Untitled - African American History

Ill HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SLAVERY.
debt, by captivity, by birth, by marriage to a slave, or by
sale as punishment for crime. 1
Children follow the con-
and all slaves are inherited as a
dition of their mother ;
part of the estate of a deceased master. The agrestic
slaves (such as are attached to the soil), are subject to
the laws of ancestral real property ; while the domestics,
attached to the person, pass under the laws regulating
personal property. 2
The Hindoo law gave the master unlimited powers
over his
"
slaves. It makes no provision for the protection
of the slave from the cruelty and ill-treatment of an
unfeeling master, nor defines the master's power over
the person of his slave. It allows to the slave no right
of property even in his own acquisitions, except by the
of his master." 3
indulgence
The modes of enfranchisement, by this law, ^vere
various. Among others, the preservation of the master's
life; or the bearing to him a son, by a female slave,
as a manumission. 4
operated
"When India passed under Mussulman rule, the Mohammedan
law of slavery became engrafted upon that
of India, and, until the possession by Britain, was the
paramount law.
The Mohammedan law recognized but two legitimate
sources of slavery, viz. : captive infidels, and their de-
scendants; these are subject to all the laws of contract,
sale, and inheritance, as other property. They cannot
marry without the consent of their masters ; they cannot
testify as witnesses; they cannot be parties to a suit;
they are ineligible to all offices of profit and trust ; nor
can they contract, or acquire, or inherit property.
1
Adam, on Slavery in India, 14, citing Colebrooke's Digest of Hindoo
Law, vol. ii, pp. 340, 346, 368 ; Menu's Institutes of Hindoo Law, ch.
viii, v. 415 ; Wallon, de 1'Esclavage, &c., torn, i, p. 30.
2 Ibid.
8 Colebrooke, quoted by Adam, p. 17; Wallon, de 1'Esclavage, &c., torn,
i, 33.
4 Adam, on Slavery in India, 17, 19.