New York 316–319 PART I THE INSTITUTION AS PRACTICED BY THE INDIANS, THE SPANIARDS AND THE FRENCH CHAPTER I +Enslavement by the Indians Themselves+ The discussion of the use of Indians as slaves by the aborigines within the present limits of the United States, both before and after the coming of the Europeans, may be prefaced by the statement that the institution of slavery in some form was practically universal. Certain tribes held slaves more generally than others, and various tribes were more subject to enslavement than others, according to their relative strength and weakness.[1] Yet nowhere in the territory under discussion did slavery exist on such an extensive scale that some tribes held others in a state of subjection and demanded servile labor from them. Slavery among the tribes of the Great Plains and the Atlantic Slope was different in nature from that in the northwest. Frequent mention of such slavery is found, but it has been shown that the term “slave” was often used by the early Spanish and French writers in an erroneous sense as synonymous with “prisoner.”[2] The institution of adoption so largely used by the American Indians, and incident to intertribal warfare and the consequent depletion of the tribal numbers, has also been confused by the writers with the institution of slavery.[3] Though slavery, in the strictest sense, was not general in the territory above mentioned, yet some form of the institution is recorded as having existed among the leading tribes. In the discussion which follows, the term “slave” must, then, be considered in its broadest sense. A prisoner held by his captor as an inferior and forced to labor for him, or sold into servitude or freedom for the financial benefit of his captor, will be considered a slave when thus treated by the Indians, as he will be so considered in a later discussion when thus treated by the whites. Among the Aztec Indians of Mexico outcasts and criminals of the tribe were enslaved,[4] and the usage appears to have been followed, to a very slight extent, by Indians in the area of the French and English colonies to the northward.[5] Individual instances of slavery proceeded from other causes. The Indians were inveterate gamblers, and when nothing else was left, both men and women not infrequently staked themselves to serve as slaves in case of loss. Such slavery was sometimes for life, and sometimes for such short periods of time as a year or two.[6] In case of famine, the Indians even sold their children to obtain food.[7]