26 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON
names evidently drawn from their native coun-
tries — and seven others. Two years later came
three slave women. In a letter dated August
11, 1628, and addressed to his "Kind Friend and
Well Beloved Brother in Christ the Reverend,
learned and pious Mr. Adrianus Smoutius," we
learn with regret that Domine Michaelius, hav-
ing two small motherless daughters, finds himself
much hindered and distressed because he can find
no competent maid servants "and the Angola
slave women are thievish, lazy, and useless trash/'
Let us leave it to those who have the heart and
the nerves to dwell upon the horrors of the middle
passage and the sufferings of the poor negroes as
set down in the log-books of the slavers, the St.
John and the Arms of Amsterdam. It is comforting
to the more soft-hearted of us to feel that after
reaching the shores of New Netherland, the blacks
were treated in the main with humanity. The
Jaegro slave was of course a chattel, but his fate
was not without hope. Several negroes with their
wives were manumitted on the ground of long
and faithful service. They received a grant of
land; but they were obliged to pay for it annually
twenty-two and a half bushels of corn, wheat,
pease, or beans, and a hog worth eight dollars in