Dutch West India Company 39aft er a brief naval blockade. Peter Stuyvesant—Director
General of the Dutch West India Company and Governor
of New Netherland—capitulated on September 8, 1664, ef-
fectively ending four decades of control by the company
over what would soon become New York.
See also: Atlantic Slave Trade; Dutch West India Company;
Gold Coast; PatroonshipWalter C. RuckerBibliography
Boxer, Charles R. Th e Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1 600– 1 800. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Goodfriend, Joyce. Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in
Colonial New York City, 1 664– 1 730. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1992.
Jameson, J. Franklin, ed. Narratives of New Netherland, 1609 – 1 664.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.
Korbin, David. Th e Black Minority in Early New York. Albany:
University Press of the State of New York, 1971.
McManus, Edgar. A History of Negro Slavery in New York. Syra-
cuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1966.Dutch West India Company
Th e Dutch West India Company was a private joint-stock
company that received its fi rst charter in 1621 from the
States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands,
the Dutch national assembly, for commerce and coloniza-
tion in the Western Hemisphere and Africa. Th e compa-
ny’s board of directors represented investors in the various
Dutch republics, and the company was awarded a monop-
oly on Dutch trade with Africa, the Atlantic islands, the
Caribbean, and the American mainland. Granted extensive
powers by the Dutch government, the company made trea-
ties with foreigners, administered justice, and maintained
armed forces. With military and economic support from
the public funds of the States General, Dutch West India
Company ships began traveling to the west coast of Africa
and across the Atlantic as interlopers in areas of the world
claimed for colonization by Spain and Portugal in the Treaty
of Tordesillas.
Th e Dutch West India Company played a major role
in the 17th-century Atlantic slave trade, though the total
Dutch portion of the trade from the 16th through the 19th
centuries was never more than 5 percent. Portugal’s profi t-
able sugarcane plantations in northeastern Brazil attractedproduce to Brazil in exchange for as many African laborers
as they required. Within four years of the establishment of
the Brazil–New Netherland commercial agreement, direct
trade with West Africa for slaves was opened and a slight
reorientation of the slave trade began. In prior decades, the
Dutch were satisfi ed with plundering Portuguese slave ships
or establishing direct trade relations with Brazil or Spanish
America to procure African laborers. As a result, the major-
ity of Africans entering New Netherland were from Loango
and other West-Central African regions. Enslaved “Ango-
lans” or West-Central Africans would prove essential to the
economic viability of the colony during its early years.
By allowing Africans to be directly imported into
North America via Dutch West India Company–owned
or commissioned ships, New Netherland soon began to
receive a number of Gold Coast Akan-speakers exported
from Dutch-controlled trading factories in West Africa to
supplement the West-Central African imports. Aft er cap-
turing Elmina Castle from the Portuguese in August 1637,
the Dutch would control the most important slave-trading
factory along West Africa’s Gold Coast. Th e immediate re-
sult of the capture of Elmina was the importation of Gold
Coast Africans into Dutch American colonies. Th is new
source of African laborers became even more important
aft er 1648 when the Portuguese managed to recapture their
Angolan possessions from the Dutch, which eff ectively cut
off a major source of West-Central African imports. Also,
with the Portuguese recapture of Brazil, the unique com-
mercial arrangement between New Netherland and Brazil
was brought to an abrupt halt.
Th e dominant position in Africa and the Americas
enjoyed by the Dutch came to an end in 1664. Th e Sec-
ond Anglo-Dutch War of 1664–1667 helped create a major
power shift throughout the Atlantic World. During the
course of the war, the English seized most of the Dutch
claims along the Gold Coast with the notable exception of
Elmina Castle. Equally important, the English managed to
capture New Netherland. Angered over repeated violations
of the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660, the English Crown
decided that New Netherland was a signifi cant obstacle to its
economic interests in the Americas. By claiming this region
as theirs, the English grabbed control of the contiguous ter-
ritory from the Chesapeake to the New England colonies.
Having already proven the military vulnerabilities of Dutch
colonies during the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652–1654,
the English were able to peacefully capture New Netherland