Manumission of slaves was not an infrequent event.[220] Sometimes it was done as a reward for meritorious services, and sometimes it was prompted by the holy impulses of humanity and justice.  The most cruel thing done, however, in this period, was to hold as slaves in the service of the company the children of Negroes who were lawfully manumitted.  “All their children already born, or yet to be born, remained obligated to serve the company as slaves.”  In cases of emergency the liberated fathers of these bond children were required to serve “by water or by land” in the defence of the Holland government.[221] It is gratifying, however, to find the recorded indignation of some of the best citizens of the New Netherlands against the enslaving of the children of free Negroes.  It was severely denounced, as contrary to justice and in “violation of the law of nature.”  “How any one born of a free Christian mother” could, notwithstanding, be a slave, and be obliged to remain such, passed their comprehension.[222] It was impossible for them to explain it.”  And, although “they were treated just like Christians,” the moral sense of the people could not excuse such a flagrant crime against humanity.[223]

Director-General Sir William Kieft’s unnecessary war, “without the knowledge, and much less the order, of the XIX., and against the will of the Commonality there,” had thrown the Province into great confusion.  Property was depreciating, and a feeling of insecurity seized upon the people.  Instead of being a source of revenue, New Netherlands, as shown by the books of the Amsterdam Chamber, had cost the company, from 1626 to 1644, inclusive, “over five hundred and fifty thousand guilders, deducting the returns received from there.”  It was to be expected that the slaves would share the general feeling of uneasiness and expectancy.  Something had to be done to stay the panic so imminent among both classes of the colonists, bond and free.  The Bureau of Accounts made certain propositions to the company calculated to act as a tonic upon the languishing hopes of the people.  After reciting many methods by which the Province was to be rejuvenated, it was suggested “that it would be wise to permit the patroons, colonists, and other farmers to import as many Negroes from the Brazils as they could purchase for cash, to assist them on their farms; as (it was maintained) these slaves could do more work for their masters, and were less expensive, than the hired laborers engaged in Holland, and conveyed to New Netherlands, “by means of much money and large promises."[224]

Nor was the substitution of slave labor for white a temporary expedient.  Again in 1661 a loud call for more slaves was heard.[225] In the October treaty of the same year, the Dutch yielded to the seductive offer of the English, “to deliver two or three thousand hogsheads of tobacco annually ... in return for negroes and merchandise.”  At the first the Negro slave was regarded as a cheap laborer,—­a blessing to the Province; but after a while the cupidity of the English induced the Hollanders to regard the Negro as a coveted, marketable chattel.