“No,” he told me, “just a few.” Some lived a little way above the wall, others further up the island on the east side, and some more across the north river, in the area they call Pavonia. I could see small hope of such a thing for myself, but it seemed to me a fine thing that a man should be free.

I was fortunate, however, to be in a kindly household. Meinheer van Dyck was a vigorous man who liked to trade and go upriver. His wife was a large, handsome lady. She was strong for the Dutch Reformed Church and the dominies and Governor Stuyvesant. She had a low opinion of the Indians, and was never happy when her husband was away among them.

When I first arrived in that house, there was a cook, and an indentured servant called Anna. They had paid for her to cross the ocean, in return for which she was to give them seven years of work, after which time they were to give her a certain sum of money, and her freedom. I was the only slave.

Meinheer van Dyck and his wife were always mindful of their family. If they ever had angry words, we seldom saw it, and their greatest delight was to have their family all around them. As I was working in the house, I was often with their children, and because of that I came to speak the Dutch language almost as they did.

Their son Jan and I were about the same age. He was a handsome boy with a mop of brown hair. He looked like his father, but he was more heavily built, which he took from his mother, I think. When we were young, we often played together, and we always stayed friends. As for his baby sister Clara, that was the prettiest child you ever saw, with golden hair and bright blue eyes. When she was little, I would carry her on my shoulders, and she would go on making me do this even when she was ten or eleven, laughing all the while, just to vex me, she said. I loved that child.

I was always very fast at running. Sometimes Meinheer van Dyck would set myself and Jan and little Clara in a race, with Jan well in front of me and Clara near the finishing line. I would usually pass Jan, but when I came up with Clara I’d hold back just behind her so she could win, which used to delight her very much.