From his castle in New York, Frederick Philipse looked down the Hudson River, his highway to riches. From New York ships owned by the Dutch-born entrepreneur sailed around the world. Philipse had come to America in 1647 and immediately recognized that the laws were not brought to bear on those who held the wealth. He started by selling gunpowder and rum to the pirates.1 Then he moved on to providing financial backing for the pirates' voyages. Finally he graduated to become one of the pioneers of the American slave trade. It soon became a family business, with Philipse's son Adolph arriving in America from Madagascar on a ship full of slaves. With the money from piracy and the slave trade, the Philipse family bought what was once a Yonkers plantation and established more than one mansion on the Hudson. Despite his business interests, Frederick Philipse achieved respectability and wealth. He held political office and was a long-standing member of the Council of New York.

While many of the early colonists came to America seeking religious freedom, many also sought economic opportunity. Loosening the ties that bound society created opportunity. Not every freedom-seeking immigrant needed to exploit others to better himself. But for every Sam Adams there was a Caleb Cushing, and for every Thomas Jefferson there was a Thomas Perkins. The institutions and alliances made in the Old World prevailed in the New World. The system of an elite group that controlled the masses had existed from feudal times, and although it was altered by mercantilism the system still predominated. Men like Abraham Lincoln would carry the banner for equality and individual rights while others would perpetuate the status quo.

There is no dividing line to say where English slave trading ended and the American trade began. Tracing the start of slavery in what would become the United States, Hugh Thomas, author of The Slave Trade, found a letter from the Reverend George Downing of Harvard that was written to his cousin John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut. The letter suggested importing slaves into New England and held British-owned Barbados as an example of the profits of slavery.
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/02/part-7-secret-societies-of-americas.html