the in- 
 stances of concubines and prostitutes. In other cases a sense 
 of propriety leads very usually to provide a match for the 
 household slave ; and the offspring following the condition 
 of the mother, and the child of a female domestic slave 
 being considered to be attached to the family by a stronger 
 tie than the simple relation of slave to a master, no requi- 
 site indulgence is wanting to enable the mother to devote 
 due care to the rearing of her progeny."^ Mr. Chaplin 
 states that in the Dekhan slaves "become domesticated in 
 the houses of the upper classes, who treat them with affec- 
 tion, and allow them to intermarry with the female slaves ; 
 and the offspring of this connection, though deemed base- 
 born, if males, are often considered free, but if females, they 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. p. 746. 
 14* 
 
162 SLAVERY IN INDIA. 
 
 remain slaves. Marriage, however, is equivalent almost to 
 emancipation, because when married slaves become rather 
 an incumbrance to their owners."^ These remarks might 
 probably be extended to the domestic slavery of the Madras 
 presidency, but it is to domestic slavery there or elsewhere 
 that they should be strictly limited. Mr. Campbell expressly 
 states that the children of agrestic slaves " are doomed to 
 hereditary slavery."! This is doubtless at present the chief 
 source of the predial slavery to which the aborigines of the 
 soil are subject, particularly in Southern India. Hindu, 
 Muhammadan, and Christian conquerors have successively 
 swept over the land, but only to rivet their chains, to per- 
 petuate their servitude, and to condemn them to propagate 
 from generation to generation a race of slaves, so thoroughly 
 debased, that the unjust and inhuman institution of which 
 they are the victims wears in their estimation the character 
 of an inevitable necessity, such as we ascribe to the laws of 
 nature and of God. 
 
 Of the various sources of slavery that have been men- 
 tioned, there is not one that every Englishman, every sub- 
 ject or citizen of a free government, must not condemn. 
 The enslavement of captives in war, the sale of free children 
 by their parents, the kidnapping of children, the importation 
 of slaves, the sale of criminals, outcastes, concubines, and 
 their offspring, the sale of freemen by themselves all are 
 either expressly forbidden by law, or are the customs of 
 barbarous times and governments to be mentioned only to be 
 denounced. Can it be consistent with justice and humanity, 
 by perpetuating slavery, to perpetuate the operation and 
 effect of causes which justice and humanity must and do 
 condemn ? 
 
 * Chaplin's Report, p. 149. f Campbell's Letter, as above, p. 576. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 TO THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Occupations and Treatment of Agrestic Slaves Domestic Slaves 
 in British India. 
 
 SIR, Having inquired into the probable number of slaves 
 and the various sources from which the supply of slaves is 
 obtained, I shall now examine into the occupations in which 
 slaves in India are engaged and the treatment which they 
 receive from their masters. This touches the real essence 
 of slavery, and is necessary to enable us to understand the 
 nature of the institution as it exists in India. 
 
 The first and most important class of slaves consists of 
 those who, being chiefly employed in the labors of the field, 
 are called agrestic or predial slaves. Mr. Colebrooke says 
 that " in the lower provinces under this (the Bengal) pre- 
 sidency, the employment of slaves in the labors of husban- 
 dry is nearly, if not entirely, unknown." This is not quite 
 correct. Thus Hamilton says that in the district of Dacca, 
 " when an estate to ivhich slaves are attached' is sold private- 
 ly, the slaves are commonly sold at the same time ;" and 
 the inference is that slaves are attached to estates only for 
 the purpose of cultivation. In like manner in Silhet some 
 slaves are stated by the same authority to have been " he- 
 reditary slaves for several generations," and it is added that 
 
164 SLAVE R Y 
 
 they " are sold along with the estate on which they reside." 
 In the same district of Bengal one of the magistrates esti- 
 mated the class of slaves at one-sixth of the whole popula- 
 tion, and considering the very remarkable subdivision of 
 landed property in that district, many of the slaves are most 
 probably employed in the cultivation of the ground for or 
 with their masters. In Assam, according to Dr. McCosh, 
 u all the drudgery of the household and the labor of the field 
 is performed by slaves." Mr. Listen states that in the 
 Gorakhpur district the landholders, in order to water and 
 cultivate their lands, employ bond-servants ; and the servi- 
 tude-bond of which he has given a copy purports to have 
 force over the bond-servant and over his whole family 
 " for the driving of a plough and for remaining always at 
 hand to execute every kind of labor that may occur." In 
 the upper provinces, according to Mr. Colebrooke, beginning 
 from Western Behar and Benares, there would apprar to be 
 three descriptions of predial slaves. The first arc bond- 
 servants by whom throughout some districts the labors of 
 husbandry are chiefly executed. The second aiv the 
 of the free peasantry or petty landholders. In certain pro- 
 vinces the ploughmen are mostly slaves of this sort. The 
 masters or owners are themselves cultivators, and 
 in their husbandry by their slaves, whom they very common- 
 ly employ as herdsmen or ploughmen. Those who are 
 employed in this manner in husbandry by the inferior (lass 
 of landholders are strictly slaves, and their condition ! 
 from that of household slaves only as the former arc occu- 
 pied in out-door work and the latter in business of the inte- 
 rior of the house. The third class are a species of serfs on 
 the estates of the larger landed proprietors. In some places 
 the landholders have a claim to the servitude of thousands 
 among the inhabitants of their estates, reputed to be descend- 
 ed from persons who were acknowledged slaves of their 
 ancestors. They are to be considered rather as villains 
 
IN INDIA. 165 
 
 attached to the glebe than as bondmen laboring for the sole 
 benefit of their owners. 
 
 With regard to the treatment of predial slaves under the 
 Bengal presidency, I have met with very few facts directly 
 illustrating their condition. The claims of the large land- 
 holders on the services of the hereditary serfs just mentioned 
 are stated by Mr. Colebrooke to be nearly obsolete, and 
 scarcely attended with any practical consequences. Slaves 
 of this description, he considers, do in fact enjoy every privi- 
 lege of a freeman except the name. They pay rent and 
 other dues for the lands they till and the pastures on which 
 they graze their herds, and are not distinguished from 
 the rest of the peasantry " unless by a questionable restric- 
 tion of the right of removing at choice." This certainly is 
 a very important restriction on the privileges of a freeman ; 
 but if in the progress of society the authority of the master 
 is so far relaxed that it is the only restriction on the liberties 
 of this class of serfs the only remaining link of their 
 chain and if even this restriction has become questionable, 
 as Mr. Colebrooke states, then it is clear that the time has 
 more than arrived for breaking this link also, and for put- 
 ting them in full and undisputed possession of all the rights 
 of freemen. The slaves of the free peasants or petty land- 
 holders are further described by Mr. Colebrooke as being 
 " treated by their masters more like hereditary servants, or 
 like mancipated hinds, than like purchased slaves," and as 
 " laboring with cheerful diligence and unforced zeal." That 
 this is often true, I think very probable ; that it is univer- 
 sally the case, is much to be doubted. It is this description 
 of slaves, as I understand, that Hamilton tells us are sold in 
 the districts of Dacca and Silhet with the lands to which 
 they are attached ; and with reference to the latter district 
 he adds that " the transfer of slaves takes place both with and 
 without the consent of the slaves ; but in the latter predica- 
 ment only the mildest treatment can secure the purchaser 
 
166 SLAVERY 
 
 any benefit from his acquisition." Mr. Liston also informs 
 us that in the Gorakhpur district " a slave-holder may sell 
 a whole family or what part of it may suit his convenience," 
 and the deed of sale which he has published records the 
 sale of a wife apart from her husband and of a son apart 
 from his father. Mr. Liston also enables us to form some 
 idea of the treatment of the bond-servants who are employed 
 by the Zamindars of the Gorakhpur district to water and 
 cultivate their lands. They " are paid at half a coolifs 
 rate, and are at the same time liable to fine in case of 
 absenting themselves from their superior's work." A cooly 
 is the very lowest description of free laborer, and the rate of 
 wages he receives in the country, out of large towns, proba- 
 bly never exceeds two annas or fourpence sterling per day. 
 Half a cooly's rate will enable a bond-servant to purchase 
 only a very scanty supply of the coarsest rice and pulse, 
 without any salt, or fish, or vegetables, except of the last 
 what he can pick up wild in the fields, to make them palat- 
 able. With these specific facts and statement- rusting on 
 sufficient authority the starvation-allowance given to 
 bond-servants, the power sometimes at least d of 
 
 selling separately members of the same family, and the 
 practice of selling slaves, like chattels, with the lands which 
 they cultivate, with or without their own consent it is im- 
 possible to believe that the predial slaves found under the 
 Bengal presidency receive universally that gentle and indul- 
 gent treatment which Mr. Colebrooke alleges. 
 
 But it is under the Madras presidency that predial slavery 
 in India is presented in its worst forms ; and in the letters 
 of Mr. Baber and Mr. Campbell to the board of commis- 
 sioners for the affairs of India, we have a complete view of 
 it. In the following account I shall chiefly aim to give a 
 clear and connected summary of their statements. 
 
 Predial slavery does not exist at all in the central pro- 
 vinces of the Indian peninsula, such as the ceded districts 
 
IN INDIA. 167 
 
 or Mysore, peopled by the Carnatacka nation, and it would 
 appear to be unknown also in the northern Circars, Nellore, 
 &c., or in the country where the people speak the Telinga 
 language ; but it is common in the southern provinces of 
 the peninsula, or wherever the Tamil language is spoken, 
 and. it assumes its worst form on the western coast of the 
 peninsula, or in the provinces of Malabar and Canara. 
 
 In order to form a just notion of the nature and extent of 
 slavery in the peninsula of India, we must not confound 
 predial slaves with those rude tribes that are inferior to 
 them in social consideration, but are notwithstanding free 
 and independent ; such as the Moola or Kadda Cooramer, 
 inhabiting the forests that separate Wynad from Mysore, 
 the Naiadees in Malabar, inhabiting the more open parts of 
 the lowland country, the Palgat Malaseers, chiefly inhabit- 
 ing the Anamalla forests, and the Mallakooder tribe of 
 mountaineers in Canara. Those tribes, the remnants of 
 the Aborigines of the country, are in a most deplorable 
 state of ignorance and barbarity, living almost in a state of 
 nature, deemed unworthy of contact or association with even 
 the slave-castes, unacquainted with the regulations of civil- 
 ized society, and yet rendered amenable to its laws and sanc- 
 tions. The condition of these tribes demands the earnest 
 consideration of the philanthropist ; but they do not yield 
 obedience to any superior, they are not liable to be bought 
 or sold, they are the unredeemed sons of the forest, wild 
 men of the woods ; in short, they are not slaves, and there- 
 fore are not embraced by our present inquiry. I hope that 
 the time is not far distant when the civilization of the 
 numerous mountain and forest tribes scattered all over India 
 will be deemed a legitimate object of government ; but in 
 the mean time their claims to attention are sufficiently 
 distinct from those of the predial slaves, although both pro- 
 bably belong to the same aboriginal race. The freedom of 
 
168 SLAVERY 
 
 the one class and the slavery of the other constitute the 
 distinction that is here contemplated. 
 
 The next circumstance to be noticed is, that there are 
 certain tribes who, by submitting to a sort of qualified servi- 
 tude, form a link between the independent aboriginal tribes 
 and those that have been reduced to absolute slavery. In 
 the upper country of Wynad, the Koorcher, Kooramer, 
 Kadder and Pannier tribes or castes are agrestic slaves, or 
 more properly conditional laborers. The Koorcher inhabit 
 the Ghaut mountains, and with the Kadder attend to the 
 cardamum cultivation, and cultivate a variety of hill products 
 under the name of Koomeree. The Kooramer cultivate 
 both the hills and lowlands, and also work in the 
 mines in Parakameetel. Both the Koorcher and Kooramer 
 are claimed as slaves by the hill proprietors, but they are 
 never sold, and in fact they barely yield obedience to their 
 yejaman or lord. The Kadder or Kadar are more submis- 
 sive, though they also are never sold, and invariably desert 
 if beaten or otherwise ill-treated. The Pannier alone, of 
 these four tribes, are liable to be sold, but never out of the 
 country of their birth. Their employment is to cultivate 
 the rice-lands. 
 
 There is an important difference also, not to be overlooked, 
 between the agrestic slaves of the eastern and those of the 
 western districts of the peninsula. In the Tamil country 
 the agrestic slaves are entitled to a certain proportion of the 
 harvest reaped on the land they cultivate, and to prescribed 
 fees in grain at each stage of the previous cultivation, as 
 well as at certain national festivals. Some of them who 
 are outcastes possess also a right to all the cattle which die 
 from disease ; and they eat the flesh of such animals as well 
 as that of snakes and other reptiles. In general their food 
 is the coarsest grain, but if a judgment may be formed from 
 their appearance, which is generally that of stout athletic 
 men, it is not deficient either in quantity or quality. Be- 
 
IN I N D' I A . 169 
 
 sides food and clothing, the latter of which is scanty, the 
 master also defrays the expense of the marriage of his 
 slaves, and presents them with small gifts on the hirth of 
 each child. A slave too may. with his master's permission 
 enlist in the army as a native soldier, or may enter the 
 service of an European gentleman, (and many have done 
 so without permission,) exercising all the rights of a free- 
 man ; but of late years the enlistment of slaves or Pariar 
 in the native army has been prohibited by the government. 
 On the western side of the peninsula agrestic slavery as- 
 sumes a far worse aspect, particularly in Malabar. In Ma- 
 labar the permission to take other service than that of his 
 master does not appear to be conceded to the slave, except 
 for the master's profit. The creatures in human form who 
 constitute the agrestic slave -population of that province are 
 distinguishable, like the savage tribes still to be found in the 
 forests of India, from the rest of the 'human race by their 
 degraded, diminutive, squalid appearance ; their dropsical 
 pot-bellies contrasting horribly with their skeleton arms and 
 legs, half-starved, hardly clothed, and in a condition scarcely 
 superior to the cattle they follow at the plough. The chief 
 cause assigned for the superiority of the agrestic slave on 
 the eastern coast over his unhappy brethren on the western 
 side of the peninsula is, that the landed tenures on the 
 eastern coast vest most of the land, and of the agrestic slaves 
 who cultivate it, in the hands of corporate village commu- 
 nities and of Hindu temples or other bodies, and not in the 
 hands of individual landowners, as on the opposite coast, 
 although it does not very clearly appear in what manner 
 this cause operates to produce such an effect. The vicinity 
 of some of the Tamil slaves to Madras, where the existence 
 of the British code renders slavery altogether unknown, and 
 the facility with which some have taken refuge there and 
 entered into the service of Europeans, appear also to have 
 contributed to raise them above their brethren on the other 
 15 
 
170 SLAVERY 
 
 coast ; and in general amongst the slaves in the vicinity of 
 large towns, a growing spirit of industry and independence 
 has been observed, which, but for the countenance their 
 masters have received from the British government in their 
 unnatural acquisitions, would, it is believed, have long ago 
 ripened into an assertion of their liberty. 
 
 Even on the western side of the peninsula agrestic slaves 
 are not all treated with equal harshness. The two principal 
 British slave-holding provinces on the western side are 
 Malabar and Canara, and in most parts of the latter slaves 
 are in general better off than in the former. In ^Canara, 
 though not allowed to enter the house or to touch the per- 
 sons of the free castes, they are permitted to approach them; 
 and it is only early in the morning, after Brahmins have 
 bathed, and before meals, that slaves are obliged to leave the 
 road to avoid contaminating them. In Malabar, on the con- 
 trary, a slave must not approach any of the free castes nearer 
 than a distance of ninety-six steps, and if he wishes to 
 speak to any of them he must stand at that distance and 
 cry aloud to them. In Canara too the slaves are allowed 
 to possess a small slip of ground of their own, and they 
 have occasionally a few articles of value about their per- 
 sons ; but in Malabar, although the slaves sometimes sow 
 dry grains and cultivate yams, and although they are found 
 also to have a few plantain trees and now and then a 
 solitary jack-tree in the ground adjoining their huts, the 
 fruits of which they enjoy, yet the right in the soil and in 
 the trees is in the master. In the southernmost subdivisions 
 of Canara, called Coombla and Neelesheram, the local preju- 
 dices are everywhere the same as in Malabar, and if pos- 
 sible even more inveterate than in that province, in conse- 
 quence of the chief portion of the people consisting of Nairs, 
 the name by which the Hindu military caste is distinguished 
 in the south of India. In the native states of Travancore 
 and Cochin, there is no reason to suppose that slaves are 
 
IN INDIA. 171 
 
 better treated than in Malabar, except tbat the inhabitants 
 are more lightly assessed than in the British province, and 
 consequently in better circumstances, and able to treat their 
 slaves with greater indulgence. 
 
 Another distinction is between the predial slaves of the 
 Hindu and Muhammadan divisions of the native commu- 
 nity, and also between those who reside in the vicinity of 
 the sea-coast and in the inland districts. The treatment of 
 slaves belonging to Muhammadan masters generally is more 
 liberal than that which the slaves of Hindu masters receive, 
 and the difference is ascribed to the former being more 
 frugal and industrious, having fewer ceremonies, and being 
 in better circumstances than " their more generous though 
 too improvident Hindu neighbors;" the meaning of which 
 is, that Hindu slave-owners expend all their generosity on 
 themselves, and allow the effects of their improvidence to 
 fall upon their slaves. Agrestic slaves in the vicinity of the 
 sea-coast and Irp'ge towns are much better off than those in the 
 inland district , in consequence of the opportunities they 
 possess, when iheir masters do not require their services, of 
 subsisting themselves by working for strangers, cutting and 
 selling grass and fuel, and serving as porters. In the inland 
 districts no such opportunities occur, and when their master 
 has no work for them to do, and their usual scanty allow- 
 ance is either lessened or altogether withheld, the slaves are 
 reduced to extreme destitution. Even on the sea-coast, 
 masters very often refuse permission to their slaves to work 
 for themselves ; and in those instances when without work 
 and allowances from their masters, they are in as great dis- 
 tress as those in the inland districts. 
 
 A general feature belonging to agrestic slavery under the 
 Madras presidency is, that the slaves are all Hindus in 
 name, however rude the forms of the Hindu religion which 
 they practise, and that they become slaves by birth alone 
 in certain castes which immemorial usage has doomed to 
 
172 SLAVERY 
 
 hereditary bondage. These castes are believed never to 
 have stood in any other relation to the free castes than that 
 in which they now stand, and they are believed to be des- 
 tined to stand in the same relation to the remotest posterity. 
 One effect of this relation is, that apart from the servitude 
 which each slave owes to his own master, all agrestic slaves 
 are considered, as far as relates to caste distinctions, under 
 bondage to all Hindu free-born persons; but those distinc- 
 tions are confined to leaving the road and other external 
 marks of inferiority, which of course would cease with 
 slavery itself. These distinctions are rapidly wearing away, 
 especially in Canara, and in north Malabar they are much 
 less attended to than in the southern division, where, at 
 Calicut, though it is the seat of a British court and the 
 head station of the principal collector, they are perhaps even 
 more prevalent than during the period of the native gor 
 ment. Mr. Baber shows that these invidious distinctions 
 have led to unjust pecuniary exactions from the slaves, to 
 affray, and even to murder. 
 
 Another effect of this relation is, that agrestic slaves are 
 liable to be called upon to perform certain acts of servitude to 
 the whole Hindu community, and also to the government of 
 the country. On behalf of the community, they arc required 
 to drag the enormous cars of the'idols round tlu villages or 
 temples, for which purpose immense cables, drawn by many 
 thbusands, are necessary. In Tanjore, in particular, from the 
 great number of the temples and frequency of the festivals, 
 this is a very onerous duty. The slaves are called to this 
 duty by the official requisition of the government collector or 
 magistrate, issued to their masters; and in one province, the 
 omission, probably intentional, of the magistrate to enforce the 
 attendance of any slaves on this duty, greatly impeded the 
 Hindu festivals, and created a religious enthusiastic hostility 
 dangerous to the government, which nearly broke out into 
 open rebellion. Orders were therefore issued to cause their 
 
IN INDIA. 173 
 
 attendance as usual. Even those of the slaves who, under 
 the instruction of Catholic or Protestant missionaries, have 
 become Christians, are not exempted by the magistrate from 
 this part of the long-established civil duties, common to the 
 whole class of slaves. In another instance, after thirteen of 
 the slaves who were dragging- the car lost their lives by the 
 wheels passing over them, government directed that the 
 practice of pressing them into this service should be discon- 
 tinued ; but in some provinces, at least, it is still enforced. 
 A servant of the East India Company states that in the pro- 
 vince of Tanjore alone there are " not less than four hun- 
 dred thousand people compelled year by year to leave their 
 homes, and proceed often ten, twenty, or thjrty miles, with- 
 out any provision or remuneration, for the purpose of drag- 
 ging the idol cars of the province;" and that "unless 
 government were to enforce their attendance, not a man of 
 them would come, nor would they when arrived pull the 
 cars, were it not for dread of government, and of the whip 
 applied by the government servants to compel their exer- 
 tions."*- This extract, it may be remarked in passing, 
 seems also to indicate the probable number of slaves in 
 Tanjore, of which I have not met with an estimate else- 
 where. If the number of persons above mentioned com- 
 pelled to draw the idol cars is correct, and if, as Mr. A. D. 
 Campbell seems to imply by his statements, slaves only are 
 required to perform this duty, it follows that the number of 
 slaves in Tanjore alone does not fall short of 400,000. 
 
 It is not for the Hindu community only that slaves are re- 
 quired to perform compulsory and unrequited services. The 
 English rulers of the country make still more numerous and 
 severe exactions on their own account. They are called on 
 by the requisition of the collector or magistrate, issued to 
 their masters, to aid in stopping any sudden breach in the 
 great works of irrigation conducted at the expense of govern- 
 
 * See Memorial to the Madras Government, Appendix, D. p. 36. 
 15* 
 
174 SLAVERY 
 
 ment ; and they are pressed in gangs to make or repair the 
 high roads, to carry the baggage of the public servants and 
 their establishments, of marching regiments, and of travel- 
 lers, to carry treasure-remittances from the several subor- 
 dinate stations for the collection of revenue to the collector's 
 treasury at Calicut, ("and scarcely a week passes/' says 
 Mr. Baber, " that parties of 10 to 100 of these slaves do not 
 arrive,") to bring stolen property with parties of robbers sent 
 in- to the head station by the different police officers, and to 
 carry the Company's tobacco, of which the government has 
 a monopoly, from the several depots for sale to the subor- 
 dinate stations on all which occasions they are guarded by 
 armed men to prevent their running away. The seizure 
 of slaves in this manner was one of the most prominent 
 causes of the discontents that led to the disturbances in the 
 mountainous region of Wyrrful in 1812, and a pledge was 
 then given that this oppressive practice should be discon- 
 tinued ; but the pledge has been disregarded, and the prac- 
 tice is justified by the local authorities, and countenanced by 
 the government itself, as a necessary evil. Of the extent 
 to which this evil at present exists an idea may be formed 
 by a fact which Mr. Baber states, that the native superin- 
 tendent of police at Kuddalore in Wynud " thrc-w up his 
 appointment rather than be instrumental in such oppression 
 and cruelty." Little as the native officers of government in 
 general sympathize with the sufferings of their own coun- 
 trymen, there are occasionally found some, it appears, who 
 are repelled from the service of the English government by 
 the rapacity and exactions of which the system would make 
 them the tools. 
 
 The agrestic or field slaves in the Tamil country are em- 
 ployed by their masters in every department of husbandry; 
 the men in ploughing the land and sowing the seed, and in 
 all the various laborious works necessary for the irrigation 
 of the land upon which rice is grown, the women in trans- 
 
IN INDIA. 176 
 
 planting the rice plants, and both sexes in reaping the crop. 
 Their labor is usually confined to the rice or irrigated lands ; 
 the lands not artificially irrigated, watered only by the rains 
 of heaven, and producing .what in India is technically called 
 dry grain, being seldom cultivated for their masters, whose 
 stock is concentrated on the superior irrigated soils, and any 
 cultivation by the slaves in unirrigated land is generally as 
 free laborers for others, or on their own independent account. 
 They work in bodies together, the village accountant regis- 
 tering the work executed by them, which he inspects; but 
 they are not personally superintended by any one, nor 
 placed -under any driver. They usually work from about 
 sunrise till sunset, with the intermission of a couple of hours 
 for their meal during the middle of the day. They are not 
 exempted from work on any particular day of the week, but 
 obtain holidays on all the great native festivals, such as on 
 those fixed for consecrating implements, the new year, and 
 other great days. No particular task-work is assigned to 
 them daily; it is sufficient that the slaves of each master 
 execute the work necessary for the cultivation and irrigation 
 of his lands. The lash is never employed by the master 
 against his slave in the Tamil country. 
 
 In Malabar and Canara, as Avell as in the Tamil country, 
 all the wet-grain lands are cultivated almost exclusively by 
 the slaves, under the direction of hired laborers, and in 
 Malabar the lash is employed, and its legality has been 
 recognised. Their labors in the field are not confined to 
 manuring, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, hoeing, reaping, 
 and thrashing, but they are likewise employed in fencing, 
 tending cattle, watching the cattle by night, and even in 
 carrying agricultural produce, it not being customary to use 
 carts or cattle in the transportation to market, and when the 
 harvest is over, in felling trees and preparing materials for 
 house-building, &c., and this without intermission for a 
 single day, so long as their master can find employment for 
 
176 SLAVERY 
 
 them. They not only have no days of rest during working 
 seasons, but they work by day and keep watch by turns at 
 night in sheds erected on an open platform in the centre of 
 the paddy field, several feet under water, exposed to the 
 inclemency of the weather, to scare away trespassing cattle, 
 or the wild animals with which every part of Malabar, ex- 
 cepting the vicinity of populous places, is infested. 
 
 The food, clothing, and habitations of the field-slaves are 
 on the lowest possible scale.' With respect to their I u -el- 
 lings, Buchanan states that they erect for themselves si nail 
 huts that are little better than large baskets; and so very 
 impure are all castes of slaves held that they are obliged to 
 erect them at a distance from the habitations of the free 
 In Malabar the allowance of clothing - of a 
 
 wai-t-rloth to men, and a fragment to females which i 
 large enough to wrap round their loins aiul is of the value 
 of 6d. to Is. In some districts- this is inven but once a 
 year, but more generally twice. As a substitute for these 
 waist-clothes it is very common with slav ially 
 
 in the retired parts of the country, to wear bunches of 
 leaves, generally of the wild planiain tree, supported by a 
 fibre of some tree or vine. In Canara the allowance of 
 clothing is six cubits of cloth, a blanket, and a cloth to 
 cover the head, for a man ; four cubits of cloth for a 
 woman; and four cubits for a child. Hindu female slaves, 
 according to established custom, wear no upper garments ; 
 but female slaves, particularly those belonging to Muham- 
 madan masters, adorn their persons with necklaces of 
 cowry shells, glass beads, brass bracelets, and finger -and 
 ear rings. In Canara the daily allowance of food to a male 
 slave is one and a half sers, or about three pounds, of 
 coarse rice, two rupees' (say a dollar's) weight of salt, and 
 a little betel-nut and leaf, the three last-mentioned articles 
 being optional ; to a female slave one ser, or two pounds of 
 
IN INDIA. 177 
 
 rice ; and to a child three-fourths of a ser, or a pound and 
 a half. In Malabar the allowance to a male slave is from 
 one and a half to one and three-quarters sers of rice, that 
 is, from three pounds to three pounds and a half; and to a 
 female slave from one to one and a .quarter sers, that is, 
 from two pounds to two pounds and a half. The young 
 and aged are generally allowed half of what able-bodied 
 men and women receive, provided they do some work. The 
 daily wages of a field-laborer who is a freeman is about 
 a third more than that of a slave, and moreover he works 
 only till noon, whereas the slave has to toil from morning 
 until evening, with no other sustenance than his morning's 
 rice-water and his evening meal, after which he has to keep 
 watch by turns at night. When the slaves are not regu- 
 larly employed, the daily allowance of food is seldom more 
 than half of what it is in working seasons, and very often 
 even that scanty allowance is withheld, which obliges them 
 to seek work from strangers ; or if residing in those remote 
 parts where there is no demand for their labor, they are left 
 to eke out a miserable existence by feeding upon wild yams 
 and such refuse as would be sought after only by extreme 
 wretchedness, and not un frequently they are tempted by the 
 cravings of hunger to rob gardens of their fruit. Mr. Graeme, 
 recently acting governor of Madras, uses the following 
 language : " The slave in the interior is a wretched, half- 
 starved, diminutive creature, stinted in his food, and exposed 
 to the inclemencies of the weather, whose state demands 
 that commiseration and amelioration which may confidently 
 be expected from the humanity of the British government." 
 Alas ! the expectation, however confident, has hitherto been 
 vain and fruitless ! In Tanjore, indeed, the government 
 humanely attached to the house of each of the slaves, in 
 common with the other householders who are not landown- 
 ers, a small piece of land as garden, tax-free ; and this is 
 the only instance of care for the personal comfort of the 
 
178 SLAVERY 
 
 slaves that I have found on record, and to this the govern- 
 ment was stimulated by the benevolence of one of their 
 own servants. It should also be mentioned that on occasion 
 of marriages, deaths, and other extraordinary events either 
 of joy or sorrow, small presents are made to the slaves by 
 masters, of money, clothes, oil, pepper, salt, and 
 tobacco, but the two latter, especially the tobacco, though a 
 necessary of life in a humid climate like Malabar, (where 
 the annual fall of rain averages 140 inches, being more than 
 three times what it is in the adjoining province of Coim- 
 batore, or in any part of the Coromandel coast), are less 
 common than formerly, owing to the greatly enhanced price 
 to the consumer, especially in the vicinity of the Ghaut 
 mountains, .since the establishment by the Company of a 
 monopoly in those two articles. Thus we see the East In- 
 dia Company's government, under temporary and individual 
 influence, increasing the comforts of the slave in Tan j ore ; 
 and under the permanent influence of its own i,Ta>pin<r and 
 monopolizing spirit, lessening those comforts in Malabar. 
 
 By the ancient laws of Malabar a proprietor is account- 
 able to no person for the life of his own slave, but is the 
 legal judge of his offences, and may punish them by drath. 
 At the present day all slaves ar' under the nominal pro! 
 of the law. Masters cannot take their li\v in.-nrring 
 
 the penalty of murder. They are also perfectly rnni;i 
 witnesses in all cases, civil or criminal, whether 
 freemen or others; and yet the evidence is strnnir that the 
 law, in its Mutual administration, does not e.v hield 
 
 them. Mr. Gror" i-ly quote 'hat %k the 
 
 interference of the mairistrnte" for the protection of slaves 
 "is so systematically withheld, that they could not with 
 any prudent regard to the interests of themselves and fami- 
 lies resort to a higher power." " How stands the fact 
 between the slave and his master ?" asks Mr. Baber. " Can 
 it be denied that their excluded condition, their ignorance, 
 
IN INDIA. 179 
 
 their poverty, their impurity, compared with the ability, the 
 affluence, the influence, and high bearing of those they 
 have to contend with, do present insuperable obstacles in 
 the way of their getting redress, unless their masters step 
 forward to see justice done to them?" And is it to be 
 expected that their masters will step fonvard to see justice 
 done to their slaves against their own injustice ? In like 
 manner Mr. Campbell states that violence and cruelty on 
 the part of the master are punishable ; but he does " not 
 think that the civil magistrate has sufficient summary 
 power to interfere for their due protection." The usual 
 modes of punishment are flogging, putting -in the stocks, 
 and working them in chains. Formerly the practice pre- 
 vailed of cutting off the noses of the slaves, and although 
 this is now illegal, the practice has not wholly ceased. 
 Mr. Baber tried a case in which it was proved that four 
 slaves, belonging to the same owner, had had their noses 
 amputated, and that although the case had come before the 
 magistrate, no steps had been taken to bring the perpetra- 
 tors of such horrid barbarities to justice. The slaves 
 themselves preferred no complaints, for having no means of 
 subsistence independent of their owners or employers, their 
 repairing to and attending upon a public court is a thing 
 physically impossible. Even if those provisions of the 
 Regulations that require all complaints to be preferred in 
 writing were dispensed with in favor of the slaves, and 
 they were exempted from the payment of tolls at the 
 numerous ferries they would have to pass, and an allow- 
 ance were made to them by government during their 
 detention at the courts, still, unless forfeiture of the right 
 of property over slaves was the penalty for ill-usage, their 
 situation would only become more intolerable than it was 
 before they complained. Slaves are thus practically at the 
 mercy of their masters a.nd beyond the pale of the law. 
 " There is hardly," says Mr. Baber, " a sessions of gaol 
 
180 SLAVERY 
 
 delivery the calendars of which (though a vast number 
 of crimes are occurring which are never reported) do not 
 contain cases of wounding and even murdering slaves, 
 chiefly brought to light by the efforts of the police ; though 
 generally speaking they are the most enduring, unresisting, 
 and unoffending classes of the people." 
 
 There is another fact which speaks a very intelligible lan- 
 guage as to the treatment which they receive from their mas- 
 ters and the protection they receive from the laws, and that 
 is, that the practice of slaves in the British districts of Mala- 
 bar and Wynad deserting their owners and taking refuge 
 in the natie states of Coorg and Mysore is not unfrequent. 
 It is only from those parts which border upon Coorg and 
 Mysore that slaves take refuge in those countries. Many 
 others further removed make the attempt, but they have been 
 almost always overtaken. The consequenc it the 
 
 slaves in those parts of Wynad and 'order 
 
 upon the states of Mysore and Coorg are better 
 
 :id bettor housed than in any other parts of those 
 districts. It has been poolly proposed to the Madras gov- 
 ernment, by one o! cnue collectors, that the native 
 rulers of Coorg and Mysore should be required to make 
 pecuniary compensation to the owners of th" or the 
 loss of them, although it is not pretended that the desertions 
 are encouraged by those princes, or take place with their 
 cognizance, or that any of their subjects entice the si 
 unless giving them employment and paying them for their 
 labor can be so called. There are in tipper Canada several 
 villages of free negroes who have escaped from their former 
 owners in the United States : What would be thought in 
 England of a demand for pecuniary compensation on 
 account of those negroes made by the United States 
 government and addressed to the government of Upper 
 Canada ? Mr. Baber remarks that flight is the only way 
 the slaves have of showing their sense of ill-treatment and 
 
IN INDIA. 181 
 
 enjoying security of life and limb, and it would be cruel in 
 the British government, and an aggravation of their hard 
 lot, so long as the British tribunals are hermetically closed 
 against them, if the government were to throw any obsta- 
 cle in the slaves' way, or look to the rulers of those coun- 
 tries for any indemnification to their tyrannical masters. 
 The laws do not extend to them adequate protection, and 
 they consequently seek an asylum in the neighboring 
 states. No people in the world, miserable as their condi- 
 tion is, are more attached to their natal soil than they are, 
 and they would be the last to leave it and their families if 
 they were permitted to live in security and enjoy that com- 
 fortable state of existence which they might" acquire by 
 their labor and arc entitled to from their masters. 
 
 These desertions are by no means so numerous as to ac- 
 count for the fact that the slave-population in Canara and Ma- 
 labar is stationary or diminishing, while the general popula- 
 tion in the same provinces is rapidly increasing. By a census 
 taken in 1807 of all Canara, the total number of inhabitants 
 was found to be 576,640, and in 1827 the gross population 
 amounted to nearly a million ; making an increase of 70 
 per cent, in 20 years, while the slave-population has been 
 stationary. In like manner in 1806-7 the general popula- 
 tion of Malabar was, according to Mr. Warden's estimate, 
 700,000, and in 1827 it amounted, by Mr. Sheffield's returns, 
 to 1,003,466. The increase in the general population has 
 thus been nearly as great as in Canara, while, according to 
 Mr. Warden's evidence before the select committee of the 
 house of lords, the slave-population of Malabar has been 
 diminishing. How are these facts to be explained except 
 on the supposition that the increase of the slave-population 
 has been checked by scanty fare, hard work, and cruel 
 treatment ? 
 
 The institution of marriage is observed among the slaves, 
 but the man may separate from his wife, and also, provided 
 16 
 
182 SLAVERY 
 
 he has her consent, part with her to another on paying back 
 to his master the marriage expenses. These separations 
 are not by any means common, and when they do happen are 
 less owing to themselves than to their masters. When the 
 slave of one master marries the slave of another, it is usual 
 for the female slave to reside with her husband ; but it is 
 optional to the master to allow this, and instances occur in 
 which it is prevented, and in which the husband also is 
 prevented from visiting his wife. The consequences have 
 been stolen visits by the husband, frequent absences from 
 his master's work, and severe chastisement ending in 
 murder. 
 
 Masters possess the legal right of manumission, but it is 
 never exercised in favor of agrestic slaves. A slave of the 
 highest class may be hired from his master for seven and 
 a half fanams per annum, equal to 3s. 9d. The lowly 
 Pooliar Cherumar, who compose more than half t! 
 gate slave-population, may be hired for two and two and a 
 half fanams per annum, equal to Is. and Is. 3d. The 
 average annual hire of a slave is estimated at five fanams, 
 cfiual to 2s. 6d. The sale-prices are correspondent. A 
 slave of the highest class will fetch 250 old gold fanams, 
 equal to 6Z. 5s. A man of the lowest cla.-s will fetch 48 
 fanams, equal to II. 4s. ; a* woman, 30 fanams, equal to 15s. ; 
 a boy, 20 fanams, equal to 10s. ; and a girl 15 fanams, 
 equal to 7s. 6d. The average selling price of all castes, of 
 which twenty are enumerated, is 132 old gold fanams, equal 
 to 31. 6s. Such is the market value of human cattle in 
 British India. The sale of agrestic slaves is common. 
 They may be sold for the debts of their master ; but in the 
 Tamil country the removal of them from their village, and 
 consequently from their families, would be contrary to 
 ancient usage ; and hence the practice of transferring them 
 with the land when it is sold, which, though not necessary 
 in law in Mr. Campbell's judgment, is in the Tamil coun- 
 
IN INDIA. 183 
 
 try almost invariably adopted. On the western side of 
 the peninsula, on the other hand, the people, except imme- 
 diately on the sea-coast, are nowhere congregated in 
 villages. Each landlord there is resident on his own 
 estate, and the slaves may be removed from one estate to 
 another however distant. Even in Malabar, Mr. Baber 
 considers that the practice of selling the slaves apart from 
 the land is decidedly at variance with and in innovation of 
 the law as observed in ancient times an innovation which 
 has 'been introduced since the Malabar coast provinces 
 came under the Company's government. In this opinion 
 he is borne out as well by the traditionary legends of the 
 origin of the slave-castes, as by the fact that slaves are 
 held under precisely the same tenures and terms as the land 
 itself, although they are in general transferred in a deed sepa- 
 rate from that disposing of the land, and sometimes without 
 any deed at all. The innovation that has been introduced is 
 moreover inconsistent with the due observance of their reli- 
 gious ceremonies, every part of Malabar having its tutelary 
 deity, and all classes of slaves having their household gods, to 
 whom on particular days they perform the same ceremonies 
 that all other (Tastes who are free-born do to theirs. They 
 likewise cherish the memory of their ancestors, by conse- 
 crating a spot of ground where all the members of each 
 caste meet and make offerings of meat and liquor prac- 
 tices which, it would seem, could not have arisen unless 
 they had been attached to the soil. 
 
 How the innovation referred to arose, does not clearly 
 appear, but it is probable that it originated, and it is certain 
 that it was confirmed, by the objectionable measure of real- 
 izing the public dues by the seizure and sale of slaves off the 
 land in satisfaction of revenue arrears, or compelling their 
 owners, the revenue defaulters, to sell them. Slaves were 
 thus sold away from the estates where they Were born and 
 bred ; husbands and wives, parents and children were sepa- 
 
184 SLAVERY 
 
 rated ; and all the nearest and dearest associations and ties of 
 our common nature were severed and all this done by au- 
 thority, in execution of judgments and in satisfaction of 
 revenue arrears. The extent to which this practice has been 
 carried under the authority of government is shown by the 
 statements of Mr. Vaughan, a collector of revenue under 
 the Madras government, and a defender of such proceedings. 
 " Why government," says this officer, " should give up a 
 right which every proprietor enjoys, is a question worthy 
 of consideration." " The sale of cherumars," that is, si; 
 says the same officer, "both in execution of decrees for 
 arrears of revenue and by mutual and private contracts, is 
 as common as the sale of land." And how common is the 
 sale of land for arrears of 'revenue, appears from the state- 
 ments contained in Sir Thomas Munro's Report, dated July 
 16, 1822, that in one single talook (or estate) out of 63 in 
 Malabar, 1330 plantations and rice-fields were sold in order 
 to satisfy public balances. In consequence of ivprnhul 
 remonstrances from benevolent and public-spirited servants 
 of the government, the Madras Board of Revenue in 1819 
 issued orders prohibiting the sale of slaves in future on 
 account of arrears of revenue in Malabar ; but the sale of 
 them has not been prohibited in execution of decrees, and 
 of course slave-owners continue to exercise the right, to 
 which the example of government has accustomed them, of 
 selling their slaves indiscriminately one to another apart 
 from the lands to which they belong, and even still, as is 
 alleged, in discharge of revenue arrears. When proprietors 
 are in want of cash to pay the revenues, the effect is the 
 same to the slaves whether they are sold by the direct 
 authority of government, or privately by their owners, to 
 satisfy such demands. 
 
 In the preceding sketch of the incidents belonging to 
 predial slavery under the Madras presidency, there are 
 many circumstances which cannot but be regarded with 
 
IN INDIA. 185 
 
 shame by every British subject possessed of the common 
 feelings of humanity ; but the sale of slaves away from their 
 birthplace and their families for arrears of revenue to the 
 government furnishes the last touch to the dark picture. 
 When the people of England are informed, on the undoubted 
 authority of trusted and experienced servants of the East 
 India Company, that the enormous revenue of that company 
 is not only wrung from an abjectly impoverished people, 
 but that up to 1819 it was in part obtained by the open and 
 authoritative sale of slaves belonging to revenue defaulters, 
 involving the permanent separation of parents from each 
 other and from their children ; and that at the present day 
 the sale of slaves, not by the government, but by their 
 masters, for the payment of government revenue, is still prac- 
 tised, it may be hoped that public indignation will be so dis- 
 tinctly expressed as to draw attention to the entire system 
 of Indian government of which this is only one feature. 
 
 The next subdivision of the slave-population in India is 
 that which consists of domestic slaves. The following 
 description of domestic slavery under the Bengal presidency 
 is from the pen of Mr. Colebrooke.^ " We find domestic 
 slavery very general among both Hindus and Musalmans. 
 Mor.e trusty than hired servants, slaves almost exclusively 
 are employed in the interior of the house for attendance on 
 the members of the family, and in all the most confidential 
 services. Every opulent person, every one raised above 
 tho condition of the simplest mediocrity, is provided with 
 household slaves ; and from this class chiefly are taken the 
 concubines of Musalmans and Hindus, in regard to whom it 
 is to be remembered that concubinage is not among people 
 of those religions an immoral state, but a relation which 
 both law and custom recognise without reprehension, and 
 its prevalence is liable only to the same objection as poly- 
 
 *Harington's Analysis, Vol. III. pp. 745747. 
 16* 
 
186 SLAVERY 
 
 gamy, with Avhich it has a near and almost necessary con- 
 nection." " A sense of propriety leads very usually to pro- 
 vide a match for the household slave ; and the offspring 
 following the condition of the mother, and the child of a 
 female domestic slave being considered to be attached to the 
 family by a stronger tie than the simple relation of slave to 
 a master x no requisite indulgence is wanting to enable the 
 mother to devote due care to the rearing oT her progeny. 
 It is not necessary to suppose the number of children bora 
 and reared to be deficient, for the sake of accounting for the 
 call for a supply from other sources, of foreign importation, 
 and home sale of free children. Opulent persons, in whose 
 families more slaves may be born than they are desirous of 
 retaining in their employ, do not sell, but emancipate those 
 whose services they do not require ; and persons of reduced 
 circumstances, no longer needing nor able to employ so many 
 domestic slaves as before, are not less unwilling to dispose 
 of slaves by sale, which is a highly discreditable act, but give 
 them their freedom without a price, howc j liable the 
 
 value might be to them in their actual state of indigence. 
 The manumission of slaves, being deemed an act of piety 
 and an expiation of diverse offences, frequently takes place 
 from religious motives, without either of the. inducements 
 before described ; and slaves are often redeemed by purchase 
 either expressly for that purpose, or from a less laudable 
 impulse, as attachment to a courtesan, or some other cause." 
 I have before expressed my opinion of the general accu- 
 racy of Mr. Colebrooke's account of slavery in Bengal, but 
 a much more thorough investigation into details would be 
 necessary before pronouncing on its perfect correctness. 
 With the imperfect information at present possessed, my 
 conviction is that the kind treatment of domestic slaves, 
 although I hope general, is not universal ; and that the sale 
 of them is not uncommon. With regard to the sale of 
 domestic slaves, how improbable must it appear that their 
 
IN INDIA. 187 
 
 owners in times of distress would refrain from selling them, 
 in a country and in a state of society where one of the great 
 sources of domestic slavery is the sale of children by their 
 parents and of freemen by themselves. In Arracan, where 
 Hamilton tells us slavery is tolerated in all shapes, and 
 where when a man wants to raise money he pawns his wife, 
 how improbable that he would hesitate to pawn or sell his 
 slave. Mr. Listen states that the deed of sale of slaves he 
 has placed on record is such as is daily executed and in 
 full force in Gorakhpur. In Dacca, according to Hamilton, 
 the custom of disposing of persons already in a state of 
 slavery is common throughout the country. In Silhet, accor- 
 ding to the same authority, the transfer of slaves takes place 
 both with and without the consent of the slaves. Hamilton 
 further states that in Purneah slaves are allowed to marry 
 and their children become slaves ; but he adds, " the family 
 are seldom sold separately :" it follows that they are some- 
 times sold separately and more frequently together; but 
 whether separately or together, the fact of their being sold is 
 undoubted. In Assam, according to Dr. McCosh, slaves 
 are bought and sold every day for a mere trifle. In Bogli- 
 poor, Hamilton says slaves may be sold in whatever manner 
 the master chooses, but they are not often brought to market : 
 it follows that they are sometimes brought to market. In 
 Bahar, we farther learn, on the authority of Hamilton, that 
 slaves are very numerous, often liberated, seldom sold, and 
 frequently, owing to the poverty of their owners, left to find 
 a subsistence for themselves : it follows that they are some- 
 times sold, and this inference is confirmed by the fact, that 
 in this district Muhammadans often purchase slaves for the 
 purpose of initiating them into Muhammadanism. From 
 these scattered facts and authorities I draw the general con- 
 clusion that the sale of domestic slaves under the Bengal 
 presidency is not so unusual as Mr. Colebrooke's remarks 
 imply. 
 
188 SLAVERY 
 
 I am equally doubtful of the uniform good treatment of 
 domestic slaves. Although I do not question the kindness 
 and lenity with which in a majority of instances they 
 are regarded, yet there are several facts and considera- 
 tions which prevent this admission from being made without 
 exception. It is scarcely conceivable that the absolute au- 
 thority which the master possesses over the slave should 
 not frequently be abused, and accordingly many of the cases 
 brought before the courts are cases of maltreatment of vari- 
 ous kinds and in various degrees. Exclusive of cases of 
 this kind brought before the Company's courts, I recollect 
 that during my residence in Calcutta a Muhammadan lady 
 was tried before the supreme court for the murder of a 
 slave-girl, and I should add was acquitted, according to my 
 recollection of the case, but the proof of cruel treatment was 
 overwhelming. Another consideration is, that, according to 
 Mr. Colebrooke's statement, it is chiefly from the class of 
 domestic slaves that the concubines of Musalmans and 
 Hindus are taken ; and that, in conformity with the law of 
 slavery, the persons of all unmarried female slaves are at 
 the absolute cojnmand of their masters. It is impossible to 
 doubt that such a relation must produce much (lv'<:r;ul;Uion 
 and suffering to the female .slaves. Then, again, the profli- 
 gate sisterhoods of Rangpur, described in a former paper, all 
 of which consist of girls purchased when young, and to be 
 reckoned as domestic slaves, no doubt are contented with 
 their lot, but it is contentment with prostitution and in! 
 If we turn to the male domestic slaves, we shall find many 
 of them equally degraded and maltreated. A considerable 
 class of them is composed of eunuchs a name which de- 
 scribes them as objects of the most barbarous and inhuman 
 cruelty. Still further, in Ramghur male slaves are employed 
 by their masters for purposes of revenge and assassination ; 
 if they succeed and are apprehended, to be sacrificed to the 
 laws, if they fail and return to their masters, to be sacrificed 
 
IN INDIA. 189 
 
 by them. To all this, it is necessary only to add that the 
 custom of the Gorakhpur district gives the master the power 
 to sell the members of a slave-family apart from each other ; 
 and we shall be convinced that the treatment of domestic 
 slaves under the Bengal presidency is by no means univer- 
 sally of that mild and considerate character which it has 
 been described to be. 
 
 The following is Mr. Chaplin's official report on the state 
 of domestic slavery in the Dekhan un'der the Bombay presi- 
 dency. " The subject of domestic slavery in the Dekhan 
 would appear to require to be regulated by some legal sanc- 
 tions, in order on the one hand to prevent the oppression of 
 slaves as well as to check the traffic, and on the other hand 
 to obviate the injustice that would be occasioned to private 
 property by any interference amounting to an absolute pro- 
 hibition of the sale of what has hitherto been deemed a 
 marketable commodity. From the answers to queries it 
 will be observed that, slavery in the Dekhan is very preva- 
 lent, and we know that it has been recognised by the Hindu 
 law, and by the custom of the country, from time immemo- 
 rial. It is, however, a very mild and mitigated servitude, 
 rather than an absolute slavery, and it differs essentially in 
 many particulars from the foreign slave-trade, which, to the 
 honor of humanity and of the British character, (though 
 with little effect towards diminishing the extent of the evil,) 
 has been discontinued by British subjects. Slaves are 
 treated by the Hindus with great indulgence, and if they 
 conduct themselves well, are considered rather as hereditary 
 servants of the family than as menials. They become do- 
 mesticated in the houses of the upper classes, who treat 
 them with affection, and allow them to intermarry with the 
 female slaves ; and the offspring of this connection, though 
 deemed base-born, if males, are often considered free, but if 
 females they remain slaves. Marriage, however, is equiva- 
 lent almost to emancipation, because when married slaves 
 
190 SLAVERY 
 
 become rather an incumbrance to their owners. Many 
 respectable Brahmins have one or more slave-girls as 
 servants, and in a Mahratta household of any consequence 
 they are indispensable. The female slaves are termed Laun- 
 dees, and the offspring of Laundees by a Brahmin is desig- 
 nated Sindey. They do not however acquire the character 
 of pure Mahratta blood till the third generation, though they 
 call themselves Mahrattas from the first. The children of 
 Mahrattas by a Laundee take the family name of the father, 
 but the stain of blood is not wiped out till after the expira- 
 tion .of three generations. A slave-girl could not quit her 
 master without his consent, but the master was obliged to 
 clothe and feed her, and provide for the children whom she 
 might bear him. The master could chastise his slave with 
 moderation, but if death ensued from his severity he was 
 punished severely by fine or otherwise, according to the 
 pleasure of the government. A master could sell his slave, 
 but in the upper classes it was not considered respectable 
 to do so." Mr. Baber also, referring to the provinces of the 
 Dekhan, says that " all the jagheerdars, deshwars, Zemin- 
 dar . principal Brahmins and Sahookars, retain slaves on 
 their domestic establishments; in fact, in every Mahratta 
 household of consequence they are, both male and female, 
 especially the latter, to be found, and indeed are considered 
 as indispensable." 
 
 Notwithstanding Mr. Chaplin's description of the very 
 mild character of domestic slavery in the Dekhan, some of 
 his own statements suggest a somewhat different conclusion. 
 It has already been mentioned that the sale of slaves in the 
 provinces of the Dekhan, contrary to the recommendation of 
 Mr. Chaplin, has been expressly prohibited by government; 
 but although he considered that slaves should continue a 
 marketable commodity, he also thought that domestic slavery 
 should be regulated by some legal sanctions, in order to 
 prevent the oppression of slaves as well as to check the 
 
IN INDIA. 191 
 
 traffic. It seems a legitimate inference from this view, that 
 without such legal sanctions the traffic in a marketable com- 
 modity was not very inactive, and the oppression of slaves 
 not wholly unknown. Mr. Chaplin also informs us that 
 domestic slaves, if they conduct themselves well, are consid- 
 ered rather as hereditary servants of the family than as 
 menials. How they are treated when they conduct themselves 
 ill, appears from the additional statement that death some- 
 times ensued from the severity of the chastisement inflicted 
 by the master on his slave. I do not mean to call in ques- 
 tion the general accuracy of Mr. Chaplin's representation 
 of domestic slavery in the Dekhan, but his account implies 
 facts which tend very essentially to qualify the mitigated 
 character which he has ascribed to it. 
 
 Under the Madras presidency nearly all the domestic 
 slaves are Muhammadans, and they are confined princi- 
 pally, although not exclusively, to Muhammadan families. 
 A Hindu who buys a child treats it not as a slave but as a 
 servant, to whom food and raiment are due, and whose 
 wages have been advanced to maintain the existence of the 
 authors of its being, authorized by nature to contract for its 
 service until it is old enough to confirm or cancel such com- 
 pact. The text of the Hindu law, as well as its practice, 
 clearly maintains such compacts to be temporary only, for it 
 expressly mentions the gift of two head of cattle as annulling 
 them, and entitling the child to legal emancipation. But 
 such fine is entirely nominal ; it is never practically ex- 
 acted, arid on the child attaining maturity it is in practice 
 as free amongst Hindus as amongst Britons, unless long 
 habit or attachment induces it voluntarily to acquiesce in a 
 continuation of its service. The Muhammadan law is 
 entirely opposed to the purchase of free children for the 
 purpose of reducing them to a state of bondage ; yet in 
 practice, compacts such as are described above confer per- 
 manent rights on the Muhammadan purchaser, for under 
 
19:2 SLAVERY 
 
 the spirit of proselytism which characterizes the Muham- 
 madan faith, a male infant is no sooner purchased than it is 
 circumcised, and whether male or female it is invariably 
 brought up in the Muhammadan creed, which, if it be a 
 Hindu, (as is usually the case,) irrevocably excludes it from 
 all return to its parents or relations. The slaves are thus 
 at once amalgamated with the family itself, who treat the 
 males indulgently with somewhat of that privileged fami- 
 liarity allowed in all countries to those who are permanently 
 attached to a family, and are rather its humble members by 
 adoption than its servants or slaves. They are well fed, 
 well clothed, and employed in domestic offices common, 
 except in families of the highest rank, to many of their 
 master's relatives. The free communication with o 
 and facility of access to the British tribunals, which the 
 want of all restraint over egress from the ho; 
 the male domestic slaves, combine witli the indulgent treat- 
 ment of their masters to qualify their bondage so as nearly 
 to exclude it from what the term slavery implies. 
 Such, however, -is not the lot of the female don, 
 
 (6, employed as attendants on the seraglios of Musalmans 
 of rank ; they are too often treated with caprice, and fre- 
 quently punished with much cruelty. Once admitted into 
 the harem, they are considered part of that establishment, 
 which it is the point of honor of a Musalman to seclude from 
 all communication with others. Mr. Campbell, from whom 
 most of these statements respecting domestic slavery in the 
 Madras territory are derived, states that the complaints 
 made to him, as superintendent of police at Madra 
 the nabob of Arcot, and subsequently, when magistrate of 
 Bellary, against the brother of the nabob of Kurnool, irave 
 him an insight into transactions committed in the rec 
 of the female apartments of these two personages, which 
 has left on his mind a strong impression of the cruelty and 
 wanton barbarity with which this class of female slaves are 
 
IN INDIA. 193 
 
 subject to be treated. The murder of more tban one female 
 slave alleged to have been committed by the brother of the 
 nabob of Kurnool, induced Mr. Campbell repeatedly to 
 address the Madras government ; nor was it until he 
 added to them the murder of his own wife that he was con- 
 fined as a state prisoner, instead of being brought to trial 
 for his life, as Mr. C. suggested. Indeed, little doubt can be 
 entertained that the seclusion of female slaves in the harems 
 of Musalmans of rank too often precludes complaint, pre- 
 vents redress, and cloaks crimes at which Europeans would 
 shudder. 
 
 Mr. Baber presents substantially the same views. He 
 considers it difficult to determine with accuracy what the 
 treatment is of the domestic slaves, how employed, clothed, 
 or subsisted, amongst a people like the natives of India, 
 who, whether Hindus or Muhammadans, observe a watch- 
 ful jealousy in all that regards their domestic economy, 
 and consequently of whose family arrangements and hab- 
 its, and indeed domestic character in general, we can know 
 very little. Generally speaking, however, male and female 
 slaves are employed as menial servants ; and a great many 
 are kept for purposes of state. As the male slaves of a 
 family possess the advantage of approaching freemen, and 
 thereby the means of making their complaints known in 
 case of any very severe treatment, there is no reason to 
 suppose that their condition is particularly grievous, though 
 it must be obvious that, under the most favorable circum- 
 stances, a state of perpetual servitude, whether employed 
 as menials and kept for the purpose of saving the greater 
 expense of free labor, or, what is almost universal with 
 respect to female domestic slaves^ for sensual gratifications, 
 must at best be but a life of pain and sorrow, and, as such, 
 a^ repugnant to humanity and morality as it is to the prin- 
 ciples of British rule. 
 
 Such is predial and domestic slavery practically under 
 17 
 
194 SLAVERY IN INDIA. 
 
 the British government of India. So little has the subject 
 attracted attention, that the Court of Directors, the governing 
 body in England, so recently as the 12th of Dec. 1821, 
 say in one of their dispatches to the Indian government, 
 " We are told that part of the people employed in the cul- 
 tivation of Malabar (an article of very unwelcome intelli- 
 gence, they add) are held as slaves ; that they are attached 
 to the soil; and marketable property;" and this is said 
 fourteen years after the appearance of Dr. Francis Buchan- 
 an's Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, pub- 
 lished in London, under the authority and patronage of the 
 directors themselves, familiar to every one who has the 
 slightest interest or curiosity in Indian affairs, and contain- 
 ing a complete development of the system of slavery 
 prevailing in the western provinces of the peninsula. Dr. 
 Buchanan's work was not only published under the autho- 
 rity and patronage of the Directors, but the investigation 
 into the resources of the three above-mentioned provinces 
 which it records was performed under the orders of the 
 Governor-General of India, and at the expense of the East 
 India Company. Authentic information is collected at 
 great expense to the state, and with much labor to the 
 agent employed, and still these provinces continue to be 
 governed, or rather misgoverned and neglected, just as if 
 no such information was possessed. 
 
 If the government has. been remiss, there are some of 
 its servants who have not been indifferent to the claims of 
 humanity, but who have endeavored to rouse the govern- 
 ment they served to a sense of the obligations they owe 
 to the slave-population. An inquiry into their recommen- 
 dations, and into the reception they met with, will help to 
 show what ought to be done, and will at the same time 
 convince us that nothing will be done by the government 
 of the East India Company without the powerful stimulus 
 of enlightened public opinion. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 TO THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, ESQ. 
 
 Unsuccessful attempts to ameliorate the Law and Practice of Slavery 
 in British India Abolition of Slavery. 
 
 SIR, There is one other view of slavery in British India 
 remaining to be presented. A bad law may not be justly 
 estimated from the want of a clear perception of the various 
 injurious relations which it bears to life and society. A 
 bad institution may not be justly estimated from familiarity 
 with its hurtful effects, and from the habit of regarding 
 them as belonging to the natural and established order of 
 things. The correction of these errors may be aided by 
 examining the views of those who, by their official position, 
 have been obliged strictly to consider the letter of the law, 
 and to trace its effects to their cause, and who, under a 
 sense of official obligation, have employed their earnest 
 efforts to amend the law and to lessen its injurious influ- 
 ences. The ameliorations which good, and wise, and expe- 
 rienced men, holding high and confidential employments 
 under the East India Company's government, have from 
 time to time proposed, will enable us to appreciate the 
 spirit of the law and the actual working of the institution 
 of slavery in India, and not less the spirit and working of 
 the government which has rejected or neglected recom- 
 
196 SLAVERY 
 
 mendations proceeding from such sources. My information 
 on this branch of the subject is principally derived from 
 Harington's Analysis of the Laws and Regulations, revised 
 edition, Vol. I. pp. 68 73, note; and from Mr. Baber's 
 and Mr. Campbell's Letters in reply to the Circular of the 
 Commissioners for the Affairs of India, already quoted. 
 
 The first person whose attention appears to have been 
 strongly called to the necessity of amending the provisions 
 and operation of slave-law in British India, was Mr. 
 Richardson, who, in 1808, as judge and magistrate of 
 Bundlecund, addressed a letter to the East India Com- 
 pany's supreme judicial authorities in Calcutta, enclosing 
 the draft of a regulation proposed by him, and entitled 
 "a Regulation for checking and reforming the abuses 
 that have crept into practice and at present exist with 
 respect to Slavery within the British dominions subordi- 
 nate to the presidency and government of Fort Wi-liam." 
 The very title, it will be observed, of Mr. Richardson's 
 proposed regulation assumes the existence of abuses that 
 have crept into the practice of slavery, and recognises the 
 necessity of legislation to check and reform them. In his 
 letter of the 23d of March, 1808, after forcibly stating the 
 evils of slavery and contrasting this condition with that of 
 voluntary servitude, he offered the following suggestion : 
 " Aware of the great importance and convinced of the 
 caution with which innovations should be attempted, or the 
 ancient laws, customs, or prejudices of a people should be 
 infringed, I presume not even to sketch out the mode or to fix 
 the period of general emancipation ; and perhaps the sud- 
 den manumission of those now actually in a state of bond- 
 age, though abstractly just, might be politically unwise. 
 But there can exist no good reason, either political or 
 humane, against the British government's prohibiting the 
 purchase or sale of all slaves, legitimate or illegitimate, 
 after a specified time ; and likewise ordaining and declaring 
 
IN INDIA. 197 
 
 t 
 
 that all children, male and female, born of parents in a 
 state of slavery, shall from a like date be free." The 
 subject appears to have remained under consideration or in 
 abeyance until March of the following year, when certain 
 questions regarding the laws of slavery were put to the 
 Muhammadan and Hindu law-officers of the S udder 
 Nizamut Adawlut, or the East India Company's supreme 
 court of criminal judicature in Calcutta, by the judges of 
 that court ; the same questions, it is believed, which, with 
 the substance of the answers to them, have been already 
 quoted in Letter III., under Precedents relating to the Hindu 
 Law of Slavery, Case IX., and Precedents relating to the 
 Muhammadan Law of Slavery, Case II. Copies of the 
 questions put to the Muhammadan and Hindu law-officers 
 of the court, and of the answers received from them, were 
 furnished to Mr. Richardson about the end of March, 1809, 
 with instructions, if, under the information contained in 
 those papers, any further provisions or modifications of the 
 existing laws of slavery should appear to him requisite, to 
 prepare the draft of a regulation, in conformity with the 
 rules prescribed for such an occasion. Mr. Richardson's 
 letter in reply, dated the 24th of. June, 1809, after stating 
 his sentiments on the expositions of the Muhammadan 
 and Hindu laws which had been communicated to him, 
 and giving his reasons for setting aside the Hindu law of 
 slavery as supposed to have been long dormant under the 
 Muhammadan government, and allowing operation only to 
 the strict provisions of the Muhammadan law as the estab- 
 lished system enforced by British criminal courts, not only 
 in cases affecting personal freedom, but even in such as 
 extend to life and death, concludes as follows : " I am still 
 of opinion that great alterations are indispensable in the 
 application of the law and in the practice with regard to 
 slaves throughout the dominions dependent on the Bengal 
 government, whether we consider the question either as a 
 17* 
 
198 SLAVERY 
 
 measure of justice and policy, or as spreading wider the 
 blessings of personal freedom and increasing the stock of 
 human happiness. On the above considerations I solicit 
 and rely upon the aid of the Court of Nizamut A.dawlut to 
 supply my deficiences to promote so great a purpose as that 
 of liberating a great portion of our fellow-creatures from 
 bondage and preventing slavery throughout the British 
 dominions in future. " 
 
 With the above-mentioned letter Mr. Richardson submit- 
 ted the draft of a regulation which assumes in the preamble 
 that "no reason exists why the state of slavery throughout 
 the British possessions should not be determined by the 
 Muhammadan law ; the British government having acquired 
 the right of legislation from a Musalman power in previous 
 possession of these territories for centuries, and having 
 adopted the Muhammadan laws particularly in all criminal 
 cases, and indeed in all judicial cases except those of heir- 
 ship, marriage, caste, or matters connected with religion ;" 
 and on this basis proposes the enactment of rules, the prin- 
 .cipal of which are in substance as follows : First, That all 
 ;\ claims and disputes .respecting slavery be made cognizable 
 by the magistrates in the first instance, subject to the < 
 lished control of the courts of circuit, instead of being pri- 
 marily referred to the slow, vexatious, and expensive process 
 of the civil courts. Secondly, That the Muhammadan law 
 as expounded by the Musalman law-officers of the Sudder 
 Dewany and Nizamut Adawlut (supreme civil and criminal 
 courts) be made the standard for regulating the magistrates' 
 decisions in all claims and disputes respecting slavery, 
 whether the claimant be a Musalman or Hindu. The 
 effect of this would be to emancipate all slaves held under 
 Hindu law and all slaves held contrary to the strict letter 
 of Muhammadan law. Thirdly, That when the claimant 
 and also the person claimed as a slave are not Muhamma- 
 dans, the claim be dismissed and the alleged slave declared 
 
IN INDIA. 199 
 
 free. ^ This is a necessary consequence of the exclusive 
 recognition of Muhammadan slave-law. Fourthly, That 
 a similar judgment be given when the claimant may be a 
 Muhammadan and the person claimed as a slave is not a 
 Muhammadan, unless the former's right of property over 
 the latter be proved according to the letter and spirit of the 
 Muhammadan law. Fifthly, That the sale of children as 
 slaves, whether by their parents or others, be prevented, 
 and that measures be adopted through the police officers 
 for rendering this prohibition effectual ; -that the theft and 
 fraudulent sale of children by persons not their parents, as 
 well as the purchase of such children, knowing them to have 
 been stolen, be declared punishable by the courts of circuit ; 
 and that parents selling their children and the purchasers 
 of such children be likewise subject to a fine equal to 
 the price given for the child in each instance. It is scarcely 
 necessary to remark that" these provisions distinctly recog- 
 nise the sale of children by parents and kidnappers as a 
 prevalent practice requiring to be prevented by law. Sixthly, 
 That proclamations be issued by the magistrates half-yearly 
 for five years, and afterwards annually, notifying the rules 
 enacted respecting slavery, and inviting all persons detained 
 wrongfully in bondage, contrary to the letter and spirit of 
 the Muhammadan law, to apply to the local magistrate for 
 emancipation ; and that any forcible means or severities prac- 
 tised by claimants to slaves for the prevention of such ap- 
 plications be punishable by fine or imprisonment. These 
 provisions recognise the fact that there are persons detained 
 wrongfully in bondage, and anticipate the probability that 
 forcible means or severities would be employed to prevent 
 them from making their wrongs known and from claiming 
 their liberty. Seventhly, That the decisions of the magis- 
 trates under the proposed regulations be open to revision, 
 in all cases of a written application for that purpose, by the 
 judge of circuit holding the district or city jail delivery, 
 
200 SLAVERY 
 
 or by the court of circuit at the chief station of the divi- 
 sion.^ 
 
 Such is the substance of the amendments of the law of 
 slavery in India proposed by Mr. Richardson in 1809, and 
 the leading idea which they embrace is the exclusive recog- 
 nition of the Muhammadan law of slavery by the British 
 government, and the strict application of the letter and 
 spirit of that law to all existing cases of slavery. Mr. Rich- 
 ardson did not propose the formal abolition of slavery, but 
 there can be no doubt that the effect of the adoption of the 
 measures he recommended would have been nearly equiva- 
 lent to abolition. All slaves held by Hindus, Christians, and 
 all others except Muhammadans, and even all those slaves 
 held by Muhammadans except such as could be legally 
 proved to have bee" taken prisoners in war against infidels, 
 or to be the descendants of such captives, would have been 
 instantly emancipated by the mere fat of the law. It does 
 not appear to have occurred to Mr. Richardson that, on the 
 basis which he himself lays down in the preamble to his 
 proposed regulation, it was not necessary to recognise even 
 the Muhammadan law of slavery. The rule to which he 
 refers, and which he has incorrectly stated in his preamble, 
 is not that the British government has adopted the Muham- 
 madan laws particularly in all criminal cases, and indeed in 
 all judicial cases except those of heirship, marriage, caste, or 
 matters connected with religion, but thatt the British gov- 
 ernment has adopted the Muhammadan laws with respect 
 to Muhammadans and the Hindu laws with regard to Hin- 
 dus in all suits regarding heirship, marriage, caste, and 
 matters of religion, and that in all other cases (of which 
 slavery is one) it has left itself free to legislate for all, and 
 to judge between man and man on the principles of equal 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, revised edition, Vol. I. pp. 6873, note. 
 
 \ See Harington's Analysis, Vol. I. pp. 20, 67 ; and Reg. IV. of 1793, 
 15, re-enacted for Benares by Reg. VIII. of 1795, $ 3, and for the 
 ceded provinces by Reg. III. of 1803, 16. 
 
IN INDIA. 201 
 
 and impartial justice. It is evident that, according to this 
 rule which the British government has prescribed to itself, 
 and which it has presented to its native subjects at once as 
 a boon and a pledge, there is no ground for the institution 
 of slavery to rest upon, except the mere will of the govern- 
 ment, which has unhappily, arbitrarily, and ignorantly been 
 pronounced to rivet the chains of the slave and to perpetuate 
 the unjust dominion of the master. 
 
 Mr. Richardson first submitted his views on this subject 
 in March, 1808, and with benevolent zeal reiterated them 
 in June, 1809. In January, 1816, copies of the proposed 
 regulation and of Mr. Richardson's letters were submitted 
 to Government, with some other papers on the subject, and 
 the Court at the same time intimated their intention of pre- 
 paring and transmitting the draft of a regulation concern- 
 ing slavery at a future period. It does not appear why Mr. 
 Richardson's letters and papers had lain neglected during a 
 period of more than six years. 
 
 In a letter from the Secretary to Government in the 
 Judicial Department, dated the 24th May, 1816, the Court 
 were desired, in preparing a draft of the proposed regula- 
 tion regarding slavery, to "take into their consideration the 
 expediency of requiring that the future purchase or transfer 
 of slaves should be regularly registered, and that any breach 
 of the rules which may be framed for that purpose shall 
 entitle the slave to demand and obtain his freedom." This, 
 it will be noted, is a formal admission by the Government 
 that there is "no registry of slaves in India. In 1816, also, 
 Mr. Leycester, a judge of circuit, made a report to the 
 superior court suggesting the abolition of slavery. On this 
 report the Court of Nizamut Adawlut passed resolutions 
 under date the 12th June, 1816, in which they state that 
 " they fully participate the sentiments expressed by Mr. 
 Leycester in abhorrence of hereditary slavery, and earnestly 
 wish it could be discontinued with regard to all children 
 
202 SLAVERY 
 
 born under the British protection. But whilst it is allowed 
 to remain with respect to the progeny of existing slaves born 
 under the British government in the West Indies and South 
 Africa, the abolition of it on general principles of justice and 
 humanity could not, the Court apprehend, be consistently 
 proposed for India, where it has from time immemorial been 
 sanctioned by the laws and usages of the country, and 
 where, it may be added, the state of slavery is not so inju- 
 rious to the object of it as in other countries where it is still 
 maintained." These arguments for the continuance of 
 slavery, which the Court notwithstanding cordially join 
 in abhorring, will hereafter be considered. The facts are 
 now mentioned only in justice to the memory of Mr. Ley- 
 cester, and for the purpose of bringing into view his opinions 
 as those of one who was not contented with expressing his 
 abhorrence of hereditary slavery and then discouraging all 
 efforts for the removal of the evil, but who stepped out of 
 the routine of office to propose its abolition.^ 
 
 The next public officer whose sentiments and recom- 
 mendations come under review, is Mr. Harington. In 
 1817 we find Mr. Harington, the chief judge of the high 
 court to which Mr. Richardson's communications' were ad- 
 dressed, gravely announcing that the court over whk-h he 
 presided had " long had under their consideration the draft 
 of a regulation proposed by Mr. J. Richardson, "t &c., from 
 which it may be inferred that up to that time, whatever may 
 have been said or written, nothing whatever had been done. 
 In the month of November, 1818, Mr. Harington, in his 
 capacity of chief judge of the Nizamut Adawlut, being then 
 absent from the presidency, transmitted to the court a minute 
 containing his sentiments upon the regulation proposed by 
 Mr. Richardson, with the draft of a regulation suggested by 
 himself for the guidance of courts of judicature in cases 
 
 * Harington' s Analysis, Vol. III. p. 762, note. 
 flbid. Vol. III. p. 761. Calcutta, 1817. 
 
IN INDIA. 203 
 
 of slavery. First : In this minute Mr. Harington expresses 
 his entire concurrence in Mr. Richardson's recommendation 
 that all claims and disputes respecting slavery should be 
 tried summarily by the magistrates in the first instance, 
 and he enforces this recommendation on the grounds 
 that years may elapse before the cause can be tried and 
 decided in the civil court ; that in the mean while the 
 owner is deprived of his slave's services ; that he continues 
 to feed and clothe him ; that the refractoriness of his slave 
 may have subjected him to the costs and expenses of a civil 
 suit which the slave can never reimburse him ; that slaves 
 are possessed of and can acquire no property to enable them 
 to institute or defend a suit ; and that such slave, it may be, 
 is kept in actual confinement, or continues subject to such 
 degree of restraint as his bail may think necessary to impose 
 upon him. Secondly: Mr. Harington objects to Mr. 
 Richardson's leading principle that the Muhammadan law 
 should be made the standard for regulating the decision in 
 all claims and disputes respecting slavery. He admits that 
 the law and usage of slavery have no immediate connection 
 with religion, the full toleration of which has been guaran- 
 tied to the natives of India by the British government. He 
 further admits that the rule which the British government 
 has laid down to administer to Muhammadans Muhammadan 
 law, ana to Hindus Hindu law, in suits regarding succes- 
 sion, inheritance, marriage, and caste, and all religious usages 
 and institutions, is not directly and strictly applicable to 
 questions of personal freedom and bondage. But he adopts, 
 without argument, simply as an authoritative decision, the 
 interpretation of that rule pronounced by the Sudder Dewa- 
 ny Adawlut and confirmed by the Governor-General in 
 Council in 1798, " that the spirit of the rule for observing 
 the Muhammadan and Hindu laws was applicable to cases 
 of slavery, though not included in the letter of it;" and he 
 successfully contends against Mr. Richardson that the fair 
 
204 SLAVERY 
 
 and impartial application of this rule so interpreted will 
 require the same regard to the Hindu as to the Muhamma- 
 dan law of slavery when the claimants may be of either 
 persuasion. The fallacy consists in adopting an interpreta- 
 tion, however high and authoritative, which has condemned 
 hundreds of thousands of human beings to slavery by dis- 
 covering in the spirit of the law what is neither directly nor 
 indirectly contained in its letter, something which is addi- 
 tional to and wholly different from that which the letter 
 expresses ; and if this interpretation is rejected, as it ought 
 to be, it would arry with it not only Hindu but Muham- 
 madan slavery also. Thirdly : Acknowledging both the 
 Hindu and Muhammadan laws of slavery, Mr. Harington 
 would acknowledge those only. Slavery not being sanc- 
 tioned by any system of law which is recognised and ad- 
 ministered by the British government except the Muham- 
 madan and Hindu laws, he was of opinion that no claim to 
 the property, possession, or service of a slave should be 
 admitted and enforced except in behalf of a Musalmnn or 
 Hindu claimant. This would emancipate all slaves held by 
 Christian masters, of whom there are some. He would not, 
 however, prevent persons of full age and in every respect 
 competent from entering into contracts of hire and service 
 either for a limited period or for life, either for wages or for 
 maintenance; provided, however, that no person subjecting 
 himself to voluntary slavery should thereby entail bondage 
 upon his children, though if another maintain them he may 
 be allowed to engage their services for a period sufficient to 
 provide an ample remuneration for their support. In pro- 
 posing to legalize contracts of hire and service even for life, 
 including the services of children for a period sufficient to 
 provide an ample remuneration for their support, Mr. Har- 
 ington overlooked the gross abuses to which the Muham- 
 madan law-officers of his own court had shown that this 
 practice is liable, as a pretext for creating slavery both of 
 
IN INDIA. 205 
 
 parents and children. How strongly does such a recommen- 
 dation, or the actual absence of all regulation of such con- 
 tracts in British India, contrast with the orders in council of 
 September 7, 1S3S, which are the supreme law in the British 
 crown colonies, to the effect " that no contract of service 
 made out of the colony shall be of any force or effect in it ; 
 that no contract of labor shall remain in force for more than 
 four weeks unless it be reduced to writing ; and that no 
 written contract of service shall be binding unless signed by 
 the name or mark of the persons contracting in the presence 
 of a stipendary magistrate, nor unless the magistrate shall 
 certify that it was made voluntarily and with a full under- 
 standing of its meaning and effect; nor can any written 
 contract remain in force for more than one year"* These 
 are the provisions which the ministers of the crown have 
 enacted to guard the new liberties of the freed men of the 
 West Indies : the East India Company have not yet devised 
 a single such provision to prevent the free-born subjects 
 of the crown under their government from being entrapped 
 into slavery. Fourthly : As no parent ean have a legiti- 
 mate right to impose the yoke of slavery upon his children 
 or their descendants' in perpetuity, Mr. Harington supports 
 Mr. Richardson's proposition to prohibit the sale of children 
 as slaves, whether by their parents or others ; but at the 
 same time recommends that parents and guardians having 
 the care of children under the age of fifteen years, the age 
 of maturity fixed by the Muhammadan and Hindu laws, 
 should be expressly empowered to contract for the support 
 and service of such children, when indispensably necessary 
 for their maintenance, provided that the contract shall not 
 extend in any instance beyond the expiration of the twenty- 
 fifth year of the age of the child so contracted for. This is 
 recommended as a means by which parents or guardians 
 
 * See Orders in Council of Sept. 7, 1838, chapter fourth, cited in 
 Emigration to Guiana, pp. 8, 9. Boston, 1840. 
 18 
 
206 SLAVERY 
 
 may provide for the preservation and support of their chil- 
 dren and wards in times of famine and distress, but its pro- 
 bable abuse at other periods is wholly overlooked. Fifthly: 
 Mr. Harington further regards it as obviously repugnant 
 to every principle of natural justice, and inconsistent with 
 the common rights of mankind, that any person should be 
 deprived of his personal freedom during the whole of his 
 life without his consent, and without having committed any 
 offence subject to so heavy a punishment, and he therefore 
 proposes to destroy the hereditary character of slavery by 
 providing for the future emancipation of slaves hereafter 
 born under the protection of the British government, at the 
 expiration of a period when their services may be presumed 
 to have fully compensated for all expense incurred in their 
 support during infancy, viz., at the age of 25 years. This 
 provision would l>e wholly insufficient for the purpose con- 
 templated. A female slave at the age of 25, according to 
 the customs and habits of native life, would be the mother 
 of a family of children, who, being born in slavery, would be 
 slaves, and obliged, like their mother, to work out their liberty 
 till the age of 25, and so on throughout successive genera- 
 tions. It must be evident that this would not be destroying, 
 but perpetuating, the hereditary character of slavery. Sixth- 
 ly: Mr. Harington supports the suggestion of a registry of 
 slaves, and recommends two distinct registers, one of slaves, 
 and the other of hirelings. Seventhly : Mr. Harington 
 proposes the emancipation of slaves and hirelings in certain 
 cases of maltreatment by the owner or master. Eighthly : 
 In certain cases of kidnapping children and selling them as 
 slaves, unaccompanied by any circumstances of extenuation, 
 Mr. Harington proposed that the punishment attached to 
 that crime should be increased beyond that which was then 
 prescribed by the law. Ninthly : The existing regulations 
 not containing any specific provision forbidding the expor- 
 tation of natives of India to be sold as slaves, Mr. Harington 
 
IN INDIA. 207 
 
 proposes that this omission should be supplied. Tenthly : 
 Kegulation X. of 1811 being superseded by the statute 51st 
 George III. chap. 23, as far as regards the importation of 
 slaves by sea into British India, Mr. Harington recommends 
 that the provisions contained in sections second, third, and 
 fourth of that regulation, held to be still in force with respect 
 to the importation of slaires by land, skould be declared to 
 extend to the prohibition of the importation of any person 
 whatever to be sold or. otherwise disposed of or dealt with 
 as a slave, excepting only persons who may have been 
 possessed by the importers as their domestic slaves for a 
 period of at least one year before importation, and who may 
 be produced and registered as such within six months after 
 their importation.^ 
 
 Upon the whole, Mr. Harington, although doubtless 
 influenced by the most benevolent intentions, appears to 
 have taken neither a comprehensive, nor, as far as it 
 extended, a just view of the means of lessening the evils of 
 slavery in Indh; and the weight of his character and au- 
 thority was thrown into the scale against the most important 
 recommendations of Mr. Richardson and Mr. Leycester, 
 which struck at the very root of those evils. His recom- 
 mendations were probably perceived by the government to 
 be inadequate, while his objections were of sufficient force 
 to defeat the more thorough measures proposed by Mr. 
 Richardson and Mr. Leycester. Nothing consequently 
 was done, and as far as my information or the books of 
 reference I possess enable me to speak, slavery, under the 
 Bengal presidency, in law and in practice, is in substance 
 the same at the present day as when Mr. Richardson, in 
 1808, first proposed to check and reform its abuses. A 
 period of thirty-two years an entire generation of the 
 human race has passed away, and slavery in Bengal is 
 unchecked, unreformed, and unremedied. 
 
 * Harington's Analysis, revised edition, Vol. I. pp. 68 73, note. 
 
208 SLAVERY 
 
 No one has more honorably distinguished himself in the 
 west and south of India, on behalf of the slave, than Mr. 
 Baber, who resided a period of thirty-two years in India, 
 and who was actively employed during that time in every 
 department of the public service, revenue, police, magisterial, 
 judicial, and political, in various provinces both of the Mad- 
 ras and Bombay territories whete domestic and agrestic 
 slavery prevails. I have already had occasion to refer to 
 some of his meritorious labors, and I shall here only notice 
 the official recommendations he offered and the opinions he 
 expressed either for the total abolition of the state of slavery, 
 the mitigation of the law relating to it, or the improvement 
 of the condition of the slave. 
 
 In 1812, disturbances amounting to incipient rebellion 
 occurred in the mountainous region of Wynad in Malabar, 
 consequent pn the additional burthens that had been imposed 
 upon the people by the tobacco and salt monopolies, stamp- 
 duties, &c. &c., the oppressive mode of administering the 
 revenue department in general, and the practice of the native 
 servants of government seizing the slaves and cultivators 
 and making them to serve as coolies, and demanding 
 supplies of every kind from those of the inhabitants who 
 had not the means of providing them. Tranquillity was 
 restored by Mr. Baber's zealous exertions, and on occasion 
 of fresh symptoms of resistance to the authority of govern- 
 ment in the same district, his interference as magistrate of 
 North Malabar was equally prompt and effectual. Among 
 other necessary measures for securing the public tranquil- 
 lity from future interruption, Mr. Baber took the earliest 
 opportunity, after he had re-established the authority of 
 government, of introducing into the body of a general police 
 regulation a few rules which appeared to him urgently 
 called for, to put a stop to the horrible traffic in human flesh 
 at that time so prevalent, as well as for the amelioration of 
 the condition of the slaves in general by restraining their 
 
IN INDIA. 209 
 
 owners from selling them out of the country of their birth 
 and from separating families, and also by rendering it 
 compulsory on them to make the slaves a suitable provision 
 in food, clothes, and habitation, in sickness or health, young 
 and old, at all times and in all seasons. He subsequently 
 repeatedly reported to his superiors the necessity of some 
 such measure, but unfortunately it was not supported by 
 those in whom the legislature had reposed the controlling 
 authority over the acts of the executive administration. On 
 the contrary, he had to contend even against .their sys- 
 tematic opposition to his endeavors to bring to public justice 
 individual acts of violence and cruelty, the board of revenue 
 at Madras evincing a strong disposition to palliate glaring 
 instances of neglect of duty and of oppressive abuse of 
 power, and Mr. Baber's fellow-civilians, Mr. Vaughan and 
 Mr. C. M. Lushington, with the countenance of the board, 
 insolently protesting against and ridiculing in their official 
 communications his endeavors to prevent the system of per- 
 petual labor and the indiscriminate sale of slaves away from 
 their families and the country of their birth. Even a con- 
 spiracy was formed against his life through the machina- 
 tions of the principal slave-owner, and in 1823 he was 
 deserted by the government itself, by an avowal of their 
 unwillingness to repeat the expression of their approbation 
 of his conduct, lest it should aggravate this distempered 
 feeling, as the struggle between the ardent zeal of an indi- 
 vidual and the selfish views of a party was called. " Since 
 that time," says Mr. Baber in 1832, "I have confined 
 myself to occasional notices of the condition of the Malabar 
 slaves as often as my public attention has been drawn to 
 the subject, but with little or no benefit to the unfortunate 
 slaves, who continue the same reprobated people as ever, as 
 their half-famished persons, their sieves of huts, and the 
 diminution of their numbers, while every other class of 
 the people is increasing, abundantly testify." To this it is 
 
210 SLAVERY 
 
 important to add that Mr. Baber does not hesitate to declare 
 his sentiments to be in favor of an unqualified abolition of 
 slavery in India. I should not have presented the preceding 
 view of the language and conduct of the Madras govern- 
 ment on this subject, of the board of revenue of that presi- 
 dency, and of individual servants of that government, if 
 Mr. Baber had not presented the same view in his own 
 name, supported by facts and authorities which, as far as I 
 am aware, have been uncontradicted and unrepelled.^ 
 
 The next public officer whose exertions on behalf of the 
 slave are most prominent under the Madras presidency, is 
 Mr. A. D. Campbell, who resided in India twenty-two 
 years, and who at different periods held the official situa- 
 tions of secretary and subsequently member of the board of 
 revenue at Madras, superintendent of police at the presi- 
 dency, registrar to the Foujdary Adawlut or supreme crim- 
 inal court of that presidency, judge of circuit in the pro- 
 vinces, and principal collector and magistrate in Tanjore, 
 and in the Bellary division of the ceded disti 
 
 In January, 1818, Mr. Campbell, who appears then to 
 have been acting as secretary in the board of revenue at 
 Madras, induced the board to call for information from the 
 several provinces for the purpose of defining by a legislative 
 enactment the power to be exercised by masters over their 
 slaves, and thus preventing abuse or oppression ; and with 
 respect to those on the western coast in particular, a legisla- 
 tive enactment was suggested to prevent their being removed 
 against their will from the place of their nativity, or being 
 exposed to sale by auction in execution of decrees of court, 
 or in realization of arrears of revenue. In his subsequent 
 letter of the 23d Dec. 1819, the practice of selling slaves for 
 arrears of revenue, against which Mr. Baber had repeatedly 
 remonstrated, was directed by the board of revenue to be 
 
 * Mr. Baber's Letter, before quoted, pp. 552, 558, 569, 570. 
 
IN INDIA. 211 
 
 discontinued in the only district (Malabar) under the Madras 
 presidency where the practice had occurred. Respecting 
 this, however, it is to be remembered that the order of the 
 board could only prohibit the revenue-officers acting under 
 its authority from selling slaves for arrears of revenue; 
 that it did not and could not prohibit the sale of slaves in 
 execution of decrees of court which belong to the judicial 
 department of government ; that it did not and could not 
 prohibit proprietors from themselves selling their slaves to 
 meet the demands of government for revenue ; and that 
 it received so little attention and publicity even within the 
 limited sphere of its operation, that Mr. Baber, though 
 living in Malabar to the end of .1828, never heard of it till 
 he saw the fact stated in a parliamentary paper after his 
 arrival in England. 
 
 In laying before the government of Madras, on the 13th of 
 December, the proceedings of the board of revenue of Nov. 
 25, 1819, with the information which had been received from 
 the provinces, the board, at Mr. Campbell's suggestion, pro- 
 posed that by an enactment of the Madras government it 
 should be declared, First, that the purchase of free persons as 
 slaves should be illegal, and of course subject to penalties. 
 The highest court of judicature at Madras have since made 
 a similar proposal. Secondly, that the children of all slaves 
 born after a certain date should be free, contemplating, of 
 course, a registry of slaves and of their children born previ- 
 ously to such date. Thirdly, that voluntary contracts to labor 
 for a term of years or for life should bind the individual 
 alone, and not his wife or children after the years of discre- 
 tion. Fourthly, that slaves should be competent to pos- 
 sess and dispose of property independently of their master. 
 Fifthly, that the purchase of children to be brought up as 
 prostitutes should be subjected to special penalties. The 
 late Mr. Munro supported this proposal by his recommen- 
 dation, but it has been opposed by Mr. McLeod, apparently 
 
212 SLAVERY 
 
 on the ground that parents or guardians cannot be prevented 
 from assigning children in the customary modes to be 
 brought up as dancing women. To this it may be answer- 
 ed, that the object of the proposal is to subject to special 
 penalties the purchase of children for that purpose. Sixthly, 
 that the local civil officers should by a summary proceeding 
 have power to cause masters to provide wholesome food 
 and decent clothing for their slaves, and to prevent their 
 neglecting them in sickness, age, or infirmity. Mr. Baber 
 advocates a similar provision. Seventhly, that the power 
 of corporal punishment should, be transferred from the 
 masters of slaves to the local civil officers. Eighthly, that 
 slaves bought by their masters should by repayment of the 
 purchase-money recover their liberty. Mr. Graeme, when 
 a member of the government at Madras, supjx 
 proposal. 'Ninthly, that all slaves attached to 
 estates escheating to government should be declared free. 
 There is an inference deducible from this recommendation 
 to which special attention should be called. As neither 
 this nor any of the other proposals 'opted ; as 
 
 lands and estates with slaves attached to them are assumed 
 to be, and in fact are, from time to time escheating to 
 government ; and as the rule is to retain such lands and 
 estates in the possession of government, it follows by the 
 clearest implication that the proprietors of East India stock 
 are in their own right, as a chartered and incorporated com- 
 pany, the owners and masters of the slaves attached to those 
 lands and estates, that they are the only slave-holders in 
 Great Britain, and that the half-yearly dividends which 
 they draw from India are in part the direct and indubitable 
 produce of slave-labor, and suffering, and degradation. 
 Tenthly, that slave's on being ill-treated by their masters 
 should be allowed to claim the privilege of being sold to 
 another ; and that the breach of any of these rules by the 
 master should, at the option of the slave, entitle him to lib- 
 
IN INDIA. 213 
 
 erty. The latter part of this recommendation has received 
 the concurrence of Mr. Gramme 'and Mr. Baber. It was 
 also recommended that the share of the harvest granted to 
 the agrestic slaves in the Tamil country should be aug- 
 mented at the expense, not of the masters, but of the 
 government itself. Mr. Campbell, having soon afterwards 
 left Madras for duties in the provinces, remained ignorant 
 of the fate of these suggestions until, after his arrival in 
 England, on reference to the papers on Indian slavery 
 printed by order of the House of Commons, he perceived 
 that by the Madras government they were merely " ordered 
 to be recorded," i. e., put on the shelf consigned to oblivion. 
 In the letter to the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs 
 of India, from which these details have been taken, Mr. 
 Campbell offers other recommendations which should not be 
 overlooked. First, he considers it desirable, as regards the 
 slaves on the western coast, that the government *of Madras 
 should pass enactments similar to those contained in the 
 Bombay Code, which provide that infants shall not be sepa- 
 rated from the mother until a certain age, and. also prohibit 
 the separation of the wife from her husband. Mr. Warden 
 proposed an enactment embracing the latter provision, but 
 the Madras government saw no necessity for it. It also 
 receives the support of Mr. Baber. The proposed prohibi- 
 tion of the separation of infants from their mothers and of 
 wives from their husbands, proves the existence of these 
 cruel usages in the estimation of Mr. Campbell, Mr. War- 
 den, and Mr. Baber, who are all three eminently practical 
 and experienced men. Secondly, Mr. Campbell considers 
 that in any future act of Parliament on the subject of India, 
 a modification of the slave-act 51st George III. chap. 23 is 
 imperatively called for. Offences against it by traffic in 
 slaves by sea may take place in any part of the extensive 
 coast either on the Coromandel or on the Western side of 
 the peninsula under the Madras government, and by natives 
 
214 SLAVERY 
 
 of distant provinces many hundred miles from the presi- 
 dency. The removal of such persons with the witnesses on 
 either side from their own peculiar climate, as, for instance, 
 from Malabar to Madras, would be attended by an inevitable 
 mortality, similar to that of Europeans if sent for trial to the 
 deadly climate of Sierra Leone ; yet the slave-act makes all 
 offences under it, even when committed by natives in the 
 provinces, cognizable only by the distant admiralty or king's 
 supreme court of judicature confined to the presidency itself, 
 to the criminal jurisdiction of which they are otherwise not 
 amenable. The local provincial courts possessing power of 
 life and death in matters of the highest criminal jurisdiction, 
 ought, in Mr. Campbell's judgment, as regards a breach of 
 the slave-act by natives in the interior subject to their juris- 
 diction, to have power concurrent with that of the king's 
 court of admiralty ; for to carry into effect the law as it now 
 stands in this respect, would in such cases be no less inhu- 
 man than revolting to the prejudices of the people. Indeed, 
 like all laws at variance with the feelings of the people, the 
 slave-act as it now stands must remain a dead letter every- 
 where in the Madras territory, except at the presidency, 
 until Parliament give power to the tribunals in the provinces 
 to enforce its penalties. In doing so, however, the punish- 
 ment to be annexed to the breach of its provisions in the 
 provinces should be proportioned to the punishment for other 
 offences in the interior. Death is there the punishment of 
 murder alone ; transportation is the next grade of punish- 
 ment, but never takes place except for life, on account of the 
 great civil forfeiture of caste by which in India it is ever 
 attended ; and confinement in fetters or hard labor for four- 
 teen or seven years respectively, alone are the punishments 
 equivalent to transportation from England for these several 
 periods. Thirdly, Mr. Campbell, recognising the injustice 
 of interfering with the private property which masters pos- 
 sess in their slaves, and the danger of too suddenly disturbing 
 
IN INDIA. 215 
 
 the long-established relations in society subsisting between 
 these two orders, has nevertheless ever been of opinion that 
 British policy ought to be directed, not only to the imme- 
 diate practical amelioration of East India slavery, but to its 
 ultimate though gradual abolition.^ 
 
 The preceding view of some of the most prominent 
 attempts to mitigate the law of slavery, and to improve the 
 condition of the slaves in the Bengal and Madras presi- 
 dencies of British India, suggests some considerations, the 
 development of which will bring me to the conclusion of 
 these letters. . 
 
 We see more distinctly what slavery is both in law and 
 practice by the attempts made to lessen its evils, to control 
 the master, and to protect the slave. When men of high 
 official station, of acknowledged sound judgment, and of 
 extensive local experience and intimate acquaintance with 
 native institutions and customs, in different and distant pro- 
 vinces, without communication with .each other, earnestly 
 and repeatedly urge on the government they serve the 
 adoption of certain modifications of the existing law of 
 slavery to remedy certain alleged evils,- in the very terms 
 of the recommendations they offer, and of the descriptions 
 they give of the evils to be remedied, we have their testi- 
 mony to the existence and reality of those evils, perhaps in 
 one of the most natural and unforced, the most authentic and 
 impressive, forms in which it could be conveyed. Bearing 
 this in mind, let us look back on the various suggestions of 
 Mr. Richardson and Mr. Harington in Bengal, and of Mr. 
 Baber and Mr. Campbell in the Madras presidency, and we 
 shall see such a picture of slavery as, independent of all 
 other evidence, may well arrest the attention of the govern- 
 ment and people of England. According to Mr. Harington, 
 there is no law in Bengal against the exportation of natives 
 of India, to be sold as slaves : and according to Mr. Camp- 
 
 * Mr. Campbell's Letter, before quoted, pp. 572 577, 
 
216 SLAVERY 
 
 bell, the act 51st George III. chap. 23, making the slave- 
 trade felony, is a dead letter throughout the Madras terri- 
 tory, and offences against it by traffic in slaves by sea may 
 take place with impunity along the whole line of the Coro- 
 mandel and Malabar coasts under the Madras government. 
 The additional fact established by Mr. Baber, that domestic 
 slaves, partly natives of Arabia, but chiefly of Abyssinia, are 
 found in fact in all the great towns throughout Malabar and 
 Canara, proves not only that the slave-trade may take place, 
 but that slaves actually are imported at least on the Mala- 
 bar coast, although probably in small numbers at a time 
 and only for domestic purposes, and introduced under the 
 guise of personal attendants of their masters or as sailors 
 employed on board Arab, Moppilla, or Lubbee The 
 
 argument of Mr. Richardson against the continued recogni- 
 tion of Hindu slave-law, ani in favor of the rigid interpre- 
 tation and enforcement of the letter of Muhammadan slave- 
 law, and Mr. Harington's defence of the continued mainte- 
 nance of both systems of slave-law by the British government, 
 prove that they are in fact recognised, maintained, enforced, 
 and administered by that government, if any additional 
 proof of that fact were required after the perusal of Mr. 
 Macnaghten's Principles and Precedents of the Hindu and 
 Muhammadan laws of slavery. With regard to the actual 
 state of slavery and slaves in India, the various recommen- 
 dations and suggestions of these public officers of the East 
 India Company's government for the reform of slave-law, 
 prove that parents sell their children as slaves ; that children 
 are kidnapped to be sold as slaves ; that girls are purchased 
 to be made prostitutes ; that men and women sell themselves 
 for life, and involve their families in the same doom ; that 
 slaves are sold by their owners to provide means for the 
 payment of arrears of revenue to the government, and by 
 the government in execution of decrees of courts of justice ; 
 that by these sales slaves are removed from the places 
 
IN INDIA. 217 
 
 of their nativity, parents are separated from their children, 
 and even mothers from their infants, husbands from wives, 
 and brothers from sisters ; that the East India Company, by 
 the escheating of lands and estates and of the slaves attached 
 to them, become and are slave-holders ; that agrestic slaves 
 in particular are ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed, and that 
 they are neglected in sickness, age, and infirmity by their 
 masters; that their masters have the power of corporal pun- 
 ishment in their own hands ; and finally that many, Mr. 
 Macnaghten says thousands, are wrongfully detained in 
 bondage, contrary to the letter and spirit of the law. Such 
 is slavery in British India according to the clearly implied 
 testimony of those who have benevolently but unsuccessfully 
 employed their official station and influence to rouse the 
 government to remedy its most direct and flagrant evils. 
 
 The reforms of the law and practice of slavery that have 
 been unsuccessfully proposed by the good and wise in India, 
 enable us to estimate the spirit and operation of the East 
 India Company's government in connection with that sub- 
 ject. However uninformed and apathetic the majority of 
 European residents in India may be respecting slavery, its 
 evils are known and acknowledged, undenied and undeni- 
 able, by the government. The persevering and disinterested 
 representations of some of the most enlightened and philan- 
 thropic servants of the East India Company have left the 
 government no excuse on the plea of ignorance ; and to 
 remedy the admitted evils of slavery in India only two 
 methods can be proposed, viz., regulation or abolition. All 
 the reforms that have been enumerated, contemplate regula- 
 tion not without a view to abolition ultimately, and by 
 gradual approaches but primarily and principally regula- 
 tion of an existing institution still to be maintained and 
 enforced. Now it is a fact that since 1808, when Mr. 
 Richardson under the Bengal presidency, and since 1812, 
 when Mr. Baber under the Madras presidency, first endea- 
 19 
 
218 SLAVERY 
 
 vored to awaken the attention of government to the claims 
 of humanity in connection with this subject, the law and the 
 practice of slavery under the British government in India 
 have remained essentially the same, without improvement or 
 mitigation, up to the present year, 1840. During the whole 
 of that period nothing whatever has been done to control the 
 power of the master, to protect the rights, to lighten the 
 burthens, and to increase the comforts of the slave, or to pre- 
 pare the way for placing master and slave in a different 
 relation to each other. This fact would seem to admit of 
 different explanations. It may be that the governing powers 
 both in India and England deemed that slavery originating 
 in crime and violence, maintained by cruelty and oppression, 
 and productive only of vice and misery, did not admit of 
 regulation, and that its only effectual cure was abolition 
 extinction the immediate and complete, emancipation of the 
 slave. No such idea appears to have entered their minds. 
 Slavery has continued to be the law of the land, and there- 
 fore necessarily in some measure a subject of regulation ; 
 and not a single movement has been made towards the 
 enfranchisement of the slave-population. It may be that 
 the governing powers in India and England, dissatisfied 
 with the inadequate reforms of Messrs. Richardson, Haring- 
 ton, Baber, and Campbell, which would have unquestionably 
 left much evil unremedied, have been engaged in devising 
 and discussing and settling other and more searching and 
 effectual measures of their own. It might have been ex- 
 pected that such deliberations would have produced some 
 fruit before the year 1840, stimulated as they ought to have 
 been by the express requisition of the Imperial Parliament 
 in 1833, addressed to the government of India, to mitigate 
 the state of slavery, to ameliorate the condition of slaves, 
 and to extinguish slavery in India as soon as practicable. 
 But the fact is, that, with the exception of occasional calls 
 for information from the subordinate local officers of govern- 
 
IN INDIA. 219 
 
 ment, official letters in reply to these calls written amid the 
 pressure of current revenue, police, or judicial business, and 
 abstracts of these letters by a clerk, or reports founded on 
 them by an under-secretary, only to be added to the mass 
 of papers already existing on the subject unread and unre- 
 garded with these exceptions the East India Company's 
 government have equally neglected the recommendations 
 of their own ablest servants and the requisitions of the Im- 
 perial Parliament. The painful and disgraceful truth is, 
 that the East India Company, admitting compelled by the 
 testimony of their own most trustworthy servants to admit 
 the existence of slavery and the reality of its evils, have 
 been content to continue to legalize slavery, to tolerate its 
 evils, and to discourage, reject, or consign to forgetfulness 
 every suggestion dictated by justice or benevolence for their 
 removal or mitigation. In this matter they have delibe- 
 rately and systematically disregarded and neglected a grave 
 and solemn duty of government, involving the rights and 
 liberties of hundreds of thousands of British subjects placed 
 under their authority, and they have thereby, so far, shown 
 themselves unworthy of the high trust reposed in them by 
 the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain unworthy of 
 the respect and confidence of the friends of humanity and 
 civilization throughout the world. 
 
 The consideration of the whole subject has strongly con- 
 vinced me that the immediate extinction of slavery and 
 emancipation of the slaves is the wisest, the justest, and the 
 most humane course that can be pursued, and the only effec- 
 tual means of remedying acknowledged evils. Mr. Rich- 
 ardson and Mr. Harington did not extend their proposed 
 reforms further than the regulation of slavery with a view 
 to its very gradual but ultimate extinction, while Mr. Ley- 
 cester proposed its total abolition. Mr. Campbell advocates 
 its ultimate though gradual abolition, while Mr. Baber 
 declares his sentiments to be unhesitatingly in favor of an 
 
220 SLAVERY 
 
 unqualified abolition. The latter at the same time sug- 
 gests to the commissioners for the affairs of India and to 
 both Houses of Parliament the expediency of appointing 
 " a committee both in England and in India, the latter to be 
 composed partly of natives, those who are most intelligent, 
 most enlightened, and most influential from property in land 
 and slaves, to inquire and report upon the measures best 
 calculated to extend the blessings of freedom to this most 
 wretched, most helpless, and most degraded portion" of the 
 Indian subjects of Great Britain. The utility of such a 
 committee would depend on the instructions they should 
 receive, the basis on which their inquiries should be con- 
 ducted, the object at which they should aim. If that object 
 is merely the regulation of slavery, it may be safely affirmed 
 that the appointment of such a committee would be a useless 
 waste of the public money. If regulation could be effectual, 
 sufficient information is already possessed to show what 
 reforms and changes are indispensably necessary to restrain 
 the master and to protect the slave. But all mere regula- 
 tion, however searching and stringent, would leave the root 
 of the evil untouched, for slavery is in itself essentially and 
 inherently an evil, and you might as well talk of regulating 
 by law any of the most notorious and infamous violations 
 of the indefeasible rights and obligations of nature and 
 society, such as murder and robbery. Besides, whatever 
 regulations might be devised, must be adopted and enforced 
 by the East India Company's government, and the experi- 
 ence of the last thirty-two years has shown what confidence 
 should be reposed in that government in connection with 
 the subject of slavery. Abolition, then, the immediate 
 abolition of slavery in India, is the only legitimate object 
 at which the friends of humanity should aim. Abolition 
 is the only basis on which such a committee as Mr. Baber 
 proposes could usefully conduct its inquiries ; and to frame 
 the requisite arrangements preliminary to abolition with a 
 
IN INDIA. 221 
 
 view as far as possible to reconcile all conflicting interests, 
 is the only purpose that would justify the appointment of 
 such a committee, and that would make its labors honora- 
 ble to the nation and beneficial to society. 
 
 This subject cannot be satisfactorily dismissed without 
 examining the objections that have been advanced to the 
 immediate abolition of slavery in India, or the arguments in 
 favor of its continued legal recognition by the British gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 In 1816, the existence of West India slavery was em- 
 ployed as a plea for the maintenance of East India slavery, 
 by the court of Nizamut Adawlut, in reply to Mr. Leyces- 
 ter, who had proposed its abolition. " Whilst it (hereditary 
 slavery) is allowed to remain with respect to the progeny 
 of existing slaves, born under the British government in 
 the West Indies and South Africa, the abolition of it 'on 
 general principles of justice and humanity could not, the 
 court apprehend, be consistently proposed for India." To 
 ordinary observers the connection between West India and 
 East India slavery is not so close as readily to suggest the 
 conclusion that the one must stand or fall with the other. 
 If the abolition of West India slavery were now urged as a 
 reason for abolishing East India slavery, the argument 
 would appear and be sufficiently flimsy, and yet such 
 reasoning was not stronger or more substantial when em- 
 ployed for a contrary purpose. The court which assigned 
 this reason was the same that pronounced the opinion " that 
 the spirit of the rule for observing the Muhammadan and 
 Hindu laws was applicable to cases of slavery, though not 
 included in the letter of it" and which has thereby legalized 
 and perpetuated Hindu and Muhammadan slavery from 
 1798 to the present day. 
 
 The governor in council at Madras in 1825 argue against 
 direct interference with slavery on the part of government, 
 trusting to the gradual operation of justice and police admin- 
 19* 
 
222 SLAVERY 
 
 istered in a spirit favorable to personal liberty. The follow- 
 ing is an extract of a letter in the revemie department, from 
 the governor in council of Fort St. George, to the Court of 
 Directors, dated 30th Dec. 1825. " In Malabar a numerous 
 class of laborers employed in agriculture have not the free 
 disposal of their own industry, but are in a peculiar state 
 of servitude. Their condition may therefore with more 
 propriety be regarded as dependent on the treatment which 
 they receive from their masters than as capable of being 
 improved by government. But the consideration of the 
 measures proper to be taken with respect to the kinds of 
 slavery found to exist in India relates to a subject of great 
 delicacy and considerable difficulty; and we are of opinion 
 that it is a matter in which more good is to be expected 
 from the gradual operation of justice and police adminis- 
 tered in a spirit favorable to personal liberty, than- from 
 direct interference on the part of government." That 
 slaves should be left wholly in the hands of their masters, 
 without any direct interference on the part of government, 
 is a doctrine that must be vefy convenient and agreeable, at 
 least to the masters, although it is not a doctrine we should 
 have expected to be preached by a government which has 
 not only stepped out of its way to legalize slavery, but 
 which has also stepped between the master and the slave to 
 make the slave capable of giving testimony in courts of 
 justice, and to make the master liable to capital punish- 
 ment for the murder even of his own slave. It is moreover 
 difficult to understand, and perhaps it would be difficult for 
 the Madras governor in council to explain, how justice and 
 police can operate gradually or be administered in a spirit 
 favorable to personal liberty, without that direct interfer- 
 ence on the part of government with which they are con- 
 trasted. Assuming however the non-interference principle 
 of the Madras government, it is fair to ask whether that 
 government itself has conformed to it. The law doubtless 
 is one thing and the spirit in which it is administered is 
 
IN INDIA. 223 
 
 another. Have justice and police been administered as 
 between master and slave under the Madras government 
 in a spirit favorable to personal liberty ? Let Mr. Baber 
 and Mr. Campbell bear testimony, both highly competent 
 witnesses, and possessing an acquaintance with the provinces 
 situated on the opposite coasts of the peninsula, within the 
 Madras presidency ; and we are compelled to conclude from 
 their averments that justice and police have been adminis- 
 tered in a spirit eminently unfavorable to personal liberty. 
 Look at the innovation introduced, or promoted and extend- 
 ed, by the Madras government, of selling slaves away from 
 their native soil, and separating members of the same family. 
 Look at the system of compulsory slave-labor for the bene- 
 fit of government, which, at the risk of insurrection and in 
 violation of an express stipulation with the natives, the 
 Madras government openly and shamefully upholds as a 
 necessary evil. Look at the discountenance cast on Mr. 
 Baber's philanthropic exertions, and at the rejection of the 
 ameliorations proposed by him, by Mr. Warden, and by Mr. 
 Campbell. Look at all this, and then think of the effrontery 
 of the same government holding out as a specific for the 
 gradual cure of the evils of slavery, the administration of 
 justice and police in a spirit favorable to personal liberty ! 
 Mr. Colebrooke has objected to the abolition of slavery, to 
 the prevention of enslavement, and to the prohibition of the 
 sale of actual slaves, on the ground of the unobjectionable 
 nature of the means by which free persons are rendered 
 slaves^the infrequency of the practice, and the general good 
 treatment of slaves by their masters. " I conceive," he says, 
 " that there is no occasion for abolishing slavery, or for 
 preventing enslavement, or for prohibiting the sale of actual 
 slaves, within the limits of the British territories in India. 
 Neither the means by which free persons (for the most part 
 children in a tender age) are rendered slaves, nor the fre- 
 quency of the occurrence in an objectionable form, nor the 
 
224 SLAVERY 
 
 common treatment of those who are already slaves by their 
 masters, is such as to call for the interposition of legislative 
 authority in a strong form." In the same spirit, Mr. W. 
 H. Macnaghten says : " The sales of children which do take 
 place (setting aside the fact of their illegality) are devoid 
 of all the disgusting features which characterize the slave- 
 trade : they are not occasioned by the auri sacra fames, but 
 by absolute physical hunger and starvation ; and the mo- 
 rality must be rigid indeed which would condemn as 
 criminal the act of a parent parting with a child under cir- 
 cumstances which render the sacrifice indispensable to the 
 preservation of both." On this view of the subject I must 
 refer you to the sixth of these : letters, in which the nature 
 of the means by which free persons have been and are 
 made slaves, and the extent to which these means are em- 
 ployed, are examined with a wider induction of particulars 
 than appear to have come under the consideration of these 
 respectable writers. You will judge, and the public of 
 England will judge, whether the capture of prisoners in 
 war, the probable source of the largest amount of agrestic 
 slavery in India ; whether the sale of free children by their 
 parents, sometimes from the strength of natural affection in 
 the midst of famine and distress, sometimes from the want 
 of natural affection for the purposes of prostitution, probably 
 the next largest source of slavery, particularly domestic 
 slavery, in India ; whether the sale of freemen by them- 
 selves ; the sale of criminals, outcastes, concubines, and 
 their offspring; the kidnapping of children ; and the impor- 
 tation of slaves whether these, which have been the chief, 
 perhaps the sole means of creating the slave-population of 
 India, can be generally regarded with moral approbation. 
 With regard to the extent to which these means are now 
 employed, let it be admitted what plain and numerous facts 
 disprove that they have entirely ceased to be employed, 
 does it follow that an inherited bondage, originating in these 
 
IN INDIA. 225 
 
 or similar causes, is the less an injustice to the individual, 
 and an evil to society, because it is inherited ? Is slavery the 
 less a curse because the earliest perceptions of the senses, 
 the earliest dawnings of the intellect, the earliest breath- 
 ings of the affections, have been framed into the mould of a 
 base and debasing servitude, and the human being, body, 
 soul, and spirit, has been absolutely and completely mechan- 
 ized into an automaton, exhibiting some of the phenomena of 
 vitality, but possessing no thought, or will, or feeling of its 
 own except at the caprice and dictation of another ? Some 
 such judgment appears to have been formed by Mr. Cole- 
 brooke when he mentions as an extenuating circumstance 
 that the free persons who are made slaves in India are for 
 the most part children of a tender age. To my mind the 
 very language employed implies not a mitigation, but an 
 aggravation, of the evil. It is in the tender age of child- 
 hood it is in the very budding of life that the root and 
 spring of all life's happiness and goodness is destroyed. 
 
 The general good treatment of slaves by their masters is 
 a distinct ground of objection to the abolition of slavery 
 taken by Mr. Colebrooke, and enforced at greater length : 
 " I trust not to be considered an advocate for slavery," he 
 says, "nor indifferent to the miseries incident to the most 
 degraded condition in human society, when I observe that 
 in this country slaves are in general treated with gentleness 
 and indulgence. The slave is a favorite and confidential 
 servant rather than an abject drudge ; and is as often held 
 superior to the hireling in his master's estimation and his 
 own, as placed beneath him in the scale of employment and 
 of comforts. The mildness and equanimity of the Indian's 
 temper, (or his apathy and slowness, if this better describe 
 the general disposition of the people,) contribute to ensure 
 good treatment to the slave. I should however only demon- 
 strate unacquaintance with the human character if I affirmed 
 this to prevail universally, without any exception. I cannot 
 
226 SLAVERY 
 
 doubt that bad temper and dispositions sometimes constitute 
 a harsh, severe, and even cruel master ; nor have I been 
 without occasions of being convinced that such characters 
 are to be found among the owners of slaves." The court 
 of Nizatnut Adawlut, in opposition to Mr. Leycester's pro- 
 posal that slavery should be abolished, urge the same con- 
 sideration, viz., that in India " the state of slavery is not so 
 injurious to the objects of it as in other countries where it 
 is still maintained." Speaking of Muhammadan slavery in 
 India, Mr. W. H. Macnaghten states that " in India (gene- 
 rally speaking) between a slave and a free servant there is 
 no distinction but in the name and in the superior indul- 
 gences enjoyed by the former : he is exempt from the com- 
 mon cares of providing for himself and family ; his master 
 has an obvious interest in treating him with lenity,. and the 
 easy performance of the ordinary household duties is all 
 that is exacted in return." Speaking of Hindu slavery, the 
 same writer adds : " Whatever objections may be theoreti- 
 cally advanced to its existence, the condition of the slave 
 himself differs in not much more than in name from that of 
 a hired servant." " I have no reason to believe that the 
 system of slavery as it exists among the Hindus is produc- 
 tive of much individual misery, however baneful its effects 
 may be to society at large. The courts of justice are acces- 
 sible to slaves as well as to freemen, and a British magistrate 
 would never permit the plea of proprietary right to be urged 
 in defence of oppression. If then but few grievances are 
 complained of, it is fair to infer that few exist." 
 
 In these quotations there are two points to be considered, 
 the alleged fact and the inference from the fact. With 
 regard to the alleged fact of the general good treatment of 
 slaves in India, I have not the least doubt that Mr. Cole- 
 brooke, Mr. Macnaghten, and the court of Nizam ut Adawlut 
 stated it in perfect good faith, and with a full conviction of 
 its truth, but it is to be regretted that they should have 
 
IN INDIA. 227 
 
 given the sanction of their authority to allegations professing 
 to describe the treatment of slaves throughout the whole of 
 India, but in reality descriptive of the treatment of slaves 
 only under the Bengal presidency, and even there it is to be 
 feared descriptive of that treatment with very large excep- 
 tions, such as Mr. Colebrooke has partially admitted. Mr. 
 Colebrooke's argument is expressly directed against the 
 abolition of slavery " within the limits of the British terri- 
 tories in India;" Mr. Macnaghten and the court of Niza- 
 mut Adawlut speak of India and of Hindu and Muhamma- 
 dan slavery universally ; and Mr. Macnaghten even implies 
 by one of his remarks that he considered domestic slavery 
 as the only description of slavery known in India. This is 
 explained by the circumstance that Mr. Colebrooke, Mr. 
 Macnaghten, and the judges of the Nizamut Adawlut were 
 all permanently connected with the Bengal presidency; 
 that none of them, it is believed, had any opportunity of 
 becoming acquainted by personal observation with agrestic 
 slavery as it exists in the provinces of the Madras presi- 
 dency ; that this deficiency of personal observation does not 
 appear to have been compensated by reading or other sources 
 of information ; and that they were thence led to infer that 
 slavery existed in no other form throughout India than 
 as they saw it in Bengal, or knew it from the records of 
 cases tried in their courts. What is the fact ? To deter- 
 mine that, we must distinguish between agrestic and domestic 
 slavery, and in speaking of the latter we must distinguish 
 between male and female domestic slaves. To judge of the 
 treatment of agrestic slaves, read the statements made from 
 personal observation and knowledge by Mr. Baber, Mr. 
 Campbell, Mr. GraBme, and Dr. Francis Buchanan, already 
 quoted in Letter VII., and then pronounce whether the two 
 hundred thousand in Malabar, Canara, and Arcot, and the 
 "many thousands" more in Tanjore, are treated by their 
 masters with gentleness and indulgence, are exempt from 
 
228 SLAVERY 
 
 the common cares of providing for themselves and their 
 families, are protected by British magistrates and courts of 
 justice, and differ in name only from hired servants. I 
 think it not improbable that an investigation into the condi- 
 tion of the alleged eighty thousand slaves in the Bengal 
 district of Silhet, would prove that many of them are agrestic 
 slaves, and that the treatment they receive is not widely 
 dissimilar from that of those in the Madras presidency. 
 With respect to female domestic slaves, read the statements 
 of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Baber, and then also pronounce 
 whether, kept as they are almost universally for sensual pur- 
 poses, immured in the harems of Muhammadans, secluded 
 from access to the society of free persons and from all 
 appeal to courts of justice, often treated with caprice, fre- 
 quently punished with much cruelty, and sometimes mur- 
 dered with impunity, their condition and treatment are 
 as has been described by the Bengal authorities I have 
 quoted. There are facts which tend to show that female 
 domestic slaves are treated as ill in the Bengal as in the 
 Madras presidency, and I am not acquainted with any 
 reasons, ignorant as all Europeans are of the internal 
 economy of native families, particularly those of wealth and 
 consideration, that render their better treatment probable. 
 With regard to male domestic slaves, let it be borne in mind 
 that many of them certainly however a minority are 
 eunuehs: that fact alone speaks intelligibly as to their treat- 
 ment. It is to the remaining number of male domestic 
 slaves and to them only that the picture of gentle and indul- 
 gent treatment that has been drawn can be deemed to apply, 
 and even to them with the exceptions acknowledged by Mr. 
 Colebrooke, produced by occasional examples of harsh, 
 severe, and even cruel masters. 
 
 Admit the alleged fact that the gentle, indulgent, and 
 considerate treatment of slaves throughout India is all but 
 universal. What is the legitimate inference from the fact ? 
 
IN INDIA. 229 
 
 Mr. Cplebrooke considers that slavery even in its mildest 
 form is " the most degraded condition in human society," 
 to which peculiar miseries are incident, and trusts not to be 
 considered an advocate for it. The court of Nizamut Adavv- 
 lut " fully participate the sentiments expressed by Mr. Ley- 
 cester in abhorrence of hereditary slavery, and earnestly 
 wish it could be discontinued." Mr. Macnaghten deems it 
 unquestionable that " the evils of slavery are manifold," and 
 holds that " its effects" are " baneful" " to society at large," 
 although not productive in his judgment of much individual 
 misery. Now, putting altogether out of view its effects on 
 the individual, whatever they may be, and looking at the 
 subject only with an eye to the interests of government and 
 society, it cannot be denied that the extinction of an institu- 
 tion which, even in its least repulsive and least hurtful form, 
 is so abhorrent in its character, so degrading in its tendency, 
 and so baneful in its consequences, is eminently desirable. 
 Assuming this as admitted, let any one endeavor to con- 
 ceive any possible combination of circumstances in which 
 slavery could be abolished with greater facility and with 
 less danger than that in which, according to Messrs. Cole- 
 brooke, Macnaghten, &c., it has been reduced to a mere 
 name, a nullity, as far as such an effect can be produced by 
 the kindness of the master and the loyalty of the slave, 
 without destroying the acknowledged inherent vice of the 
 institution. No possible, no conceivable contingency can be 
 deemed more favorable to such a result than precisely that 
 which these writers have described as the actual state of 
 slavery in India a state admitting of an almost impercep- 
 tible transition to the rights and privileges of personal and 
 industrial freedom. 
 
 Either then slavery in India is the halcyon state which it 
 
 has been described to be, or it is not. If it is, then let us lose 
 
 not a moment; let us avail ourselves of the fortunate occasion; 
 
 let us abolish slavery without delay, while the master is so 
 
 20 
 
230 SLAVERY 
 
 favorably disposed towards the slave, while the slave has so 
 loyal an attachment to the master, while the fetters have been 
 allowed almost to fall off by the one and are scarcely felt by 
 the other, and while every circumstance promises an easy pas.- 
 sage from a state of servitude to a state of liberty. This is 
 just the time and the occasion which a wise statesman would 
 desire, and which he would signalize by a prompt and decisive 
 act of liberal policy. But if the case is otherwise, if slavery 
 in India is not the mild and gentle, the innocent, harmless, 
 and benevolent thing which it has been represented if in a 
 very large majority of instances it presents a picture of 
 nakedness and starvation ; of perpetual, compulsory, and 
 unrequited labor; of stocks, floggings, chains, and murders; 
 of slaves sold to strangers and torn away from their birth- 
 place, families separated, and all the bonds of natural affec- 
 tion snapped asunder to meet the demands of a foreign, a 
 cruel, and an avaricious government ; of temptations held 
 out to kidnappers to steal children, and to hardhearted 
 parents to sell their own offspring in order to supply the 
 demands of private debauchery and of public prostitution 
 if these are the chief features of slavery in India if these 
 are the crimes whose cry ascends to Heaven to witness 
 against us, in this case also let us lose not a moment ; let 
 us relieve ourselves, our nation, and as far as depends upon 
 us our race, from the oppressive burthen of such dire, such 
 black, such flagrant iniquities ; and if the English people 
 have hitherto in ignorance tolerated such abominations, 
 practised or permitted in their name, let them do so no 
 longer, but with a voice of indignation, that shall strike 
 shame and dismay into the hearts of its money-seeking 
 rulers, demand that slavery in British India be instantly 
 and forever abolished. 
 
 There are other arguments against the general and 
 immediate abolition of slavery in India, which are expressed 
 in language so vague and indefinite that they will be best 
 
IN INDIA. 231 
 
 understood by quoting the words of those who have em- 
 ployed them, without attempting to convey them in my own. 
 I find them first suggested by Mr. Richardson in his letter 
 of March 23, 1808 : " Aware of the great importance and 
 convinced of the caution with which innovations should be 
 attempted, or the ancient laws, customs, or prejudices of a 
 people infringed, I presume not even to sketch out the 
 mode or to fix the period of general emancipation; and 
 perhaps the sudden manumission of those now actually in 
 a state of bondage, though abstractly just, might be politi- 
 cally unwise." The court of Nizamut Adawlut, in reply 
 to Mr. Leycester, allege that slavery in India " has from 
 time immemorial been sanctioned by the laws and usages 
 of the country." Mr. Macnaghten says : " That the evils 
 of slavery are manifold, is unquestionable. That its total 
 and immediate suppression might be followed by mischiev- 
 ous consequences, can admit but of as little question." 
 Again : " It must be owned that the recognition of legal 
 slavery in anv form must tend to perpetuate its existence ; 
 but at the same time long-established usages should be 
 respected, especially where society has not attained such a 
 state of civilization as to admit of a clear perception of the 
 general benefits intended to result from an invasion of indi- 
 vidual rights ; and so long as the legislature in its wisdom 
 and from a respect for ancient institutions shall not deem it 
 advisable to interfere with a view to the suppression of the 
 system, it can only be hoped that the gradual diffusion of 
 knowledge, and the consequent spread of enlightened 
 notions, will tend to convince all ranks of the community 
 that rational liberty is the condition most conducive to the 
 happiness and interests of mankind." Mr. Campbell also, 
 or the Madras Board of Revenue who express their senti- 
 ments through him, recognise " the injustice of interfering 
 with the private property which masters possess in their 
 slaves, and the danger of too suddenly disturbing the long- 
 
232 SLAVERY 
 
 established relations in society subsisting between these 
 two orders." Three distinct grounds of objection to the 
 immediate abolition of slavery, or of argument in favor of its 
 gradual abolition and continued recognition and mainte- 
 nance, are assumed and mixed up in these passages, accord- 
 ing as each writer was disposed Ho depend either on the 
 progress of knowledge ; or on the reverence due to long- 
 established usages and institutions ^nd the danger of 
 disturbing them ; or on the injustice of interfering with 
 private property; or on all those grounds jointly.. Each 
 of these will be separately examined. 
 
 It is Mr. Macnaghten who, with the aspiration character- 
 istic of a generous mind and the indolent and in discrimin- 
 ating judgment uncharacteristic of a distinguished Indian 
 statesman, gravely hopes "that the gradual diffusion of 
 knowledge and the consequent spread of enlightene.d notions 
 will tend to convince all ranks of the community that ra- 
 tional liberty is the condition most conducive to the happi- 
 ness and interests of mankind," and who in this hope coolly 
 proposes to postpone for the present the suppression of 
 slavery in India. There are two classes of men in the 
 world, those who trust too little to the diffusion of 1 
 ledge and those who hope too much from it. Undoubtedly 
 Mr. Macnaghten belongs to the latter class. Who are to 
 be convinced by the diffusion of knowledge of the advantages 
 of rational liberty ? It is not the English rulers of India : 
 it is to be presumed that they are already convinced. It is 
 not the slaves : full work and half-feeding, in addition to 
 many other similar arguments, have long since convinced 
 them too. It is the slave-holders then who are to be con- 
 vinced ; but they also are convinced, in their own sense of 
 the phrase, of the advantages of rational liberty, and with 
 them it consists in the liberty of living, not by their own 
 labor, but by the labor of others. It would be just as reason- 
 able to expect by the diffusion of knowledge to convince 
 
IN INDIA. 233 
 
 slave-holders of the fallacy of this interpretation, and of 
 the advantage to them of liberating their slaves, as it would 
 be to expect to convince the British government that India 
 ought to be liberated from British control, because it was 
 unjustly and fraudulently acquired and has been most 
 cruelly misgoverned, and because "rational liberty is the 
 condition most conducive to the happiness and interests of 
 mankind." Mr. Macnaghten knows how vainly such an 
 argument would be addressed to the British government ; 
 but he seems to forget that slave-holders are likely to treat 
 the same reasoning with the same contempt. If there were 
 a higher human power than Great Britain to which she 
 should be legally amenable for her misdeeds in India, un- 
 questionably the appeal would be made against her. There 
 is no such power ; but although Great Britain cannot be 
 expected to convict herself, yet when she herself is the power 
 to which the appeal is made, and when the cause of master 
 and 'slave in India is pleaded at the bar of her own tribunal, 
 she may be expected to pronounce an impartial judgment, 
 because it is equally for her honor and for her interest that 
 justice should be done. It is not then on the gradual diffu- 
 sion of knowledge and the consequent spread of enlight- 
 ened notions amongst slave-holders in India that any hope 
 is to be reposed, a hope too Utopian for practical use; but 
 it is on the diffusion of knowledge and the spread of just 
 views in England that dependence is to be placed. She is 
 the arbitress in this cause, and every thing may be hoped 
 from her justice and humanity if she can be made to under- 
 stand its real merits. 
 
 The next ground is the respect due to ancient institutions 
 and to immemorial laws and usages, the mischievous conse- 
 quences of a total and immediate suppression of slavery, 
 the political danger of too sudden a disturbance of the 
 long-established relations between master and slave. It is 
 evident from the terms employed that there is much vague- 
 20* 
 
234 SLAVERY 
 
 ness and indefmiteness in the conception of this argument 
 or objection in the minds of those who advance it. Mr. 
 Campbell speaks of " danger," without letting us understand 
 the nature, or probable extent, or apprehended form of the 
 danger. Mr. Richardson speaks of the evil of innovaiion 
 generally, and considers that sudden manumission, though 
 abstractly just, might be politically unwise, at the very 
 moment he is proposing a sudden, an important, and a 
 sweeping innovation on the existing law of slavery, which 
 would have largely affected the Muhammadans, the 
 most sensitive, discontented, and turbulent portion of the 
 whole Indian population. Mr. Macnaghten deems it un- 
 questionable that the total and immediate suppression of 
 slavery might be followed by mischievous consequences ; 
 and yet these consequences are so little formidable, that be 
 is prepared to encounter them as soon as the legislature 
 shall deem it advisable to interfere with 
 pression of the system, although the mere fiat of Parlia- 
 ment could not alter or lessen the mischievousness of the 
 consequences. The reverence professed by tbe Nizamut 
 Adawlut for immemorial laws and usages is merely i 
 collaterally and subordinately to the primary argument of 
 that learned body r that East India slavery should be main- 
 tained because West India slavery still existed, and the 
 main ground being not only in reason, but having become 
 in fact invalid, the subsidiary one is less entitled to attention. 
 It is difficult, however, to believe that a consideration 
 presenting itself in so many forms to different minds is 
 wholly without foundation. Let us endeavor to form a 
 clearer and more precise idea of the argument than appears 
 to have been possessed by its authors. Any proposed inno- 
 vation on, or interference with, the ancient and established 
 institutions, laws, and customs of India, may be designed 
 either for the benefit of the people or for the benefit of their 
 foreign rulers, and may produce either injury to the people 
 
IN INDIA. 235 
 
 or injury to their rulers. Elsewhere the good of the peo- 
 ple and the good of rulers may be identical or coincident; 
 but under the system of government pursued in India, it is 
 essential to distinguish between objects and results wholly 
 different. Keeping this distinction in view, the following 
 propositions may, I think, be successfully maintained : that 
 there have been, and that there are now in progress, innova- 
 tions, on the established institutions, laics, and customs of the 
 country, designed for, and tending to, the sole benefit of its 
 foreign rulers, and productive of great danger to the sta- 
 bility of their government ; that there has been no innova- 
 tion truly designed for, and plainly tending to, the sole 
 benefit of the people, productive of arty such result ; and 
 that the proposed abolition of slavery in India belongs to the 
 latter class of innovations. 
 
 With reference to the former class, it would be necessary 
 to write a history of the internal government of India by 
 the English in order to enumerate and expound the innova- 
 tions which it includes. It is true that the native religions 
 are tolerated, and the native laws are administered a con- 
 servatism dictated, it is hoped, in part by a just regard for 
 the enlightened principles of religious and civil liberty, and 
 in part, it is believed, by the consciousness of weakness, by 
 the physical impossibility of giving scope to religious intol- 
 erance or to English law, and by the absence of all fiscal 
 temptation to introduce either. But what, it may be asked, 
 are the successive conquests of the English in India the 
 English, a foreign, an unclean, and an unbelieving race but 
 so many usurpations and innovations on all established 
 institutions, laws, and usages ? In the internal politics of 
 the country, have not truth, and justice, and fair-dealing 
 been often trampled on in order to acquire territory or to 
 extend British power and influence ? In the internal 
 administration of the government have not native institu- 
 tions standing in the way of the increase of revenue been 
 
236 SLAVERY 
 
 systematically superseded, neglected, and despised ? Has 
 not the administration of justice been always made subor- 
 dinate, often subservient, to the collection of revenue ? Has 
 not the revenue-system added tax to tax and monopoly to 
 monopoly, unsettling property in the soil, lessening its 
 value, and attacking individual rights ? Have not the 
 provinces of the Bengal presidency been for years past in 
 a state ^verging on rebellion b.y the attempt to tax lands 
 immemorially held tax-free ? Are not the learned institu- 
 tions of the country drooping and decaying because their 
 resources have been 'largely appropriated by the govern- 
 ment ? Has not a late distinguished civil servant of the 
 East India Company (the Honorable Frederick John Shore) 
 publicly declared and left on record, that " whether true or 
 false, there is an undoubted impression among the govern- 
 ment servants, both here (in India) and in England, that :i 
 man who treats the natives with much civility and atten- 
 tion will be in bad odour with his government ? " Study. 
 surely, a government conducted on such principles and in 
 such a spirit must not be permitted to cloak its hostility to 
 a measure of humanity and justice, such as the pro; 
 abolition of slavery, under the pretext of its respect for 
 ancient institutions and long-established usages. 
 
 With regard to the second class of innovations, those 
 truly designed for and plainly tending to the sole benefit of 
 the people, the number of these is not great, but some of 
 them are sufficiently notorious. I will merely mention the 
 subjection of Brahmans along with other classes of the 
 community to capital punishment, an innovation on Hindu 
 law most offensive to Hindu prejudices ; the subjection of 
 the murderer of a slave as well as of any other person to 
 capital punishment, even if the murderer be the slave's mas- 
 ter, a most offensive innovation both on Hindu and Mu- 
 hammadan law, making the lives of slaves of equal value 
 with those of their masters ; the prohibition by the Marquess 
 
IN INDIA. 237 
 
 Wellesley's government of the practice of mothers present- 
 ing their offspring as sacrifices to the Ganges at Gunga 
 Sagur, the effect of which was that they were devoured by- 
 sharks and alligators, a prohibition directly infringing on 
 a popular and cherished superstition ; the attempts, hitherto 
 only partially successful, to prevent female infanticide 
 among certain tribes and castes addicted to it ; the com- 
 pletely successful prohibition by Lord William Bentinck's 
 government of the burning of Hindu widoxvs with the 
 bodies of their deceased husbands, a cruel superstition, sac- 
 rificing the lives of hundreds annually throughout India, 
 and supported by the bigotry, fanaticism, and interest of the 
 whole Brahmanical priesthood ; and, finally, the sudden, 
 unprepared, and yet peaceful prohibition of the sale of 
 slaves in the Southern Mahratta country, where it had been 
 immemorially practised. All these were measures truly 
 designed and plainly tending to preserve human life and 
 to encourage natural affection, to maintain equal justice and 
 to protect the good order of society ; and whatever tempo- 
 rary dissatisfaction some of them, may have occasioned, 
 they led to no disturbance of the peace, and their ultimate 
 effect has been to strengthen the English rule by inspiring 
 the natives with respect and affection for the British gov- 
 ernment and people. 
 
 Now it is certain on the plainest grounds of reason, as 
 well as admitted by the objectors, that the abolition of 
 slavery would belong to the latter class of innovations, and 
 that its sole design and effect would be the good of society. 
 There would be no direct accruing advantage to govern- 
 ment in the form of revenue to excite doubt or suspicion of 
 its motives. It would be a disinterested interference on 
 the part of government as the common protector, to shield 
 the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and to 
 give to the slave the lawful possession, hitherto unjustly 
 withheld,- of his own body, and the fruits of his own labor. 
 
238 SLAVERY 
 
 Such a measure would array in its support the whole moral 
 force of the community, which would drown the grumblings 
 of the slave-holders if they should attempt to make them- 
 selves heard. Even if, on the worst and most improbable 
 supposition, not a single slave-owner could be made friendly 
 to the change, still their number is less than that of the 
 slaves, and government consequently, by the proposed mea- 
 sure, would make more friends than enemies. But why 
 suppose this extreme case ? According to the objectors, the 
 majority of the slave-owners, at least in the Bengal pro- 
 vinces, are very favorably disposed to their slaves, and it is 
 to be hoped might be made friendly to their emancipation ; 
 while under the Madras presidency the difficulty which 
 many slave-owners often experience to find labor and sub- 
 sistence for their slaves would equally facilitate an arrange- 
 ment with them. Upon the whole, I arrive with unhesi- 
 tating confidence at the conclusion, that the dread of inno- 
 vation on existing institutions and of danger to the British 
 government is a bugbear, and that the measure would be 
 attended with equal benefit and safety. It is only necc 
 that a wise, humane, and powerful government powerful 
 to will and to do justice to all should speak the word, and 
 slavery would no longer exist. 
 
 The only remaining ground of objection taken against 
 the abolition of slavery in India is the alleged invasion of 
 individual rights and the injustice of interfering with the 
 private property which masters possess in their slaves. 
 This places the question on the footing of right and justice, 
 and viewed in this light there is no question of morality or 
 of law that admits of an easier solution. In any disputed 
 question of property, there are, at least, two parties ; and in 
 the present instance those parties are the master and the 
 slave. The property in dispute is the body and labor of 
 the slave. In these, the. master claims an exclusive proprie- 
 tary right ; while the slave asserts that his body and the 
 
IN INDIA. 239 
 
 fruits of his labor are his own. In a civilized country, 
 in a civilized age, under a civilized government, the mere 
 statement of the case is decisive in favor of the slave's 
 claim. It is impossible that any man can possess any pro- 
 perty by a more intimate and perfect right than that by 
 which every man possesses the property in his own per- 
 son ; and the property in the profits of his lawful labor 
 follows as a necessary consequence, all acts of capture and 
 violence, buying and selling, being vitiated and rendered 
 null and void by the previously existing, permanent, and 
 indefeasible right of the man to himself, a right which, like 
 many other rights, may be long in abeyance, but which can 
 never be lost, and may be always resumed when the fear of 
 violence or the pressure of actual force is removed. 
 
 But it will be said that the question does not lie between 
 the master and the slave, but between the master and the 
 government which has legalized slavery and legalized the 
 master's property in the slave. To this it may be replied, 
 that human law is merely an expression of the will of 
 individual men, and that no man or number of men can 
 change wrong into right. The right, therefore, of the slave 
 to himself is unaffected by the act of any government. 
 But a government cannot be expected to admit its -own 
 solemn act to be wrong without good reason assigned, which 
 may or may not convince, and therefore let it be further 
 remarked, and repeated, if necessary, a thousand times, that 
 even according to the existing law of slavery in British 
 India, on the high authority of Mr. Macnaghten, " THOU- 
 SANDS are at this moment living in a state of hopeless and 
 contented, though UNAUTHORIZED bondage." Let it be fur- 
 ther observed that slavery in India has not been legalized by 
 a formal enactment of the British Parliament, nor even of 
 the British Indian government, but by a mere interpretation, 
 and, as I firmly believe and maintain, by a gross and palpable 
 misinterpretation, of a rule of law which, it is admitted 
 
240 SLAVERY 
 
 by the. expounders, makes not the slightest mention of, or 
 allusion to, slavery. If this alleged misinterpretation of the 
 law should be established by competent authority, then the 
 whole question of slavery in India is settled, and in no in- 
 stance does the master possess a legal any more than a 
 rightful property in the slave. 
 
 Finally, let it be assumed that the law of slavery in 
 India is what it is generally supposed to be, and that the 
 legal property of the master in the slave is undisputed and in- 
 disputable. Then let the government and people of England 
 consider the small number of slaves compared with the whole 
 population, at the most probably one million in a hundred 
 millions ; let them remember the low prices of slaves in India 
 as already specified; let them reflect on the eighteen or t 
 ty millions sterling annually wrung from the people of India 
 and lavished on unnecessary wars and armaments, or on 
 wasteful civil establishments, at home and abroad, by v 
 an official aristocracy are enabled to trample on the necks of 
 the subject people;. and then let them determine whether 
 a small portion of this revenue might not be more jr 
 more humanely, and more honorably employed in purchas- 
 ing from their masters the 'freedom of a million of British 
 subjects held in legal bondage. Nor let it be forgotten 
 that the decree has already gone forth from the Parliament 
 of Great Britain, that means shall be taken " forthwith " to 
 mitigate the state of slavery, to ameliorate the condition of 
 slaves, to extinguish slavery itself throughout British India, 
 " so soon as such extinction shall be practicable and safe," 
 and to prepare and transmit drafts of laws and regulations 
 for these purposes ; but that up to the present time, that is, 
 after a lapse of seven years, or a full third of the period for 
 which the government of India has been delegated to the 
 East India Company, notwithstanding the urgency of the 
 injunction addressed to them from the highest authority, 
 slavery has not been extinguished ; the condition of slaves 
 
IN INDIA. 241 
 
 has not been ameliorated ; the state of slavery has not been 
 mitigated ; drafts of laws and regulations for these purposes 
 have not been prepared and transmitted; nothing whatever 
 has been done or attempted by the East India Company or 
 by their local government to render the accomplishment of 
 the will of Parliament more practicable or more safe than 
 it was or was deemed in 1833; and from criminal inattention 
 to a high and sacred trust, everything remains in the state 
 in which it then was. Shall these things be and not excite 
 shame, indignation, reprehension, reform ? It is for the 
 people, the Parliament, and the government of England to 
 determine. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 with high consideration, 
 
 your obedient Servant, 
 
 W. ADAM. 
 
 Cambridge, New England, 
 February 29, 1840. r 
 

APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 MR. K. T. COLEBROOKE'S OPINIONS ON SLAVERY IN INDIA. 
 
 MR. H. T. COLEBROOKE'S opinions on any subject con- 
 nected with India are deserving of great consideration, and 
 in the preceding letters his opinions regarding slavery in 
 that country have been repeatedly referred to. Justice to 
 so important a subject and so high an authority requires 
 that his views should, as far as possible, be presented in a 
 connected form, and the following extracts are accordingly 
 subjoined. The first is from a treatise usually, and no 
 doubt justly, attributed to Mr. Colebrooke, entitled, Remarks 
 on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal, ori- 
 ginally written in 1794, corrected and published in Calcutta 
 1803-4, and republished for the author, London, 1806. 
 All the remaining extracts are taken from an official paper, 
 stated by Mr. Harington (Analysis of the Laws and Reg- 
 ulations, Vol. III. p. 743) to have been written by Mr. Cole- 
 brooke in the year 1812, but, Mr. Harington believed, not 
 entered on the public records. All that I know of the offi- 
 cial paper is by the detached extracts which Mr. Harington 
 has given from it in the Sixth Part, Section V., of the 
 above-cited work, and it does not appear whether those 
 
244 APPENDIX. 
 
 extracts include the whole of it, or whether any material 
 portion of it has been omitted. I am not aware of any 
 other expression of opinion by Mr. Colebrooke on this 
 subject. 
 
 (From Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal .Commerce 
 of Bengal, London, 1806, p. 129.) 
 
 " Slavery, indeed, is not unknown in Bengal. Through- 
 out some districts, the labors of husbandry are executed 
 Chiefly by bond-servants. In certain provinces, the plough- 
 men are mostly slaves of the peasants for whom they labor; 
 but treated by their masters more like hereditary servants 
 or like mancipated hinds than like purchased slaves, they 
 labor with cheerful diligence and unforced zeal. 
 
 " In some places, also, the landholders havr a claim to 
 the servitude of thousands among the inhabitants of their 
 estates. This claim, which is seldom enforced, and which 
 in many instances is become wholly obsolete, is founded on 
 some traditional rights, acquired many generations ago, in a 
 state of society different from the present; and slaves of 
 this description do, in fact, enjoy every privilege of a free- 
 man, except the name ; or at the worst, they must be con- 
 sidered as villains attached to the glebe, rather than as 
 bondmen laboring for the sole benefit of their owners. In- 
 deed, throughout India, the relation of master and slave 
 appears to impose the duty of protection and cherishment 
 on the master as much as that of fidelity and obedience on 
 the slave, and their mutual conduct is consistent with the 
 sense of such an obligation ; since it is marked with gentle- 
 ness and indulgence on the one side, and with zeal and 
 loyalty on the other. 
 
 " Though we admit the fact that slaves may be found in 
 Bengal among the laborers in husbandry, yet in most pro- 
 
APPENDIX. 245 
 
 vinces none but freemen are occupied in the business of 
 agriculture." 
 
 (From the official paper of 1812.) 
 
 " The Hindu law fully recognises slavery. It specifies 
 in much detail the various modes by which a person becomes 
 the slave of another; and which are reducible to the follow- 
 ing heads, viz. : capture in war; voluntary -submission to 
 slavery for diverse causes, (as a pecuniary consideration, 
 maintenance during a famine, &c. ;) involuntary, for the 
 discharge of debt, or by way of punishment of specific 
 offences ; birth as offspring of a female slave ; gift, sale, or 
 other transfer by a former owner ; and sale or gift of their 
 offspring by parents. It treats the slave as the absolute 
 property of his ma-ster, familiarly speaking of this species 
 of property in association with cattle, under the contempt- 
 uous designation of ' bipeds and quadrupeds.' It makes 
 no provision for the protection of the slave from the cru- 
 elty and ill-treatment of an unfeeling master; nor defines 
 the master's -power over* the person of his slave; neither 
 prescribing distinct limits to that power, nor declaring it to 
 extend to life or limb. It allows to the slave no right of 
 property even in his own acquisitions, unless by the indul- 
 gence of his master. It affords no opening to his redemp- 
 tion and emancipation, (especially if he be a slave by birth 
 or purchase,) unless by the voluntary manumission of him 
 by his master ; or in the special case of his saving his mas- 
 ter's life, when he may demand his freedom and the portion 
 of a son ; or in that of a female slave bearing issue to her 
 master, when both she and her offspring are entitled to free- 
 dom, if he have not legitimate issue ; or in the particular 
 instances of persons enslaved for temporary causes, (as debt, 
 21* 
 
246 APPENDIX. 
 
 amercement, cohabitation with a slave, and maintenance in 
 consideration of servitude,) on the cessation of the grounds 
 of slavery by the discharge of the debt or mulct, discontin- 
 uance of the cohabitation, or relinquishment of the main- 
 tenance. 
 
 " The Muhammadan law equally acknowledges slavery, 
 originating however in fewer sources ; namely : capture of 
 infidels in war ; birth as issue of a female slave ; to which 
 some authorities (who are chiefly followed) have added 
 sale of their offspring by parents in a dearth or famine. 
 The property is so absolute and complete that it is assigned 
 as a reason for subjecting an owner to no worldly punish- 
 ment or penalty for the murder of his slave ; he has of 
 course entire power over his person, being restrained by no 
 provisions of the law adapted to protect the slave from ill- 
 treatment. Manumission cannot be exacted from the owner, 
 unless in the case.where, for some cause, the slave is already 
 emancipated in part ; in which case he is entitled to redeem 
 himself by emancipatory labor equivalent to the remaining 
 portion of his value. In all other instances, emancipation 
 depends wholly on the will of the owner. But manumis- 
 sion of slaves is strongly recommended as a pious act, and 
 the law leans much against the slavery of Muhammadans. 
 A female slave bearing issue to her master does not acquire 
 freedom ; but gains other privileges, of which the chief is 
 that of not being liable to be sold to another person. Her 
 issue is free, and ranks with other illegitimate but acknow- 
 ledged offspring of her master." 
 
 " We find domestic slavery very general among both 
 Hindus and Musalmans. More trusty than hired servants, 
 slaves almost exclusively are employed in the interior of 
 the house, for attendance on the members of the family, and 
 in all the most confidential services. Every opulent person, 
 every one raised above the condition of the simplest medi- 
 ocrity, is provided with household slaves ; and from this 
 
APPENDIX. 247 
 
 class chiefly are taken the concubines of Musalmans and 
 Hindus; in regard to whom it is to be remembered that 
 concubinage is not among people of these religions an im- 
 moral state, but a relation which both law and custom 
 recognise without reprehension ; and its prevalence is lia- 
 ble only to the same objection as polygamy, Avith which it 
 has a near and almost necessary connexion. In the lower 
 provinces under this presidency the employment of slaves in 
 the labors of husbandry is nearly, if not entirely, unknown. 
 In the upper provinces, beginning from Western Behar and 
 Benares, the petty landholders who are themselves cultiva- 
 tors are aided in their husbandry by their slaves, whom 
 they very commonly employ as herdsmen and ploughmen; 
 and landholders of a higher order have in a few instances 
 the pretensions of masters over a part of their tenants long 
 settled on their estates, and reputed to be descended from 
 persons who were acknowledged slaves of their ancestors. 
 Their claims to the services of these hereditary serfs are 
 nearly obsolete, and scarcely attended with any practical 
 consequences. The serfs pay rent and other dues for the 
 lands which they till and the pastures on which they graze 
 their herds, and are not distinguished from the rest of the 
 peasantry, unless by a questionable restriction of the right 
 of removing at choice. But those employed in husbandry 
 by the inferior class of landholders are strictly slaves ; and 
 their condition differs from that of household slaves only as 
 the one is occupied in out-door work and the other in busi- 
 ness of the interior of the house. The employment of 
 slaves in handicraft is more rare, but not entirely unknown. 
 It would be difficult to form a computation of the number 
 of slaves throughout the country, or of the proportion to 
 the free population. Any steps towards the preparation of 
 an estimate which should approach to accuracy would in- 
 volve inquiries which must excite alarm, and could not but 
 be attended with circumstances offensive to the people. But 
 
248 APPENDIX. 
 
 taking a more general view, it may be stated that slaves are 
 neither so few as to be of no consideration, nor so numerous 
 as to constitute a notable proportion of the mass of popula- 
 tion. The number, which certainly is not relatively great, 
 has been kept up, or, to apply language of commerce to this 
 subject, the demand for slaves has been supplied, 1st, by 
 their marriages among themselves, or with free persons ; 
 2d, by the sale of free children into slavery within the coun- 
 try ; 3d, by importation from abroad, whether by sea or land, 
 previous to the late prohibition of that -traffic. Neither the 
 disposition of the people nor their accustomed mode of 
 treating their slaves tends to impede the rearing of children 
 by any discouragement to marriages. I of coin 
 the instances of concubines and prostitutes. In other cases, 
 a sense of propriety leads very usually to provide a match 
 for the household slave; and the -offspring following the 
 condition of the motherland the child of a female domestic 
 slave being considered to be attached to the family by a 
 stronger tie than the simple relation of siavc to a master, no 
 requisite indulgence is wanting to enable the mother to 
 devote due care to the rearing of her progeny. It is not 
 necessary to suppose the number of children born and rear- 
 ed to be deficient, for the sake of accounting for the call for 
 a supply from other sources, of foreign importation and home 
 sale of free children. Opulent persons, in whose families 
 more slaves maybe born than they are desirous of retaining 
 in their employ, do not sell, but emancipate, those whose ser- 
 vices they do not require; and persons of reduced circum- 
 stances, no longer needing nor able to employ so many 
 domestic slaves as before, are not less unwilling to dispose 
 of slaves by sale, which is a highly discreditable act, but 
 give them their freedom without a price, however acceptable 
 the value might be to them in their actual state of indigence. 
 The manumission of slaves, being deemed an act of piety 
 and an expiation of diverse offences, frequently takes place 
 
APPENDIX. 249 
 
 from religious motives, without either of the inducements 
 before described ; and slaves are often redeemed by pur- 
 chase either expressly for that purpose, or from a less lau- 
 dable impulse, as attachment to a courtesan, or some other 
 cause. The number of slaves continually diminishing, a 
 demand constantly exists for the purchase of them, which is 
 supplied chiefly by the sale of children by their parents in 
 seasons of scarcity and famine or in circumstances of indi- 
 vidual or peculiar distress. The low price at which these 
 sales are effected is an argument that no very urgent demand 
 commofily exists. Neither is there any brisk traffic of slaves, 
 which would be proof of an extensive demand and ample 
 supply. During a famine or a dearth, parents have been 
 known to sell their children for prices so very inconsiderable 
 and so little more than nominal, that they may in frequent 
 instances have credit for a better motive than that of momen- 
 tarily relieving their own necessities, namely, the saving of 
 their children's lives by interesting in their preservation per- 
 sons able to provide nourishment for them. The same 
 feeling is often the motive for selling children when par- 
 ticular circumstances of distress instead of a general dearth 
 disable the parents from supporting them. There is no 
 reason to believe that they are ever sold from mere avarice 
 and want of natural affection in the parent. The known 
 character of the people and proved disposition in all the 
 domestic relations must exempt them from the suspicion of 
 such conduct. But the pressure of want alone compels the 
 sale, whether the immediate impulse be consideration for 
 the child, or desire of personal relief. So long, therefore, as 
 no established fund or regulated system for the relief of the 
 indigent exists, it does not seem practicable to prevent or 
 restrain the disposal of children by their parents, which is 
 lawful by their own laws. There are two classes of pur- 
 chasers, -however, by whom larger prices are given than 
 intimated in the general view here taken. The one com- 
 
250 APPENDIX. 
 
 prises various religious orders, the members of which pur- 
 chase children to bring them up and initiate them in the 
 religious order to which they themselves belong. Being 
 restricted in their selection of subjects to the higher castes of 
 Hindus, they do not readily find persons of the requisite 
 caste willing to part with their children ; and being in general 
 opulent from the union of the commercial with the religious 
 profession, they are able to tempt the cupidity of parents by 
 a large pecuniary consideration, and often by a provision for 
 life. The greatness of the reward has been supposed to 
 lead to kidnapping in some instances of this nature, though 
 not frequently, since the purchaser requires to be ascertained 
 of the parentage of the child. The other description of pur- 
 chasers alluded to consists of the owners of sets of dancing 
 women, who buy female children and instruct them for public 
 exhibition. As they generally become courtesans when 
 they grow up, it might seem to be incumbent on a govern- 
 ment attentive to the morals of the people over whom it 
 rules to prevent this practice by prohibitory laws. I appre- 
 hend, however, that it would not be easy to frame rules 
 which would not be open to easy evasion. Instead of sale 
 as of a slave, it is already common to make an engagement 
 for a long term of years. It would be an obvious expedient 
 to shorten the term : it anight be going too far to presume 
 the intention of prostitution, and to prohibit all instruction 
 for purposes of exhibition of dances, which the people are 
 very partial to, and which are a regular part of their reli- 
 gious festivals and celebrations. 
 
 " The remaining source of the supply of slaves was (until 
 lately prohibited by law) importation both by sea and by 
 land. The importation by sea consisted of a very few 
 African slaves brought by Arab ships to the port of Calcutta. 
 Having been led to make some inquiries into this traffic 
 previous to its abolition, I had reason to be satisfied that the 
 whole number of slaves imported was very inconsiderable ; 
 
APPENDIX. 251 
 
 not exceeding annually a hundred of both sexes. I found 
 cause at the same time to be convinced that the means by 
 which slaves are procured on the Eastern Coast of Africa 
 for the Arab dealers who supply Arabia and Persia, and 
 who used to bring the small number mentioned to this port," 
 (Calcutta,) " are not less abominable and nefarious than 
 those practised on the West Cpast of Africa, consisting for 
 the most part in the forcible seizure of the slaves, either in 
 predatory war undertaken for the purpose, or by open rob- 
 bery, often attended with the murder of the parents. The 
 importation by land was principally from the territories of 
 Nepaul, whence a regular traffic in slaves appears to have 
 been carried on ; and occasionally from the western and 
 middle parts of India, whenever a local scarcity of provisions 
 gave a temporary impulse to a trade which was otherwise 
 in general languid. Although the subject was brought 
 under the notice of this" (the Bengal) "government by 
 representations from the local authorities in the Nepaul pro- 
 vinces, it is understood that the traffic owed its existence to 
 the oppressive administration of those very authorities, which 
 drove the wretched inhabitants of those provinces to the sad 
 resource of selling their children or themselves into slavery, 
 when all other means of meeting the insatiable exactions of 
 their Nepaulese rulers were exhausted. It was however 
 stated that, under cover of a trade which originated in this 
 cause, kidnapping was practised. And at all events, it was 
 highly expedient to prohibit the importation altogether, 
 whether it gave occasion to the commission of this offence, 
 or only served to crown the last act of extortion of Nepaulese 
 governors from their unhappy subjects. 
 
 " I have not spoken of the exportation of slaves from the 
 British territories, as there is not any cause to believe that 
 such a trade at present exists. Many years ago a clandestine 
 export by sea to the French Islands was detected, and being 
 immediately prohibited by proclamation, and the first subse- 
 
252 APPENDIX. 
 
 quent instance which was discovered being prosecuted to pun- 
 ishment, it was entirely suppressed, and no surmise of its re- 
 vival has since been entertained. Slaves may have been car- 
 ried out of the country by land in attendance on their masters, 
 or under other peculiar circumstances ; and possibly for sale 
 when a scarcity has existed within the territories. But the 
 instances must have been few and rare, and little apprehen- 
 sion can be entertained of the recurrence of it as a traffic. 
 At all events, should such apprehensions be felt, or should 
 the importation of slaves by land not be entirely stopped by 
 the regulation and penalties already enacted, it will be easy 
 to enforce the prohibition by severe penalties, which need 
 not however be carried to the length of those which the late 
 act of Parliament'' (olst George III. "chap. 23) "has pro- 
 vided to enforce the abolition of the traffic by sea. Advert- 
 ing to the known object and design of that enactment, we 
 have considered its provisions to be limited to the trade by 
 sea; and I trust such will be the construction which will be 
 put on it by magistrates and courts of justice, should any 
 question on it be raised, and the case brought before them. 
 I cannot, however, but think that the terms of the act are 
 very general, and rigidly construed may bear a different 
 interpretation. It declares the removal of any person (and 
 dealing with him as a slave) from one country to another to 
 be felony, punishable by transportation ; and does not apply 
 to the East Indies the exception which it allows in the 
 West for the removal of a person already a slave from one 
 part of the West Indies to another. Now this exception is 
 not less needed in these seas than in those of the western 
 hemisphere. For, not to speak at present of the removal of 
 slaves from one province to another on the continent, the 
 case must continually recur of a British subject, or inhabi- 
 tant of the British territories, a native probably of these 
 countries, embarking at one port for another on the Indian 
 continent, or proceeding from one island to another in the 
 
APPENDIX. 253 
 
 Eastern Archipelago, attended by a domestic slave. As the 
 law now stands, there can be no doubt that in every such 
 instance the individual unwillingly subjects himself to the 
 enormous penalty of felony, under an act passed in a distant 
 country, without any preliminary discussion as it respects 
 this; without any previous intimation that slavery or the 
 traffic of slaves was to be here abolished ; and without even 
 an intention on the part of the legislature to impose any 
 penalty or punishment, much less so severe a one, for the 
 act now specified." 
 
 "I conceive that there is no occasion for abolishing slavery, 
 or for preventing enslavement, or for prohibiting the sale of 
 actual slaves within the limits of the British territories in 
 India. Neither the means by which free persons (for the 
 most part children in a tender age) are rendered slaves, nor 
 the frequency of the occurrence in ^an objectionable form, 
 nor the common treatment of those who are already slaves 
 by their masters, is such as to call for the 'interposition of 
 legislative authority in a strong form. I trust not to be 
 considered an advocate for slavery, nor indifferent to the 
 miseries incident to the most.degraded condition in human 
 society, when I observe that in this country slaves are in 
 general treated with gentleness and indulgence. The slave 
 is a favorite s and confidential servant, rather than an abject 
 drudge ; and is as often held superior to the hireling in his 
 master's estimation and his own, as placed beneath him in 
 the scale of employment and of comforts. The mildness 
 and equanimity of the Indian's temper (or his apathy and 
 slowness, if this better describe the general disposition of 
 the people) contribute to ensure good treatment to the slave. 
 I should however only demonstrate unacquaintance with 
 human character if I affirmed this to prevail universally, 
 without any exception. I cannot doubt that bad temper and 
 dispositions sometimes constitute a harsh, severe, and even 
 cruel master. Nor have I been without occasions of being 
 22 
 
p 
 
 254 APPENDIX. 
 
 convinced that such characters are to be found among the 
 owners of slaves. But although the Hindu and Muham- 
 madan laws have not provided for the protection of the slave 
 from the barbarity of an inhuman master, the regulations 
 passed by British authority have done so, by expressly 
 annulling the exemption from kisas, or retaliation for mur- 
 der, in the case of a slave slain by his master. Since the 
 period (nearly fourteen years ago) when that regulation 
 was enacted, slaves have not been considered as out of the 
 protection of the law, either in case of murder or of barba- 
 rous usage ; and instances have occurred of recourse to the 
 officers of police for redress against the cruelty of a master 
 in cases falling short of that -extremity. And it might per- 
 haps be expedient, upon a future occasion of enacting rules 
 bearing relation to the subject of slavery, to provide speci- 
 fically for the interposjtion of the magistrate in an ascer- 
 tained case of barbarour treatment of a slave, and adjudge 
 his emancipation, with further penalties against his owner 
 if the case be heinous. " 
 
 No. II. 
 
 DR. FRANCIS BUCHANAN ON SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH OF INDIA. 
 
 IN the Letters, the account given of slavery in the South 
 of India is taken from the statements that have appeared in 
 the names of Mr. Baber. Mr. Campbell, Col. Welsh, Capt. 
 Bevan, and the Rev. Mr. Fcnn, written in 1832, and publish- 
 ed the same year by P parliamentary committee. Limiting 
 myself to the most recent authorities, whose descriptions may 
 be assumed to represent most accurately the actual state of 
 slavery, I have made little use of Dr. F. Buchanan's work 
 which was published in 1807, and which records the results 
 of observations and inquiries made in 1800 and 1801. It is 
 
APPENDIX. 255 
 
 proper however to show that the most important facts con- 
 nected with the state of slavery in the South of India were 
 presented in an official form to the East India Company by 
 one of their own servants nearly forty years ago, and the 
 following extracts from Dr. Buchanan's Travels in Mysore, 
 Canara, and Malabar are therefore subjoined. 
 
 THE LOWER CARNATIC, or Carnatic below the mountains, 
 that is, the British territory situated to the ivcst and south 
 of Madras. " The greater part of the Brahmans in the 
 lower- Carnatic follow secular professions. They almost 
 entirely fill the different offices in the collection of the 
 revenue and administration of justice ; and they are exclu- 
 sively employed as Hircaras, that is, guides or messengers, 
 and as the keepers of inns or choultries. Much of the^and 
 is rented by them ; but, like the Jews, they seldom put their 
 hands to actual labor, and on no account will they hold the 
 plough. Their farms they chiefly cultivate by slaves of the 
 inferior castes called Sudra and Panchum Bundum. The 
 Panchum Bun ] um are by far the most hardy and laborious 
 people of the country, but the greater part of them are slaves. 
 So sensible of their value was Hyder (Ali) that in his incur- 
 sions it was these chiefly whom he endeavored to carry 
 away. He settled them in many districts as farmers, and 
 would not suffer them to be called by their proper name, 
 which is considered opprobrious, but ordered that they 
 should be called cultivators. The Panchum Bundum con- 
 sist of four tribes, the Pariar, the Baluan, the Shecliar, and 
 the Toti. The Shecliars dress hides ; and from among the 
 Toti is chosen a particular class of village officers. There 
 are a few Musalman farmers who possess slaves ; but the 
 most numerous class is composed of the different tribes of 
 the Sudra caste. Some of these possess slaves, but many 
 of them cultivate their farms with their own hands." Vol. 
 I. p. 19. 
 
 SOUTH MALABAR. " Some poor men, chiefly of the Sha- 
 
256 APPENDIX. 
 
 nar caste, cultivate with their own hands the lands which 
 they hold as farmers (Cudians), but Brahmans never labor, 
 and the Nairs or Moplays very rarely. By far the greater 
 part of the labor in the field is performed by slaves or Chur- 
 mar. These are the absolute property of their Devarus or 
 lords, and may be employed in any work that their masters 
 please. They are not attached to the soil, but may be sold 
 or transferred in any manner that the master thinks fit, only 
 a husband and wife cannot be sold separately ; but children 
 may be separated from their parents, arid brothers from their 
 sisters. The slaves are of different castes, such as Parriar, 
 Vullam, Canacun, Erilay, &c. ; and the differences in the cus- 
 toms by which the marriages of these castes are regulated 
 occasion a considerable variation in the right of the master to 
 the children of his slaves, according to the caste to which 
 they belong. The master is considered as bound to give 
 the slave a certain allowance of provisions ; a man or woman 
 while capable of labor receives two edangallies of rice in 
 the husk weekly, or two- sevenths of the allowance that I 
 consider as reasonable for persons of all ages included. Chil- 
 dren and old persons past labor get one-half only of this pit- 
 tance ; and no allowance whatever is made for infants. 
 This would be totally inadequate to support them ; but the 
 slaves on each estate get one twenty-first part of the gross 
 produce of the rice, in order to encourage them to care and 
 industry. A male slave annually gets seven cubits of cloth 
 and a woman fourteen cubits. They erect for themselves 
 small temporary huts that are little better than large baskets. 
 These are placed in the rice-fields while the crop is on the 
 ground, and near the stacks while it is thrashing. 
 
 " There are three modes of transferring the usufruct of 
 slaves. The first is by jenmum, or sale, where the full 
 value of the slave is given, and the property is entirely trans- 
 ferred to a new master, who is in some measure bound by 
 his interest to attend to the welfare of his slave. A young 
 
APPENDIX. 257 
 
 man with his wife will sell for from two hundred and fifty 
 to three hundred fanams, or from 6L 4.9. ld. to 71. 8s. 
 lld. Two or three young children will add one hundred 
 fanams, or 21. 9s. 7f rf., to the value of the family. Four or 
 five children, two of whom 'are beginning .to work, will 
 make the family worth from five hundred to six hundred 
 fanams, or from 121. Ss. 3d. to 14Z. 17s. lid. The second 
 manner of transferring the lahor of slaves is by canum or 
 mortgage. The proprietor receives a loan of money, gene- 
 rally two-thirds of the value of the slaves ; he also receives 
 annually a small quantity of rice to show that his property 
 in the slaves still exists ; and he may re-assume this property 
 whenever he pleases to repay the money borrowed, for which 
 in the mean while he pays no interest. In case of any of 
 the slaves dying, he is held bound to supply another df 
 equal value. The lender maintains the slaves, and has their 
 labor for the interest of his money and for their support. 
 The third manner of employing slaves is by letting them 
 for patum or rent. In this case, for a certain annual sum, 
 the master gives them to another man, and the borrower 
 commands their labor and provides them with their main- 
 tenance. The annual hire is eight fanams (2s. ll\d.) for 
 a man, and half as much for a woman. These two tenures 
 are utterly abominable, for .the person who exacts the labor 
 and furnishes the subsistence of the slave is directly inte- 
 rested to increase the former and diminish the latter as much 
 as possible. In fact, the slaves are very severely treated; 
 and their diminutive stature and squalid appearance show 
 evidently a want of adequate nourishment. There can be 
 no comparison bet\veen their condition and that of the slaves 
 in the West India islands, except that in Malabar there are 
 a sufficient number of females who are allowed to marry 
 any person of the same caste with themselves, and whose 
 labor is always exacted by their husband's master, the master 
 22* 
 
258 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the girl having no authority over her so long as she lives 
 with another man's slave." Vol. II. p. 370. 
 
 " In small huts' contiguous to their houses, the Puttar 
 Brakinans commonly keep four or five cows, and the farmers 
 have generally one or two. When a man's stock of cows is 
 larger, they are kept with the laboring cattle, in a house built 
 at some distance from the abode of freemen, in the place 
 where the slaves are permitted to dwell when the crop is 
 not on the ground ; for these poor creatures are considered 
 as too impure to be permitted to approach the house of their 
 Devaru or lord." Vol. II. p. 380. 
 
 " Ani-Malaya, or Elephant-Hill, is so called from the 
 great number of elephants and hills in its neighborhood. It 
 is a town which contains about four hundred houses." 
 " Here is a person called Malaya-pudy or hill- village-man. 
 He rents the exclusive privilege of collecting drugs in the 
 hills south from Ani-Malaya. These are collected for him 
 by a hill-people called Cadar, of whom, among the hills two 
 days' journey hence, there is a village of .thirteen houses. 
 The renter has there a small house, to which he occasionally 
 goes to receive the drugs that the Cadar have collected, and 
 brings them home on oxen. The men only work for him, 
 and each daily receives in advance four puddles of rice, worth 
 half a Vir'-Raya fanam, or about 3d. At the end of the year 
 the accounts are settled, every article having a fixed value, 
 and the whole that each' person has delivered having been 
 estimated at this rate, he receives the balance if any be due. 
 In Tippoo's government the renter paid annually thirty 
 Canter'-Raya pagodas, or 61. 4s. \\d. His rent has this 
 year (1800) been raised to one hundred and fifty pago- 
 das, or 31Z. Qs. S^d. ; but then he is allowed to take 
 all the ivory that is found where elephants have died, and 
 which formerly belonged to the government." " At Ani- 
 Malaya are three persons called tamarind-renters, who pay 
 a trifling rent for the exclusive privilege of collecting the 
 
APPENDIX. 259 
 
 tamarinds, honey, wax, Nonaputta" (a kind of morinda 
 used as a dye,) " that are found in the woods which lie near 
 the town. The people employed by them are called Mala- 
 sir, and are also the wood-cutters of the country." 
 
 " The forests here are divided into Puddies, each of which 
 has its boundary ascertained, and contains one or more 
 families of a rude tribe called Malasir. Both the Puddy 
 and its inhabitants are considered as the property of some 
 landlord, who farms out the labor of these poor people, with 
 all that they collect, to some trader (Chitty or Manadi), who 
 treats the Malasirs much in the same way as the Malay a- 
 pudy of Ani-Malaya does the rude tribes under his au- 
 thority, and receives from them nearly the same articles. 
 In fact, this is a most iniquitous mode of taxing the Malasir, 
 and the produce of it is a mere trifle. The most productive 
 Puddy in the whole district pays only four rupees a year. 
 A capitation-tax on the Malasir might raise a greater 
 income to the proprietors of the woods, and be much less 
 oppressive. Having sent for some of these poor Malasirs, 
 they informed me that they live in small villages of five or 
 six huts, situated in the skirts of the woods on the hills of 
 Daraporam, Ani-Malaya, and Pali-ghat. They speak a 
 mixture of the Tamul and Malayala languages. They are 
 a better looking people than the slaves, but are ill-clothed, 
 nasty, and ill-fed. They collect drugs for the traders to 
 whom they are let ; and receive from him a subsistence 
 when they can procure for him anything of value. He has 
 the exclusive right of purchasing all that they have for sale, 
 and of supplying them with salt and .other necessaries. A 
 great part of their food consists of wild yams, (Dioscoreas,) 
 which they dig when they have nothing to give to the trader 
 for rice. They cultivate some small spots in the woods 
 after the Cotu-Cadu fashion (hoeing), both on their own 
 account and on that of the neighboring farmers, who receive 
 the produce and give the Malasirs hire. The articles culti- 
 
260 APPENDIX. 
 
 vated in this manner are Rali (Cynosurus corocanus), 
 Avar ay (Dolichos lablab), and Tonda (Ricinus Palma 
 Christi). They are also hired to cut timber and firewood. 
 In this province they pay nothing to the government." 
 Vol. II. pp. 331, 334, 337, 383. 
 
 With reference to the last extracts, it seems necessary to 
 point out that, although the Malasirs are distinguished 
 nominally from slaves, yet they are expressly stated to be 
 considered and treated as property like the forests they 
 inhabit ; that they and the Cadars have not the disposal of 
 their own labor, nor permission to buy and sell of and to 
 whom they please ; and that their labor is without their own 
 consent farmed to persons who in one instance pay for it a 
 rent to government, and in the other to a private landlord. 
 
 NORTH MALABAR. " The daily allowance here establish- 
 ed for slaves is of rough rice, 
 
 Cubical Inches. hels. 
 
 To able-bodied men, 6 Nallis heaped/r= 1481 which is yearly 251 
 To able-bodied women, 6 ditto streaked, = 103i ditto 
 To old persons and chil., 3 ditto heaped, = 7-1! ditto 12^ 
 
 The average, allowing one child and one old person to 
 every two men and two women in the prime of age, will 
 be 18^j bushels, of which one-half is husks. When the 
 scarcity that usually happens every year prevails, they get 
 part of their allowance in yams (Dioscoreas), jacks (Artocar- 
 pus), or plantains (Musa). When harvest is over they 
 receive each, according to their activity, a present of three 
 or four porays of rough rice, or from one to ly 4 ^ bushel, 
 which will make the annual average about 9 bushels of 
 rice ; their masters give them also some salt, oil, and pepper, 
 and they are allowed to keep fowls. Each person has 
 annually three pieces of cloth. The slaves say, what indeed 
 cannot be doubted, that they are much better used by their 
 own masters than when they are let out on mortgage (canum) 
 or hire (patum). In some parts of the province, Churmun is 
 
APPENDIX. 261 
 
 a term applied to slaves in general, whatever their caste may 
 be ; but it is in some other parts confined to" a peculiar caste 
 who are also called Polian, or in the plural Poliar. Even 
 among these wretched creatures the pride of caste has full 
 influence ; and if a Ckurmun or Polian be touched by a 
 slave of the Parian tribe, he is defiled, and must wash his 
 head and pray." "The Parian, or in the plural Pariar, 
 belong to a tribe of Malayala all of whom are slaves. In all 
 the countries where the Tamul language prevails" that is, in 
 the districts of South Arcot, Salem, Coimbetore, Kumbha- 
 konam, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, Dindigul,Tinnivelly, 
 and great part of Mysore, in all which it is spoken by more 
 than five millions of people " a tribe of the same name is 
 common ; but the customs of the two castes are by no means 
 the same. In Malabar there are three kinds of this tribe : 
 the Parian properly so called, the Perum Parian, and the 
 Mutruva Paria?i."Vol. II. pp. 491, 493. 
 
 " In Curumbara Nada there are some great farmers who 
 have ten ploughs, twenty oxen, twenty male and female 
 slaves, ten male and female Tiar" (a free caste) " servants, 
 and twenty-five milch cows. The number of such in the 
 whole district does not exceed ten or twelve, and by far the 
 greater number have only one or two ploughs. Almost all 
 the farmers (cudians) have slaves ; they are a very few only 
 that are reduced to the necessity of laboring with their own 
 hands. Male slaves sell at from twenty to sixty old Vir'- 
 Rayafanams, or from 9s. 6|d. to 2Ss. Sd. : women sell at only 
 one-half of this low price. The difference of caste makes 
 no variation in the value, although the children of different 
 castes are not divided in the same manner. A male slave 
 lets at four fanams a year, and a woman at half as much ; 
 the person who hires them providing for their maintenance. 
 In the parts of this district that, are situated towards the 
 frontier of Wynad live a rude tribe called Panian. They 
 dwell in small villages, each consisting of four or five huts, 
 
262 APPENDIX. 
 
 which are called Madum. They are not called Churmun or 
 slaves, but are in fact such, and belong to Tamburans or 
 lords, who give them daily subsistence and exact daily labor 
 precisely in the same manner and of the same kind as is 
 done with slaves. Disputes that happen to arise among 
 them are settled by their masters, who must also furnish 
 money to procure wives for their Panians. A wife and 
 the marriage expenses amount to twenty-five fanams." 
 " Another caste of Malayala condemned to slavery is called 
 in the singular Catal or Curumbal, and in the plural Cata- 
 lun or Curumbalun. They reckon themselves higher than 
 the Churmun, Foliar, or Parian" Vol. II. pp. 495 497. 
 
 SOUTH CANARA. " The cultivation is chiefly carried on 
 by Culialu or hired servants ; but there are also some Mu- 
 ladalu, bought men -or slaves. A hired man gets daily two 
 hanies of clean rice, or annually 21 J bushels, together with 
 1J rupee's worth of cloth, a pagoda in cash, and a house. 
 A hired woman gets 1J rupee for cloth and three-quarters 
 of the man's allowance of grain. In planting season the 
 women hired by the day get two hanies of rice, or 128J 
 cubical inches. These wages are very high, and may enable 
 the hired servants to keep a family in the greatest abun- 
 dance." " At the end of the year the hired servant may 
 change his service, if he be free from debt; but that is 
 seldom the case. When he gets deeply involved his master 
 may sell his sister's children to discharge the amount, and 
 his services may be transferred to any other man who chooses 
 to take hire and pay his debts to his master. In fact, he 
 differs little from a slave, only his allowance is larger, but 
 then the master is not obliged to provide for him in sickness 
 or in old age. 
 
 "A male slave is allowed daily 1| hany of rice, or three- 
 fourths of the allowance for a hired servant ; a woman 
 receives one hany. The man gets 1J rupee's worth of cloth 
 and two rupees in cash ; the woman is allowed only the 
 
APPENDIX. 263 
 
 cloth. They receive also a trifling allowance of oil, salt, 
 and other seasonings. A small allowance is given to chil- 
 dren and old people. When a slave wishes to marry, he 
 receives five pagodas (two guineas) to defray the expense. 
 The wife works with the husband's master. On the hus- 
 band's death, if the wife was a slave, all the children belong 
 to her mother's master ; but if she was formerly free, she 
 and all her children belong to her husband's master. A 
 good slave sells for about ten pagodas, or about four guineas 
 If he has a wife who was formerly free and two or three 
 children, the value is doubled. The slave may be hired 
 out ; and the renter both exacts his labor and finds him in 
 subsistence. Slaves are also mortgaged ; but the mortgager 
 is not obliged to supply the place of a slave that dies ; and 
 in case of accidents, the debt becomes extinguished, which 
 is an excellent regulation. Freemen of low caste, if they 
 are in debt or trouble, sometimes sell their sister's children 
 who are their heirs. They have no authority over their 
 own children who belong to their maternal uncles." Vol. 
 III. pp. 3537. 
 
 CENTRAL CANARA. " Having assembled some of the Co- 
 rar or Cora war, who under their chief Hubashica are said to 
 have once been masters of Tulava, I found that they are now 
 all slaves, and have lost every tradition of their former power. 
 Their language differs considerably from that of any other 
 tribe in the peninsula. When their masters choose to em- 
 ploy them, they get one meal of victuals, and the men have 
 daily one hany of rice, and the women three-quarters of a 
 hany. This is a very good allowance, but when the master 
 has no use for their labor, they must support themselves as 
 well as they can. This they endeavor to do by making 
 coir or rope from cocoa-nut husks, various kinds of baskets 
 from ratans and climbing plants, and mud walls. They 
 pick up the scraps and offals of other people's meals, and 
 skin dead oxen and dress the hides. They build their huts 
 
264 APPENDIX. 
 
 near towns and villages. Their dress is very simple, and 
 consists in general of a girdle in which they stick a bunch of 
 grass before and another behind. Some of the men have a 
 fragment of cloth round their waist ; but very few of the 
 women ever procure this covering. They are not however 
 without many ornaments of beads and the like ; and even 
 when possessed of some wealth do not alter their rude 
 dress. Some few of them are permitted to rent lands as 
 gaynigaras. In spite of this wretched life, they are a good- 
 looking people, and therefore probably are abundantly fed." 
 "When a man dies, his wives, with all their children, re- 
 turn to the huts of their respective mothers and brothers, and 
 belong to their masters." -" They follow all the oxen and 
 buffaloes of the village, as so much of the live stock, when 
 these arc driven in procession at a great festival which the 
 farmers annually celebrate." Vol. III. pp. 100, 101. 
 
 " In the northern part of Tulava are two castes called 
 Bacadaru and Batadaru, both of whom are slaves ; both 
 speak no other language than that of Karnata, and both 
 follow exactly the same customs. Each disputes for a pre- 
 eminence of rank, and they will not cat nor intermarry with 
 one another, except in certain cases of adultery, when, a 
 ceremony of purification having been undergone, a (male) 
 slave of the one caste may marry a female of the other. 
 Although they do not use leaves to cover their nudities, 
 they seem to be poorer and worse looking than the Corar, 
 whom I lately described. Their masters give annually to 
 each slave, male or female, one piece of cloth worth a rupee, 
 together with a knife. Each family has a house and ten 
 hanies' sowing of rice-land, or about a quarter of an acre. 
 At marriages they get one mudy of rice, (& bushel,) worth 
 about 2s., and half a pagoda, or 4s. in money. When their 
 master has no occasion for their work, they get no wages, 
 but hire themselves out as laborers in the best manner they 
 can ; for they have not the resource of basket-making, nor 
 
APPENDIX. 265 
 
 of the other little arts which the Corar practise. The mas- 
 ter is bound however to prevent the aged or infirm from 
 perishing of want. When they work for their master, 
 a man gets daily 1| hany of rice to carry home, with \ a 
 hany ready dressed, in all 2 hanies, or rather more than 
 one-sixteenth of a bushel ; a woman gets 1J hany of rice to 
 carry home, and \ hany ready dressed ; and a boy gets 1 
 hany of rice." Vol. III. p. 106. 
 
 NORTH CANARA, " In the farms of the Brahmans, most 
 of the labor is performed by slaves. These people get daily 
 1| hany of rice ; a woman receives 1 hany. Each gets 
 yearly 2| rupees' worth of cloth, and they are allowed time 
 to build a hut for themselves in the cocoa-nnt garden. 
 They have no other allowance, and out of this pittance 
 must support their infants and aged people. The woman's 
 share is nearly 15 bushels a year, worth rather less than 
 14J rupees ; to this if we add her allowance for clothes, 
 she gets 16| rupees a year, equal to II. 16s. 8d. The 
 man's allowance is 22 bushels, or 23J rupees, or 21. 3s. 
 O^d. A male free servant, hired by the day, gets 2 
 hanies of rice. Both work from seven in the morning till 
 five in the evening; but at noon they are allowed half an 
 hour to eat some victuals that are dressed in the family as 
 part of their allowance ; and every caste can eat the food 
 which a Brahman has prepared." Vol. III. p. 140. 
 
 SOONDA or Sudhapura, above the Ghauts, but included in 
 Canara. " In this country a few slaves are kept ; but most 
 of the labor, even in the grounds of the Brahmans, is per- 
 formed by the proprietors, or by hired servants." " A male 
 slave gets daily 2 pucka seers of rough rice, with annually one 
 blanket, one handkerchief," more properly Neckerchief, 
 being intended to cover the head, " a piece of cotton cloth, 
 and some oil, tamarinds, and capsicum. He gets no money 
 except at marriages ; but these cost 16 pagodas, or 6Z. 8s. 
 ., for the woman must be purchased. She and all her 
 23 
 
266 APPENDIX. 
 
 children, of course, become the property of her husband's 
 master. The woman slave gets daily 1| seer of rough rice, 
 a blanket, and annually a piece of cotton cloth and a jacket. 
 Children and old people get some ready-dressed victuals at 
 the house of the master, and are also allowed some clothing. 
 The men work from sunrise till sunset, and at noon are 
 allowed one Hindu hour, or about twenty-four minutes, for 
 dinner. The women are allowed till about eight o'clock in 
 the morning to prepare the dinner, which they then carry 
 to the fields, and continue to work there with the men until 
 sunset." Vol. III. p. 226. 
 
 " A farmer who has five ploughs is esteemed a rich man. 
 With these he must keep six men and six women, and ten 
 laboring cattle ; and at seed-time and harvest he must hire 
 additional laborers. Farmers who are not Bnihmans, un- 
 less their farms be large, work the whole with their own 
 families ; but rich men must hire servants or keep slaves ; 
 and to hold their plough, Brahmans must always have peo- 
 ple of the low castes. This is a kind of work that even a 
 Haiga Brahman will not perform. 
 
 A man slave gets daily 2 seers of rough rice, 
 
 or yearly about 26 bushels, worth 1 2s. O^d. 
 A handkerchief, a blanket, and piece of 
 
 cloth, worth 2 rupees, 4 OJ 
 
 A pagoda in money, 8 OJ 
 
 Six candacas of rough rice at harvest, 14 6 
 
 ~2~8 ?i 
 
 The women get one piece of cloth annually, 
 and a meal of ready-dressed victuals on 
 the days that they work, which may 
 amount annually to 081 
 
 Hired men get four seers of rough rice a day, worth less 
 than three halfpence." Vol. III. p. 243. 
 
 Principality of IKERI in Mysore. " Most of the cultivation 
 
APPENDIX. 267 
 
 is carried on by the families of the cultivators. There are 
 very few hired servants ; but a good ma-ny slaves, by whom 
 on the farms of the Brahmans all the ploughing is per- 
 formed. A slave gets annually 1-J rupee for a blanket ; 3 
 rupees' worth of cotton cloth ; J rupee for a handkerchief; 
 6 candacas of rough rice, worth 4 rupees, to procure salt, tam- 
 arinds, &c. ; anddaily 1| colaga of rough rice, or annually 27 
 candacas (or almost 49 bushels), worth 11. 16s. ll^d. ; add 
 the annual allowances, 17s. 7Jd., the total expense of main- 
 taining a male slave one year is 2Z. 14s. 7^d. A woman 
 slave gets as follows : 365 colagas, one daily, and 3 canda- 
 cas at harvest; in all 21 J candacas, or 36 J bushels, worth 
 14 T 3 F rupees ; 2 rupees' worth of cloth, and J rupee for a 
 jacket; in all nearly 16 J rupees, or 1Z. 13,9. 2d. The marriage 
 of a slave costs 10 pagodas, or about four guineas. The wife 
 belongs to the husband's master. A master cannot hinder 
 his slave-girl from marrying the slave of another man, nor 
 does he get any price for her. The widow and children, 
 after a slave's death, continue with his master. If a slave 
 has no child un by his first wife he is allowed to take 
 another." Vol. III. p. 280. 
 
 Notices of the NUMBER OF SLAVES in Malabar and 
 Canara, scattered through Dr. Buchanan's ivork. The 
 gentlemen whose names are mentioned below were the 
 magistrates and collectors of revenue in the different dis- 
 tricts of those provinces at the time embraced by Dr. Bu- 
 chanan's Travels. 
 
 Locality. Slaves. 
 
 Mr. Warden's Districts in South Malabar, 16,574 Vol. II. p. 362 
 
 Mr. Wye's " < Cent. Malabar, 16,201 p. 442 
 
 Mr. Baber's " < " 4,765 p. 485 
 
 Mr. Coward's " < N. Malabar, 8,592 p. 508 
 
 Mr. Strachy's " ' " 161 p. 526 
 
 Mr. Wilson's " < " 100 p. 543 
 
 Mr. Hodgson's < " 4,670 p. 562 
 
268 APPENDIX. 
 
 Locality. Slaves. ^ 
 
 Mr. Ravenshaw's Districts in South Canara, 7,924 Vol. III. p. 2 
 
 " " " " 47,358 p. 7 
 
 Mr. Read's " N. Canara, 1,099 p. 195 
 
 " " " " 415 p. 246 
 
 It is not improbable that the smaller number of slaves, 
 7,924, stated to be in Mr. Ravenshavv's districts in South 
 Canara, is included in the larger number stated to be found 
 in the same districts. The larger number is taken from 
 a table, respecting which Dr. Buchanan states that "reliance 
 may be placed on its accuracy with respect to numbers." 
 
 No. III. 
 
 MR. D. LISTON OJ* SLAVERY IN GORAKHPUR. 
 
 MR. LISTON'S information respecting slavery in the district 
 of Gorakhpur in Oude has been quoted in part ; but it 
 seems desirable to give in full the paper in which it is com- 
 municated to the editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society 
 of Bengal, Vol. VI., p. 950, in the number of that publication 
 for November, 1837. 
 
 " Translation of a Servitude-Bond granted by a cultivator 
 over his family, and of a Deed of Sale of two slaves. By 
 D. LISTON, Esq., Gorakhpur. 
 
 " Some months ago I was requested by Captain LAW- 
 RENCE, under whose charge the survey of the eastern 
 division of the district is placed, to furnish answers to 
 statistical inquiries regarding Sidowa Jobena, a parguna 
 of Gorakhpur, bounding on Sarwi. I in turn thought of 
 applying for aid in the compilation of the replies to a friend 
 who has been, settled as an indigo-planter^ for several 
 years in Sidowa, and who proved to be possessed of a compe- 
 tent acquaintance with the habits and usages of the natives 
 in his neighborhood. 
 
 * "Mr. J. FINCH, of Bubnowli," 
 
APPENDIX. 269 
 
 " One of the queries put was, ' How do Zemindars pay 
 people who water and cultivate lands for them?' The 
 reply was to this effect : * They employ bond-servants, 
 who are paid at half a cooly's rate, and are at the same time 
 liable to fine in case of absenting themselves from their su- 
 perior's work.' Further inquiry procured me the accom- 
 panying bonds or deeds, and as they appear curious and 
 valuable from throwing light on the condition of the agri- 
 cultural population of this portion of India, I have translated 
 them, and now forward them to your address. If you re- 
 gard them in the same light as I have done, perhaps you 
 may think it worth while to publish them in the Journal ; if 
 you do not think them of sufficient importance for this pur- 
 pose, pray dispose of them as you may think proper. 
 
 " The deeds you will observe are blank, but still such as 
 are daily executed and in full force. They were written out 
 by a common village Putwari^ and are in the rustic dialect 
 or Patois of the section of the province where he resides. 
 The spelling you will also see is not ordered according to 
 any very uniform system. 
 
 " SERVITUDE-BOND. 
 
 " Translation. 
 
 "DEED ABHEEMAN KOOROOMEE and his children's plough- 
 bond for fifty-one rupees, written, signed, rupees fifty-one, 
 51. 
 
 " [Place for the master's name.^] 
 
 " WRITING ABHEEMAN KOOROOMEE, inhabitant of Futa- 
 poor, perguna Sidowa Jobena Elaka Sooba Oudes Zil- 
 lah Gorakpur, having received a loan of fifty-one (51) 
 rupees fromt (the above-mentioned individual,) I have 
 
 * " Mr. FINCH'S name is set down in the original, which, it is hardly 
 necessary to repeat, is fictitious." 
 
 f Blank in original. 
 23* 
 
270 APPENDIX. 
 
 granted a bond agreeing to pay interest for the said rupees 
 at eight anas per month ; for these same rupees I of my 
 own will and accord execute (this) deed of Hurwuhulundhee" 
 (i. e., absolute bondage) " (to have force) over my whole 
 family for the driving of a plough, and for remaining always 
 at hand to execute every kind of labor that may occur. If 
 I remain absent a day from my plough or work, then shall 
 I be held responsible to the extent of a rutee weight of gold 
 for each day's absence. If I go any where in the manner 
 of flight, then let my whole family be seized. If any other 
 person give (me) a greater sum, he must pay at once prin- 
 cipal and interest of this loan. That man may then take 
 my family. If he do not give the money, then may my 
 family be seized without dispute ; any other inter fen >u: will 
 be in vain indeed. This is written that the first engage- 
 ment may remain in force. 
 " Written 29th Falgoon, year 1244, forty-four, at Emelia." 
 
 " DEED OF SALE OF Two SLAVES. 
 " Explanation and Translation. 
 
 " DHODHO MAHTO Kumkur, of his own will and accord, 
 sells AJUNSIA and RUPIA, having executed and delivered a 
 deed of sale of slaves signed or a mofurkutee loonkutee. 
 
 " [I do not find the five or six first lines very intelligible, 
 but what follows presents no great difficulty.] 
 
 " The deed commences with the invocation usual in 
 Sanscrit documents of Sosti Sri; the two first lines are 
 taken up nearly with the enumeration of the titles of 
 VIKRAMAJIT and of SALIVAHUN'S power. In the fourth line 
 the forty-third year of some king is indicated. ALUMGIR 
 is then mentioned, and the thirty-second year of Nawdb 
 MIRZA AMANI BEG spoken of. Then follows the year of 
 the rule of the Honorable English Company, viz., the 
 
APPENDIX. 271 
 
 thirty-third, Mr. CURRIE being administrator, (local). The 
 locality Gorakhpur, south of which runs the Ganges, and 
 to the north the Gunduk. The country Bharuthkum, sir- 
 kar Gorakpur, sooba Aoadh, Aklernuggur, perguna Sedooa 
 Jobena, talooka Bansgaon, tuppah Thadeebaree. The 
 twenty-fifth year (of the rule) of Babu ESRI KUMAR SAH 
 (talookdar), the twenty-second year (since the establish- 
 ment of the English perguna). Sekh JUMALUDIN being 
 foujdar and tehsildar at the tehsildaree of Peronna. 
 
 11 In the village of Buderuha a sale of slaves was effected. 
 Purchaser, UDHO SINGH ; amount, 43 furakabad rupees. 
 Seller, by name DHODHO MAHTO Kumkur^ of his own will 
 and accord, he sells BULBHADER'S wife.t and son, two adults. 
 The woman's name AJUNSIA, the lad's name RUPIA, (this) 
 slavery -bond being executed and delivered. The woman's 
 age 22, t complexion fairish. RUPIA'S age 28, complexion 
 dark, eyes dark. Of these people DHODHO MAHTO Kumkur 
 has completed the sale ; wherever they go, thence they may 
 be brought back, as slaves -they are sold to perform every 
 kind of work ; wherever they may flee, thence they may be 
 seized and brought back without objection or complaint or 
 murmur, without obstacle may they be brought from under 
 the king's or prince's throne ; whoever receives these ser- 
 vants, he may (legally) be adjured the Hindu by the 
 sacred cow; the Musalman by HUSEN, by the Sekh, Seyd, 
 Mogul, Peytan, Sumbut, year 1894, month Jet, dark half 
 13th day, Sunday, year 1244, place Buderuha, two ghurees 
 of the day being spent, this was written and signed." 
 
 * " The Kumkurs are Kuhars or bearers." 
 
 f " A slave-holder may sell a whole family or what part of it may 
 suit his convenience." 
 
 J "In the original the word is thirty, the ciphers twenty-two as 
 here." 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 " [We have not thought it necessary to insert a lithograph 
 of the deeds themselves, which are in the ordinary Kayasthi 
 or Kaiti form of Nagari. ED.]" 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 CASE OF THE SHIP ADRAMYTTE. 
 
 I THINK it desirable to place upon record the principal 
 document in my possession relating to the case of the ship 
 Adramytte. Although it contains a repetition of the details 
 already given, yet the whole case will probably be 1 
 understood by a perusal of the paper in full. The case is 
 one which, it appears to me, demands explanation from the 
 Bengal government as to the grounds on which they aban- 
 doned the prosecution of legal measures against ] 
 accused of the importation of slaves, to the establishment 
 of which charge the strongest testimony was within reach. 
 
 Affidavit of William Adam. 
 
 William Adam, of the Circular Road, in the town of 
 Calcutta, gentleman, maketh oath and saith, that on the 
 evening of the thirty-first of October last, Mr. Constantine 
 Pandazie, a Greek merchant resident in Calcutta, with 
 whom he had been for some time previously acquainted, 
 called on him at his house in the Circular Road, and 
 informed him that he had reason to believe that the Arab 
 ship Adramytte, Nacoda Ruhim Seyud, which had recently 
 arrived in the port of Calcutta, had brought for sale three 
 slave-girls, one Greek and two Africans, belonging to one 
 Hajee Durvesh, a passenger on board the said ship, and 
 requested the advice and assistance of this deponent in the 
 
APPENDIX. 273 
 
 endeavors of him, the said Constantine Pandazie, to procure 
 their liberation. That he, the said Constantine Pandazie, 
 then and there farther stated that he derived his information 
 above stated from a person who had been on board of the 
 said ship, and had been assured by two of the Lascars 
 belonging to the said ship that there had been three slave- 
 girls brought on in the said vessel to Calcutta, one of whom 
 was a Christian, but that they had been taken on shore at 
 Calcutta by night a few days after the arrival of the said 
 ship, and which said two Lascars had promised to come on 
 shore and give evidence, if required, to that effect. That he, 
 the said Constantine Pandazie, then and there further stated 
 that the said Hajee Durvesh had been known to make fre- 
 quent voyages to Calcutta, but that he had never brought, 
 as far as the said Mr. Constantine Pandazie's information 
 and observation extended, any legal merchandise, but, 
 although professing to be a merchant, had on all occasions 
 apparently come without any cargo, consignment, or ship- 
 ment of any kind. That this deponent had frequent 
 communications with the said Mr. Constantine Pandazie 
 between the first and fifth instant, the result of which was 
 that it was found impossible to get the said two LaScars on 
 shore. That on the evening, however, of the last-men- 
 tioned day, the said Mr. Constantine Pandazie called at the 
 house of this deponent and informed him that a Malay 
 woman, who had for many years associated with the Greeks 
 in Calcutta, and could speak the modern Greek, and was 
 acquainted with the said Hajee Durvesh, had in the absence 
 of the said Hajee Durvesh called at the house in which he 
 kept his said slaves, and ha.d seen one of the said African 
 girls, and had conversed with the said Greek girl, who 
 stated that she had been bought as a slave by the said 
 Hajee Durvesh, and was kept by him in a state of slavery 
 and restraint, and entreated that means might be employed to 
 set her at liberty. That on the morning of the sixth instant 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 this deponent went to the house of the said Mr. Constantine 
 Pandazie, who had engaged to procure the attendance of. 
 the said Malay woman in order that this deponent might 
 write down on paper a plain statement of the facts with 
 which she* had become acquainted, preparatory to their 
 being thrown into the form of an affidavit or deposition by 
 an attorney at law who had consented to give his services for 
 that purpose, to the truth of which affidavit it was intended 
 that she should have sworn before a magistrate with a view 
 to ulterior criminal proceedings against the said Hajee 
 Durvesh. That on arriving, however, at Mr. Constantine 
 Pandazie's house, this deponent was informed by him that 
 the said Hajee Durvesh, having become acquainted with 
 the designs of this deponent and of the said Mr. Constan- 
 tine Pandazie, and with the nature of the evidence they 
 had obtained against him, had come voluntarily fonvard 
 and offered to surrender the said Greek girl to the Greeks 
 at the house of Mr. Lucas, a Greek gentleman long 
 dent in Calcutta. That they accordingly proceeded to Mr. 
 Lucas's house, wjiere they found that the said Hajee Dur- 
 vesh, with two other Turks, had already brought the said 
 Greek girl. That when she had satisfied herself that she 
 was surrounded by friends and countrymen, sh< 
 intervals a brief history of herself, and said that her name 
 was Paraskeve, that she was a native of Crete, and that 
 her mother had died by the plague ; that at the commence- 
 ment of the Greek Revolution, her father, with herself, her 
 sister, her brother, and many other Greeks, had find from 
 the plains to the mountains to avoid the fury of the 
 Turks ; that her father, rashly returning to the plains, had 
 been slain, and herself, her sister, and her brother taken 
 prisoners ; that they were taken by an Algerine Turk to 
 Alexandria, and there sold as slaves, with the exception of 
 the brother, who was forced to become a Musalman ; and 
 that after various changes she had been at last brought to 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 Judda, where she was sold to the said Hajee Durvesh, who 
 immediately put her on board the Adramytte, which shortly 
 after sailed for and arrived at Calcutta as aforesaid. That 
 through the medium of an interpreter this deponent spoke 
 to the said Hajee Durvesh, and the two other Turks which 
 accompanied him as aforesaid, of the illegality and danger 
 of the trade in which they were apparently all implicated, 
 and particularly to the said Hajee Durvesh, whose engage- 
 ment in it was so evident; but in answer to the inquiries of 
 this deponent, the said Hajee Durvesh denied that he had 
 the two African girls who, this deponent suspected, were 
 in his possession, although when the Greek girl was inter- 
 rogated thereto she affirmed that he had brought them also 
 with him to Calcutta. That this deponent was accordingly 
 desirous of employing her evidence to prove the fact, but 
 was disappointed to find that his Greek friends, having 
 obtained the liberation of the said Greek girl in manner 
 aforesaid, were unwilling to proceed any further as to 
 obtaining the liberation of the said two African slaves ; that 
 after several ineffectual endeavors to remove the scruples 
 and groundless apprehensions of the Greek friends of this 
 deponent, he, this deponent, found by .a note, under date 
 eighth instant, from the said Mr. Constantino Pandazie, that 
 this deponent must give up all hope of their further co-ope- 
 ration. That the two following days this deponent was 
 employed in consulting his friends as to the course which, 
 under such circumstances, he was called upon to pursue, 
 and in conformity with their advice, as well as his own 
 convictions, he, this deponent, resolved to lay the whole 
 affair before government, and leave them to adopt such 
 measures as might appear to them proper, rendering such 
 aid as his acquaintance with the circumstances of the case 
 might enable him to afford. That this deponent accordingly 
 wrote to Mr. Secretary Lushington, on the eleventh instant, 
 regarding the subject, and was answered by Mr. Acting- 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 Secretary Molony, who favored this deponent with an audi- 
 ence on the same day, when this deponent made him 
 acquainted with the principal features of the case. That 
 on the twelfth instant he received a letter from the said Mr. 
 Molony, informing him that he, the said Mr. Molony, had 
 submitted the matter to government, and that they had 
 directed him to put it into the hands of R. C. Harwell, Esq., 
 chief magistrate of Calcutta, for the adoption of such steps 
 as might appear to him fit and proper, and requesting this 
 deponent to wait on that gentleman for examination. That 
 this deponent accordingly called on the fourteenth and 
 seventeenth instant at the police office, and after a long 
 examination on the last of these days was requested to pre- 
 pare and bring a statement of all the circumstances known 
 to this deponent in the form of an affidavit, to which he 
 should be sworn. That in compliance with such re-. 
 the preceding particulars have been thrown together into 
 their present form. 
 
 (Signed) W. ADAM. 
 
 Sworn this 24th day of November, 
 1826, before me, 
 
 (Signed) R. C. HARWELL, 
 
 Chief Magistrate of Calcutta. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN CEYLON. 
 
 THE government of Ceylon not being administered by 
 the East India Company, but by^the ministers of the Crown, 
 it did not come within the object of the Letters to advert to 
 the successful abolition of slavery in that island in 1816. 
 But the example should not be overlooked, both for the sake 
 of the lesson which it teaches, and as a means of showing 
 
APPENDIX. 277 
 
 due honor to the distinguished philanthropist, Sir Alexan- 
 der Johnston, by whose exertions the measure was effected, 
 and to the benevolent slave-proprietors who unanimously 
 co-operated with him. 
 
 Sir Alexander Johnston appears to have left England the 
 first time for Ceylon in 1802, and in 1806 he became 
 Chief Justice, First Member of the High Court of Appeal, 
 and President of His Majesty's Council. From the time of 
 his arrival in Ceylon, he felt it to be his duty to adopt such 
 a line of policy in his official capacity as might prepare the 
 way for the extinction of slavery in the island, which ap- 
 pears to have existed there only in the domestic form ; and 
 with this view, in 1806, he proposed to the principal pro- 
 prietors of slaves a measure, the details of which are not 
 given, and the adoption of which it was deemed at that 
 time advisable to postpone. In 1809, he returned to Eng- 
 land, and in 1811 to Ceylon, and having brought out with 
 him the act of 1811, declaring the trading in slaves to be 
 Felony, and a commission authorizing himself and certain 
 other commissioners to try all offences against that act with 
 a grand and petty jury, he caused the act to be publicly 
 promulged upon the island ; and a case of importance having 
 occurred in 1813, all the prisoners, one of them a man well 
 known throughout Arabia and India, were tried arid con- 
 victed before him, which called the attention of the people 
 to the nature of the offence, and prevented the commission 
 of any more offences of that description. In consequence 
 of the proceedings at this trial, the remarks which he made 
 upon the subject at all the criminal sessions to the persons 
 who were on the roll of jurymen, and finally a letter which 
 he wrote in 1816 to the Dutch gentlemen whose names 
 were on the list of special jurymen for the province of Co- 
 lombo, much interest was excited, and a meeting of the 
 special Dutch jurors was assembled by general consent and 
 held at Colombo on Monday, the 15th July, 1816, at which 
 24 
 
278 APPENDIX. 
 
 certain resolutions were framed and adopted, declaring in 
 substance that all children born of their slaves after the 12th 
 of Aug., 1816, should be considered as born free. This 
 example was immediately followed by the jurymen of the 
 different castes of natives at Colombo, who passed resolu- 
 tions declaring "their unanimous acquiescence in the measure 
 adopted by the Dutch special jurymen ; and shortly after 
 by all the proprietors of domestic slaves on the island. It 
 was also provided that the children born free after the 12th 
 of Aug., 1816, should be maintained by the masters of their 
 parents, if females, until the age of twelve, if males, until 
 the age of fourteen, it being supposed that after they attain- 
 ed that age they would be able to support themselves. 
 
 The Dutch special jurymen of Colombo consisted of about 
 130 of the most respectable Dutch gentlemen of the place; 
 and in this number were contained almost all the Dutch 
 who were large proprietors of slaves. Besides these gen- 
 tlemen, there were jurymen of all the different caster among 
 the natives, such as vellales, fishermen, men of the Maha- 
 badde or cinnamon department, Chitters, and Muhamma- 
 dans ; and all the proprietors of slaves in Ceylon were on the 
 list of jurymen. The total number of slave-proprietors was 
 763 ; the number of slaves was between 9,000 and 10,000; 
 and the population of the then British territories on the isl- 
 and was about 600,000. Domestic slavery had been in 
 existence for a period of 300 years. 
 
 These details have been collected from Sir Alexander 
 Johnston's Evidence before a Select Committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1832, with accompanying documents ; and 
 they show, amongst other things, that the act of 1811, mak- 
 ing the slave-trade felony, was not in Ceylon either unduly 
 limited in its application, or allowed to remain a dead letter, 
 as in the Bengal and Madras territories of the East India 
 Company, but that, under a commission from the Crown, it 
 was rigorously and effectually enforced. We see also how 
 
I 
 
 APPENDIX. 279 
 
 powerful official influence was in Ceylon, when employed 
 on the side of justice and humanity. Europeans and 
 natives the pride of the one class, the prejudices of the 
 other, the pecuniary advantage of both all gave way. 
 Other examples are not wanting to show how powerful for 
 evil is that same influence, how benumbing and deadening, 
 when arrayed, as it too frequently is in India, against useful 
 and benevolent designs. To this the fruitless, because unsup- 
 ported, exertions of Mr. Richardson in the Bengal, and of 
 Mr. Baber in the Madras presidency, to ameliorate the law 
 of slavery and the condition of slaves, bear witness. 
 
 Sir Alexander Johnston states in his Evidence that since 
 his return to England he has been engaged as chairman 
 of the Committee of Correspondence of the Royal Asiatic 
 Society, with the assistance of Mr. Baber, the late judge on 
 the Malabar Coast, in collecting such information relative to 
 the state of slavery in the peninsula of India as may enable 
 the British government to adopt, on the continent of India, 
 the same policy as that which has been successful in Ceylon. 
 The Committee of Correspondence of the Asiatic Society 
 have already collected some very useful information, he 
 adds, from various quarters, particularly from the papers 
 published by order of the House of Commons in 1826, and 
 they soon expect to obtain much more from different parts 
 of India. This was stated in 1832, and if the information 
 thus collected has been published, I have never happened 
 to hear of it. If it has not been published, why has it not? 
 Has the Royal Asiatic Society, since 1832, passed under 
 any influence unfavorable to the prosecution and publication 
 of such inquiries ?