According to the Book of Acts, Philip the Evangelist met the chamberlain of the Queen of Ethiopia on the road from Jerusalem and baptised him into the Christian faith. Reyer van Blommendael could have modelled the chamberlain and his servant on Black people he observed in Haarlem or Amsterdam. A tragic component of Dutch global trade was the transportation of enslaved Africans to work in colonies in Brazil and the East Indies. Some Africans made their way to Holland in the service of merchant families. Once in the Dutch Republic, they lived as free citizens.