First Enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam (New York)

The Dutch West India Company imported eleven enslaved African men to New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) in 1626, the first documented enslaved people in what would become New York. They were forced to labor on Company projects including building fortifications. Their names, Paul d'Angola, Simon Congo, Anthony Portuguese, and others, were recorded in Dutch colonial records, marking the founding of chattel slavery in the mid-Atlantic region.