Slavery in America: Part 8
by Slavery by the Dutch in New Netherlands (New York).
The Dutch began using slave labour in New Netherland in 1626 when the first cargo of 11 Africans was transported by the Dutch West India Company.
The company had been founded in 1621; the Dutch West India, and the Dutch East India company acted as commercial enterprises/militias for Holland.
The land of ‘New Netherlands’ was very fertile and the Dutch West India Company sought to gain agricultural laborers. Most Dutch came to get rich from the fur trade then return to Holland hence the Company had to turn to slave labour. The DWIC was already importing to its Caribbean colonies.
During 1630 to 1650 The Dutch company was the dominant European slave trader in Africa. In 1644 alone it bought 6,900 captives from African, most of whom went to the colonies in the West Indies. From its stations in Angola, the company imported slaves to New Netherland to clear the forests, lay roads, build houses and public buildings, and grow food.
It was company-owned slave labor that laid the foundations of modern New York, built its fortifications, and made agriculture flourish.
The West India Company to encourage the use of slaves put the settlement of New Netherlands above profit. Yet only a trickle of slaves flowed into New Netherland from Angola as the colonists found the Africans “proud and treacherous,” and preferred to seek “seasoned” slaves from the West Indies, specifically Curaçao.
In addition to slaves bought from the West Indies, Dutch settlers bought slaves seized by privateers from Spanish ships. The steady flow from various sources allowed the colony to stabilize and, by 1640, to expand its agricultural output.
Slave labor was especially important in the agricultural development of the Hudson Valley, where an acute scarcity of free workers prevailed.
Between 1636 and 1646 the price of able-bodied men in New Netherland rose about 300 percent. By 1660, slaves from Angola were selling for 300 guilders and those from Curaçao for about 100 guilders more.
By the time the British took over the colony in 1664, slaves sold in New Amsterdam for up to 600 guilders. This was still a discount of roughly 10 percent over what they would have brought in the plantation colonies, but the West India Company had been subsidizing slavery in New Netherland to promote its economic progress. The Hudson Valley, where the land was monopolized by huge patroon estates, discouraged free immigration, and especially relied on slaves.
There was a large population of Free Blacks in New Netherland trusted to serve in the militias. Even slaves were given arms to defend the settlement during the desperate Indian war of 1641-44. Slaves were used to put down the Rensselaers revolt of white tenants.
Blacks and whites had coequal standing in the colonial courts, and free blacks were allowed to own property (Jews, however, were not). Further, Free Blacks intermarried freely with whites and in some cases owned white indentured servants.
Slaves who had worked diligently for the company for a certain length of time were granted a “half-freedom” that allowed them liberty in exchange for an annual tribute to the company and a promise to work at certain times on company projects such as fortifications or public works.
Individual slave owners, such as Director General Peter Stuyvesant, adopted this system. Economically it made sense as the ‘owners’ were free of the cost of slaves year-round. For the slaves, half-freedom was better than none at all.
This system changed when the British took over
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