South Carolina, Florida, and possibly Alabama. The Charles Town slave trade, which included both trading and direct raids by colonists, was the largest among the British colonies in North America. Between 1670 and 1715, between 24,000 and 51,000 captive Native Americans were exported from South Carolinamore than the number of Africans imported to the colonies of the future United States during the same period. Additional enslaved Native Americans were exported from South Carolina to Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The historian Alan Gallay says, "the trade in Indian slaves was at the center of the English empire's development in the American South. The trade in Indian slaves was the most important factor affecting the South in the period 1670 to 1715"; intertribal wars to capture slaves destabilized English colonies, Spanish Florida, and French Louisiana. First continental African enslaved people The first Africans enslaved within continental North America arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the enslaved people revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterward of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned. The settlers and the enslaved people who had not escaped returned to Santo Domingo. On August 28, 1565, St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by the Spanish conquistador Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, and he brought three enslaved Africans with him. During the 16th and 17th centuries, St. Augustine was the hub of the trade in enslaved people in Spanish Florida and the first permanent settlement in what would become the continental United States to include enslaved Africans. The first birth of an enslaved African in what is now the United States was Agustín, who was born in St. Augustine in 1606. Indentured servants In the early years of the Chesapeake Colonies (Virginia and Maryland), colonial officials found it difficult to attract and retain laborers under the harsh frontier conditions, and there was a high mortality rate. Many laborers came from Britain as indentured laborers, signing contracts of indenture to pay for their passage, upkeep, and training with work, usually on farms. The colonies had agricultural economies. These indentured laborers were