elioration of the condition of the
slave and the early efforts at abolition are noted only to show that
these efforts proved to be insignificant when the traffic became
universal and the institution reached the economic stage in the sugar
colonies. The atrocities incident to the methods of the victors in the
tribal wars of Africa supplying the traders frequenting the coast are
duly treated. The author even gives in detail the procedure, prices
and numbers.

A considerable portion of the book is concerned with the real life of
the slave. Professor Ortiz believes that the punishments inflicted in
Cuba were not so severe as in some other countries. He discusses the
work done by the men, women and children, their habitations, food,
dress and diversions. The diseases of the slave arising in adjusting
themselves to the new world are also noted. Going further into the
details of the life of the slaves, the author describes the urban
Negroes and distinguishes this class of the bondmen from those of the
plantation. He then discusses the free Negroes, who even from an early
period constituted a considerable element of the black population and
explains why some of them returned to Africa. The rights of all of the
elements of the black population at law are mentioned so as to give
the reader an idea of the black code as enforced in that island. How
these classes thus kept down were moved from time to time to organize
insurrections to secure their freedom, constitutes one of the chapters
of the book.

On the whole it cannot be said that Professor Ortiz has shown that
slavery in Cuba differed widely from what it was in some other large
islands of the West Indies. He has, however, made a contribution to
scholarship in showing exactly how this institution affected the life
and the development of Cuba. The work is well illustrated and has an
appendix of valuable documents bearing on slavery in Cuba.

C. G. WOODSON.

* * * * *

_A Social History of the American Family, from Colonial Times to the
Present._ By ARTHUR W. CALHOUN, PH.D. Volume I, Colonial Period. The
Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, U. S. A., 1917. Pp. 348.

This work is a study in genetic sociology to be completed in three
volumes. The purpose of it is to develop an understanding of the
forces that have been operative in the evolution of the family
institution in the United States. The author will e