rbowman wrote:

The first slaves predated the cotton industry. Many were used in
tobacco production.

And they were, apparently, white:

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Virginia foundered during its early years and survived only through the
good will and, when the colonists had exhausted that, the extorted
tribute of the indigenous Indians. But during the second decade of the
seventeenth century, Virginia discovered its vocation: the growing of
tobacco. The first boom in what would eventually become the United
States took place during the 1620s, and it rested primarily on the backs
of English indentured servants, not African slaves. Not until late in
the century, after the boom had passed, did landowners begin buying
slaves in large numbers, first from the West Indies and, after 1680,
from Africa itself. During the high years of the boom it was the
‘free-born’ Englishman who became, as one historian put it, ‘a machine
to make tobacco for somebody else’.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/276...tes-of-america
==============