Dutch Rule
Chattel slavery in the geographical area of the present-day U.S. state of New York began in 1626, when a shipment of 11 Africans was unloaded into New Amsterdam harbor by a ship that belonged to the Dutch West India Company. Before this time, the company had attempted to encourage Dutch agricultural laborers to immigrate to and populate New Netherlands. This experiment was unsuccessful, as most immigrants wanted to accrue a sizable income in the fur trade and return to their home country in luxury.
The company turned to slavery, which was already well established in the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa. For more than two decades after the first shipment, the Dutch West India Company was dominant in the importation of slaves from the coasts of West and Central Africa. While the majority of shipments went to the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, a number of slaves were not imported directly from the company's stations in Angola to New Netherlands to clear the forests, lay the roads, and provide other public services to the colony.
The lack of private settlers in the colony led to the company's over-dependence on slaves. While the slaves laid the foundations of the future New York, they were described by the Dutch as "proud and treacherous", a stereotype for African-born slaves. The Dutch West India Company relaxed its monopoly and allowed New Netherlanders to ship slaves back to Angola. They began to import more numerous "seasoned" African slaves from the sugar colonies of the Caribbean.
By 1644, some slaves had earned a half-freedom in New Amsterdam and were able to earn wages. According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, the children born to enslaved women were born into slavery, regardless of the ethnicity or status of the father.
Read more about this topic: History Of Slavery In New York
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