f many of these colonies were of sterner moral
fibre than the Southern cavaliers and adventurers, and, in the absence
of great counteracting motives, were more easily led to oppose the
institution and the trade. Finally, it must be noted that these colonies
did not so generally regard themselves as temporary commercial
investments as did Virginia and Carolina. Intending to found permanent
States, these settlers from the first more carefully studied the
ultimate interests of those States.

11. ~The Dutch Slave-Trade.~ The Dutch seem to have commenced the
slave-trade to the American continent, the Middle colonies and some of
the Southern receiving supplies from them. John Rolfe relates that the
last of August, 1619, there came to Virginia "a dutch man of warre that
sold us twenty Negars."[1] This was probably one of the ships of the
numerous private Dutch trading-companies which early entered into and
developed the lucrative African slave-trade. Ships sailed from Holland
to Africa, got slaves in exchange for their goods, carried the slaves to
the West Indies or Brazil, and returned home laden with sugar.[2]
Through the enterprise of one of these trading-companies the settlement
of New Amsterdam was begun, in 1614. In 1621 the private companies
trading in the West were all merged into the Dutch West India Company,
and given a monopoly of American trade. This company was very active,
sending in four years 15,430 Negroes to Brazil,[3] carrying on war with
Spain, supplying even the English plantations,[4] and gradually becoming
the great slave carrier of the day.

The commercial supremacy of the Dutch early excited the envy and
emulation of the English. The Navigation Ordinance of 1651 was aimed at
them, and two wars were necessary to wrest the slave-trade from them and
place it in the hands of the English. The final terms of peace among
other things surrendered New Netherland to England, and opened the way
for England to become henceforth the world's greatest slave-trader.
Although the Dutch had thus commenced the continental slave-trade, they
had not actually furnished a very large number of slaves to the English
colonies outside the West Indies. A small trade had, by 1698, brought a
few thousand to New York, and still fewer to New Jersey.[5] It was left
to the English, with their strong policy in its favor, to develop this
trade.

12. ~Restrictions in New York.~[6] The early ordinances of the Dutch,
laying duties, g