body of settlers offered little chance for the growth of a slave system.
These conditions varied, of course, in different colonies; but the
general statement applies to all. These communities of small farmers and
traders derived whatever opposition they had to the slave-trade from
three sorts of motives,--economic, political, and moral. First, the
importation of slaves did not pay, except to supply a moderate demand
for household servants. Secondly, these colonies, as well as those in
the South, had a wholesome political fear of a large servile population.
Thirdly, the settlers of 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,