Property and Providence in "Robinson Crusoe"

WARNING, this is long but I couldn't help getting carried away.

The idea of property in "Robinson Crusoe" is very compelling to me when one considers the social and political environment of the imperial powers during the production and distribution of this book. A short time before, John Locke elucidated his ideas on property as a natural right and his derived from one's own labor (or by the extension of one's property's labor, i.e. one has a natural right to the property and labor of one's slaves). Daniel Defoe develops these ideas with the unique circumstances, and yet conventional views of Robinson Crusoe. It is with references to slavery that highlight the self-contradictory understanding of property and ownership.
The first encounter with "slavery" is in fact the slavery of Crusoe. Upon his escape, he claims his aide, Xury, as a servant. When they are happened upon by a Portugese ship. He ultimately sells Xury to the captain, with some minor qualms in his heart that are quieted by this view on property: "he offered my 60 pieces of eight for my boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was unwilling to let the Captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the Boy's Liberty , who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring me own." Interesting that the qualms he has do not come from the fact that the Boy's Liberty should not be Crusoe's property to sell. And yet, Xury's work to procure Robinson's liberty instead counted as the labor of Crusoe himself, since he claimed a natural right to own Xury.
Of course, later Crusoe falls victim of a shipwreck and is deserted on an island. The object of his trip was to lead a voyage to procure slaves from the coast of Guniea for their plantation colony in Brasil. Yet, during all of Crusoe's self-examination, during his constant repentances for his lust for adventure and wealth, for his disobedience to his father, he never considers the possibility that the object of his trip was the origin of evil, and the "Just and Omnipotent Providence" that he prays to was really thwarting this false notion of property built into the psyche of Old World imperialism.
If this sounds confusing, it should, because the web of self-justifcation was woven quite intricately. Later, once Robinson establishes himself quite thoroughly on the island through hard work and labor, he claims to himself that "I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Posession." Although he gives Providence all of the control and credit for his life and gratitude, he establishes himself as the highest entity of the island because he worked hard for it. He also later refers to all of the animals in his command with rhetoric used in slavery: "there was my Majesty the Prince and Lord of the whole Island; I had the Lives of all my Subjects at my absolute Command. I could hang, draw, give Liberty, and take it away, and no Rebels among all my Subjects." This arrogance towards having a natural right to determine the fate of others speaks volumes for the assumptions made under Locke's umbrella of property.
His only human companion, Friday, not suprisingly, cannot avoid the shadow of this umbrella and his swallowed up in Crusoe's conceptions of property. Although he willingly becomes a loyal aide fo Crusoe (even places Crusoe's foot on his head), it does not dawn on Crusoe that he is committing a wrong by merely viewing the work and labor of Friday as his own property and not treating him as an equal, making Crusoe marginally more moral than the cannibals that Friday had escaped from in the first place.