One of the first groups sent to the Americas by the British are white "street" children.
Date: 1619
One hundred British children ages 8 to 16 are sent as forced labor, four months before the first Africans are forced to arrive. This division between early "indentured servitude" and "slavery" is one of the myths that maintains whiteness and white supremacy in colonial America. White children, poor whites, and other people seen as "disposable" are forced to immigrate to Virginia and the colonies, until their collaboration with enslaved Black people becomes dangerous to plantation owners. The racialized distinction between white indentured servants and Black enslaved people will not be fully codified until the Virginia Slave Codes are passed in 1705.