Twelve years after the British colony of Jamestown was founded in Virginia, the first Dutch ship brought several African men and women to the colony in 1619. These people may have been indentured servants, but they were probably sold as slaves. Over the next two centuries, the colonies expanded along the eastern coast from Georgia to Canada. In the Chesapeake colonies of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, slavery was the predominant way of organizing labor. By 1790, nearly forty percent of the population in the British colonies were enslaved.