Slavery began to take root in British North America in 1619, shortly after the arrival of the first permanent English settlers at Jamestown in 1607. But for most of the 1600s, it was only one of the labor systems used in the colonies, and not the most important. Growing poverty and limited prospects in England ensured a steady stream of indentured servants to the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland. After their arrival, poor white servants cultivated and processed tobacco alongside black servants and slaves. Early attempts to enslave Native Americans failed when they ran away or were decimated by European diseases. Until the closing decades of the seventeenth century, the most important dividing line in the Chesapeake was the class line between rich and poor, and hundreds of white colonists lived on both sides of that line.