Johannes Megapolensis was a minister in the Dutch colony on the eastern coast of North America known as New Netherland. The Dutch were primarily interested in the fur trade in North America and established a relationship with the Indigenous Mohawk for that reason. The three main groups of people living in the colony were the colonists, the Native Americans, and Africans, who were enslaved for forced labor. The colony was established in 1621 when the United Provinces of the Netherlands gave the Dutch West India Company a charter so the Dutch could maintain a trade monopoly over the Dutch West India Territory, which consisted of holdings in North America, the Caribbean, and South America.