<P> In 1607, England established Jamestown as its first permanent colony on the North American continent . Tobacco became the chief commodity crop of the colony, due to the efforts of John Rolfe in 1611 . Once it became clear that tobacco was going to drive the Jamestown economy, more workers were needed for the labor - intensive crop . The British aristocracy also needed to find a labor force to work on its sugar plantations in the Americas . The major sources were indentured servants from Britain, Native Americans, and West Africans . During this period, Barbados became an English Colony in 1624 and the Caribbean's Jamaica in 1655 . These and other Caribbean colonies became the center of wealth generated from sugar cane and the focus of the slave trade for the growing English empire . </P> <P> The English entertained two lines of thought simultaneously toward the indigenous Native Americans . Because these people were lighter skinned, they were seen as more European and therefore as candidates for civilization . At the same time, because they were occupying the land desired by the colonial powers, they were from the beginning, targets of potential military attack . </P> <P> At first, indentured servants were used as the needed labor . These servants provided up to seven years of service in exchange for having their trip to Jamestown paid for by someone in Jamestown . Once the seven years was over, the indentured servant was free to live in Jamestown as a regular citizen . However, colonists began to see indentured servants as too costly, in part because the high mortality rate meant the force had to be resupplied . In 1619, Dutch traders brought African slaves taken from a Spanish ship to Jamestown; in North America, the Africans were also generally treated as indentured servants in the early colonial era . </P> <P> Several colonial colleges held enslaved people as workers and relied on them to operate . </P>

What were the different models of labor used in the british colonies