Dated in 1687, this bill of sale included the sale of four enslaved people: Tony, Touro, Oyou, and Opium. On the surface, the document contains minimal information except the names of the enslaved people and the monetary value imposed upon them. Upon closer examination, however, one may observe more details regarding the broader historical trend of movements of people and colonial economy.

While Shelter Island–the location of the Sylvester Manor–lies under the jurisdiction of New York, the document records the location of “Boston, New England,” thus highlighting the transportation and sale of the enslaved people across different colonies. Although a single document cannot provide the exact scope of such internal inter-colonial slave trade, this bill of sale nevertheless reflects the existence and potential commonality of internal slave trade in the early colonial period.

What’s also worth noting is the name of one of the witnesses–John Broeckhoven. While John is an anglicized name, Broeckhoven is a last name of Dutch descent. By cross examining sources of the same time period, one may find a “John Broeckhoven” in the list of Dutch East India Company captains.¹Considering the likelihood of two Dutch men overseas sharing the name of John Broeckhoven, the one in the VOC document is likely also the John Broeckhoven in this bill of sale. This bill of sale, therefore, raises many questions. How did John Broeckhoven’s presence in the document reveal Dutch involvement in the Atlantic or perhaps global slave trade? How was he connected to Sylvester Manor in New York–a Dutch colony just a few decades before the document was written? While little VOC records detail John Broeckhoven’s life, evidence suggests that the North American colonies, in particular New York, had close connections with Dutch traders and pirates in the Indian ocean. The Dutch ship Wapen Van Amsterdam, for instance, carried 354 enslaved people to New York in 1663, of which 265 enslaved people survived the horrendous journey and were sold.² While New York was still under Dutch control as New Amsterdam, records such as this suggests the significant existence of Dutch slave trade activities in New York. Many New York merchants with Dutch backgrounds like Rip Van Dam accumulated wealth through trading in the Indo-Pacific network.³ Despite the mercantile restrictions of both English and Dutch empires, such a fluid and expansive trading network between New York and the Indo-Pacific world still existed and flourished in the seventeenth century, thus potentially explaining the appearance of John Broeckhoven in the document. Considering the Anglo-Dutch background of the Sylvester family, it comes as little surprise that they may have associations with those with Dutch background, who–like John Broeckhoven–may have involvement not only in the Atlantic world but also the Indo-Pacific world.⁴

This bill of sale, additionally, reveals details about Early Modern colonial economy in North America. “Money of Province of New York” highlights the currency of New York used in this foul transaction, implying that different colonial authorities issued different currencies. It is therefore worth noting that in this inter-colonial transaction that the currency of New York was used instead of the New England one, which may suggest the payer’s lack of New England currency, the difficulty in exchanging currency issued by different colonies, or the relatively stronger credibility of the New York currency. Whatever it may be, the document provides a glimpse into the colonial economy in the late seventeenth century.

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