Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/51

DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. SQ exercise because they are not worth interfering with, and which never fail to be usurped when ca- price or interest suggest it to the government or its officers. A*iburth, but a small class, existing in every , country of the Arcliipelago, but most where anar- chy and disorder most prevail, are called debtors in the native languages. These are people who either { voluntarily, or by the laws of the country, mortgage their services for a certain period, or during life, to | discharge some obligation which they have no other ] means of liquidating. Their condition is, in fact, a mitigated kind of slavery .J These debtoi"S, with free- menandslaves, constitute the three orders into which the laws of the Malays, and other tribes, divide the people, for the higher orders are literally above the law, and not noticed except as administering it. jWhen any country is distressed by war, famine, or / intestine commotion, hundreds of the lower orders f mortgage their services to persons of wealth or in- ; fluence, who can afford them subsistence and pro- tection, just as the peasantry of the middle ages of Europe were wont to make a sacrifice of their per- j sonal liberty to obtain the countenance of religious | institutions, and of the nobility. This is the ori- gin of a class very numerous among some of the states. Slavery exists in every country of the Indian Archipelago except Java. The anomaly of its ab-