The first black laborers arrived in British North America in the fall of 1619. They were brought to Virginia – as were many whites – to work either as servants or as laborers in the field. Laborers, particularly those willing to toil in the hot Virginia sun, were in great demand at this point, as colonists scrambled to cash in on the discovery that tobacco leaves grown in Virginia had a ready market back home in England. Although Negro slavery was common in the Spanish part of the New World, there was no legal basis for slavery in the British colonies at this time. Consequently, these first arrivals from Africa were not regarded as slaves, but as indentured servants, and were granted rights similar to those of white indentured servants. The status of black indentured servants as free laborers was short-lived. As the number of blacks began to increase in the 163os and 1640s, the normal contracting arrangements for indentured labor were viewed as unsatisfactory.