Context: Interracial relationships have had a long history in North America and the United States, beginning with the intermixing of European explorers and soldiers, who took native women as companions. After European settlement increased, traders and fur trappers often married or had unions with women of native tribes. In the 17th century, faced with a continuing, critical labor shortage, colonists primarily in the Chesapeake Bay Colony, imported Africans as laborers, sometimes as indentured servants and, increasingly, as slaves. African slaves were also imported into New York and other northern ports by the Dutch and later English. Some African slaves were freed by their masters during these early years.

Question: What jobs did the earliest Europeans who mingled with natives hold?
Answer: explorers and soldiers

Question: Who started marrying or having unions with native women after settlment increased?
Answer: traders and fur trappers

Question: Why did Chesapeake Bay colonists begin to buy slaves?
Answer: a continuing, critical labor shortage

Question: Who first imported slaves to New York?
Answer: the Dutch

Question: Who freed some of the early slaves?
Answer: their masters

Question: What has a long history in Europe?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Who did native men take as companions?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: What did traders and fur trappers do before European settlement increased?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: What did colonists import in the 16th century?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Who was sometimes freed by their masters during the later years?
Answer: Unanswerable