Labor was always in short supply . The most common solution was indentured servitude of young whites . These was teenagers in Britain or Germany whose parents arranged for them to work for families in the colonies until age 21 , in exchange for their ocean passage . The great majority became farmers or farm wives . By the mid @-@ eighteenth century , African American slaves comprised 12 % of the population of New York . Most was house servants in Manhattan , or farmworkers on Dutch estates .