Genuine question. Since they fought them all the way and essentialy parked them in reserves, why would they go so far as Africa to import People ?
(belgian here, sorry if question is offensive)
Settlers absolutely did enslave indigenous peoples in what is today the United States. More can always be said, but you may find this post and this post by u/anthropology_nerd on the rise and scope of the indigenous slave trade in the US southeast helpful, and I’ve written about the factors that led to the decline of indigenous slavery in the British colonies before. In addition to this, indigenous slavery was also commonplace among Spanish and Mexican settlers in what is today New Mexico and California and persisted well after the US annexation of this region. An excellent overview of this is the book The Other Slavery by Andres Resendez.