Question

How did Africans and African Americans contribute to the growth of New Amsterdam?

Answer 1

Most of New Amsterdam's enslaved population belonged to the Dutch West India Company. The Company used these enslaved men and women to help build New Amsterdam's fort, develop the colony's infrastructure, work on the local farms, and protect the early settlements from Native American attacks.

Answer 2

Having proved themselves competent workers in Europe and on nascent sugar plantations on the Madeira and Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, enslaved Africans became the labor force of choice in the Western Hemisphere—so much so that they became the overwhelming majority of the colonial populations of the Americas.