The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. When African slavery was largely abolished in the mid-1800s, the center of plantation agriculture moved from the Americas to the Indo-Pacific region where the indigenous people and indentured servants were forced to grow sugarcane, tea, coffee, and rubber.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1837/slavery-in-plantation-agriculture/.