Economic Factors Contributed to the Development of Slavery in New Netherland

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Colonization in New Netherland
In the early 17th Century, the Dutch had inhabited the region spanning from the coastal plains of New Jersey all through to the lower Hudson and Delaware river before the English colonists conquered the region in 1664. The region, early known as the New Netherlad later became the provinces of New York and New Jersey. Even before the English conquered the New Netherland, the region had heavily been dependent on slave labor under the Dutch, and slavery was ratified later in 1665 by British Rule (Hodges 2). Agriculture remained the predominant economic activity in most parts of the New Netherland in the early 17th century, and the slave laborers were mainly used to work in the Dutch and British shelter farms. Slave labor was also used by the Dutch and the Portuguese, who were the leading slave merchant sin the early 17th century, to develop infrastructure across New Netherland (Hodges 6). The black slaves worked for the Dutch West India Company and the settlers in the New Netherland building houses and farms. Throughout the 17th century and towards the mid 18th century, the notion of having free slaves was on the rise. However, politics, religion, and law played a significant part in ensuring continued slavery and use of slave labor in the New Netherland.
The three facets, politics, laws, and religion influenced the widespread adoption of slave labor in varying proportions, with the various laws and regulations on slavery playing a pivotal role. From the onset of the British rule in 1665, the legal recognition of slavery through the Duke’s law set the stage for the adoption of more laws and regulations to govern slavery and slave labor while significantly empowering the white settlers to adopt the vice. Subsequent laws ensued to curtail the blacks from attaining their independence in addition to the statute that had denied slaves citizenship. In May 1683, legislation was passed to make it illegal to buy, sell or trade alcohol with the slaves, barring them from having any form of a congregation in taverns (Bush 136). The aforementioned legislations deprived the slaves of the ability to forge towards the attainment of freedom.
An Additional legislation preventing the slaves from attaining their freedom as early as the 17th century was enacted. A legislation was enacted in New Jersey to empower the free white to have the authority over the escaping slaves: to capture them, whip them, and return them to the master or mistress upon which they shall be rewarded (Bush 136). The legislation gave powers to the free men over the slaves and the law on punishment of wandering slaves was meant to intimidate the slaves from seeking their freedom, thus encouraging continued slavery and slave labor. As the time moved towards the early 17th century, some of the legislations on slavery were adopted on a wider scale with some of the most punitive laws on slaves reinstated across the entire colony to inflict fear among the slaves seeking freedom. The law also required that the children sired by slaves, even for those who had been rendered free, be deterred from having any inheritance or even purchase land (Bush, “‘An Act for Regulating Ne...