- Indigenous Americans: Despite early laws that prohibited their enslavement, indigenous peoples eventually were forced to work in various industries, including mining and agriculture, especially where diseases introduced by the Europeans decimated the native population and indigenous labor proved insufficient.
- Africans: The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to the New World, where they faced the brutality and exploitation of forced labor in industries such as sugar plantations and mining.
In the Old World, indentured servitude existed as a contractual arrangement where individuals sold their labor for a stipulated period to pay off debts or fund passage to the Americas. These indentured servants primarily came from:
- Europe: Thousands of European emigrants willingly or unwillingly became indentured servants, agreeing to work in various economic sectors, mostly agriculture, in exchange for their voyage to the Americas.
- Irish people during the Cromwellian era: Following Oliver Cromwell's military conquest of Ireland, thousands of Irish prisoners were forcibly transported as indentured laborers to the Caribbean, the Atlantic colonies, and British America, especially Virginia.
- English prisoners during the American Revolution: During the conflict between Britain and its American colonies, the British government transported large numbers of convicts to America, where they served as indentured servants in plantations, construction projects, and households.