 Labor was always in short supply . The most common solution was indentured servitude of young whites . These were 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 were house servants in Manhattan , or <unk> on Dutch estates . 
