ABSTRACT
The true definition of slavery is a state of things in which human beings are regarded as chattels. This state is conditional on property having reached a sufficient stage of development. Among primitive races, as already mentioned, the term property often has an entirely different significance from that which we attach to it. Slavery in the ultimate sense of the word, i.e. when human beings are regarded as chattels, can only take root where, at any rate, the existence of patriarchal group families has favoured the growth of definite family properties. It follows that the first persons to appear as slave owners are those to whom the other members of the community have conceded special rights and privileges, such as chiefs, or religious bodies and their rulers, the priests. Slavery is not an institution dating from the earliest ages of mankind.
