Despite the fact that the Dutch played a central role in the seventeenth-century slave trade, little attention has been paid until recently to the Dutch slaves in New York and New Jersey. Most studies of slavery in the Americas have dealt with the Caribbean, South America, and the American South. Few scholars have tested whether conclusions developed from these other areas hold true for New York and New Jersey. Even fewer scholars have used folklore as a source of information about the culture of slaves. The problem with most interpretations of the Dutch slave system is that they deal only with the New Netherland period from 1624 to 1664. The Dutch and their slaves did not disappear from New York and New Jersey after the English conquest. In fact, the institution of slavery did not begin to flourish until the eighteenth century.
Although English law applied, it is a mistake to think of the Dutch and their slaves as part of the English slave system. There is evidence in their folklore and folklife that a distinct free black and slave culture developed in the Dutch culture area of New York and New Jersey. This regional culture consisted of a synthesis of African cultural survivals with Dutch culture traits. This creole culture and the people who participated in it I term Afro-Dutch, in much the same way that Afro-American refers both to the culture and the people. Afro-Dutch culture was a regional subculture of African-American culture. In many ways it was similar to the creole cultures of South America and the Caribbean.
Included in this essay are the following topics: the Jersey Dutch dialect, the Pinkster celebration, the "Guinea Dance," a fragment of a slave song, a "Negro Charm," the Paas celebration, and an African-American cigar-store Indian from Freehold, New Jersey.
