Slavery Among Ecuador’s Indians
By Editor
It is stated by a French missionary who has been through Ecuador that the Indians there, though nominally free, are really in a state of slavery. They are bought and sold, bequeathed by will, seized by a creditor in payment of debt, and really in no way distinguishable, in such respects, from a beast of burden. This state of things has been brought about by the law which allows an Indian to sell himself into slavery when he is unable to satisfy his creditor in any other way, and once a slave he is rarely able to extricate himself. His wife and children share his miserable lot. The greater part of the Indians, this missionary says, are reduced to this condition, and live a life of the utmost degradation and misery. As Ecuador is a strongly Catholic country, the Pope, who has of late been posing as an ardent anti-slavery advocate, might show his faith by his works, and order his vassals to use their influence for the abolition of slavery in that country. We have no idea, however, that the crafty Leo will trouble himself about the matter in the least; it will be much easier for him to do nothing, and then with a great flourish of trumpets carry off the honors after others have done the work.