economic and
social life of the colony. The planters were exceedingly anxious to make
use of slave labor, which they considered the foundation of the
prosperity of their rivals of the Spanish tobacco colonies, but slave
labor was most difficult to obtain. The trade had for many years been
chiefly in the hands of the Dutch, and these enterprising navigators
sold most of their negroes to the Spanish plantations. Ever since the
days of Henry VIII the English had made efforts to secure a share of
this profitable traffic, but with very meagre success.[7-33]

The Dutch had established trading stations along the African coast,
guarded by forts and war vessels. Any attempts of outsiders to intrude
upon the commerce was regarded by them as an act of open aggression to
be resisted by force of arms. To enter the trade with any hope of
success it became necessary for the English to organize a company rich
enough to furnish armed protection to their merchantmen. But no such
organization could be established during the Civil War and Commonwealth
periods, and it was not until 1660 that the African Company, under the
leadership of the Duke of York entered the field.[7-34]

This was but the beginning of the struggle, however. The Dutch resisted
strenuously, stirring up the native chieftains against the English,
seizing their vessels and breaking up their stations. Not until two wars
had been fought was England able to wring from the stubborn
Netherlanders an acknowledgment of her right to a share in the trade.
Even then the Virginians were not adequately supplied, for the sugar
islands were clamoring for slaves, and as they occupied so important a
place in the colonial system they were the first to be served.
Throughout the last quarter of the Seventeenth century negroes in fairly
large numbers began to arrive in the Chesapeake, but it was only in the
years from 1700 to 1720 that they actually accomplished the overthrow of
the old system of labor and laid the foundations of a new social
structure. Throughout the Seventeenth century the economic system of the
tobacco colonies depended upon the labor of the poor white man, whether
free or under terms of indenture; in the Eighteenth century it rested
chiefly upon the black shoulders of the African slave.

There could be no manner of doubt as to the desirability of the slaves
from an economic standpoint, apparently the only standpoint that
received serious consideration. The indentured se