At the same time it provided, curiously, that their children already born or yet to be born were to be the company's slaves.

It was proposed at one time by some of the inhabitants, and again by Governor Stuyvesant, that negroes be armed with tomahawks and sent in punitive expeditions against the Indians, but nothing seems to have come of that.
The Dutch settlers were few, and the Dutch farmers fewer.

But as years went on a slender stream of immigration entered the province from New England, settling mainly on Long Island and in Westchester; and these came to be among the company's best customers for slaves.

The villagers of Gravesend, indeed, petitioned in 1651 that the slave supply might be increased.

Soon afterward the company opened the trade to private ships, and then sent additional supplies on its own account to be sold at auction.