The first beginning, the gradual extension, and the ultimate universality of the slavery in which the aborigines of these countries have so long been sunk, has been often inquired into, but never established. There are no laws, edicts, or documents on record, which distinctly declare the forfeiture of all their rights by the conquered people, nor are there any in which can be discovered a legal origin, or a recognition of the principle of hereditary servitude. On the contrary, many old contracts and laws of the Germans, after the completion of their conquest, might be pointed out to prove that the conquered races, even after the period of their subjugation, were looked on in the light of freemen. In some old documents at Riga, the Lives and Lettes are spoken of as a fourth estate, co-operating with the three German estates.
The first step was probably only to demand occasional labour for their conquerors from the aborigines, leaving them free possession of a portion of their former property and leisure. The frequent and unsuccessful insurrections and conspiracies among the Lettes and Esthonians led to more tyrannical laws, and to severer restrictions. Partly to punish such insurrections, and partly to prevent their repetition, link was gradually added to link in the chain which bound the conquered people, until it was at last established, that he who could demand the labour of a peasant should become the supreme lord and master of the labourer, and all that belonged to him. The peaceable and defenceless races of shepherds, whose few struggles for freedom only served to humble and subject them more to the overpowering German warriors, found themselves hemmed in continually more and more by their masters, who intermeddled with the most private and domestic affairs of their oppressed tenants, whose every concern was regulated according to the interest of their lords.
From the first commencement, however, of their slavery, attempts have continually been made to lighten it. The clergy were the first who acted as mediators with the nobility for the serfs. Papal ordinances of the thirteenth century are extant, which intercede in favour of the latter, ' that they may not be worse off than they were while yet under the dominion of Satan." Nobles who forced their serfs into marriages, were threatened with excommunication ; the rigid obserA^ance of various holidays, on which the serfs were free from labour, was rigidly inculcated ; it was forbidden to take the life of a peasant without the sentence being confiiTned by the Vogt, Landknecht^ and Schreiber, who were to be present, as well as the elders of an adjoining estate. The Teutonic knights likewise enacted various statutes in favour of the peasantry, commanding that " masters, and those in authority under them, should see that their stewards did not act unfairly towards the countrymen, nor overload them with an unreasonable amount of labour."
Many improvements in their condition were attempted, and in part carried out, by the Swedish and Polish governments. Gustavus Adolphus admitted them into the Gymnjisium and University of Dorpat. ami tlnMv were even some who became professors there. His successor, Charles XI.,
, followed his example, and planned the entire cmancipaiton of the serfs,
wliicli his cleatli, however, prevented. The wars of Charles XII. desolated the whole country, and the work of liberation, so well begun by his predecessors, remained at a standstill. The Russian conquest extinguished every trace of it. The Russians, unaccustomed to freedom in their own country, did not sympathize with the want of it in others. The universal exhaustion occasioned by the Swedish and Russian wars, and the desolating plague which followed, rendered the peasantry tame and unresisting. At length, the revolutionary spirit of the eighteenth century roused the serfs from their lethargy ; complaints, conspiracies, and insurrections, continually occmTcd, and in the years 1783 and 1784 a revolt broke out among the Livonian peasantry, which was not put down without much bloodshed. The serfs of many estates in Central Livonia had leagued together in secret, had sent deputations first to Riga, and afterwards to St. Petersburg, praying for a relief from their burdens ; and at last, when all otlier means proved vain, nothing remained to the poor forsaken slaves, but to break out into rebellion, and become a prey to the cannon directed against them by their tyrants.