Just as other empires in the Americas had, the Dutch faced a labor shortage in its early seventeenth century effort to build a commercial base on Manhattan. By mid-century, the labor problem had been resolved largely through:


a- the migration of indentured servants from Europe.
b - the importation of prisoners of war from the wars of religion in Central Europe.
c- the importation and sale of enslaved West Africans.
d- the enslavement of local indigenous peoples.