“I guess it’s a distinction that i don’t see as important.”
I’m not aware of any American histories that use Spanish colonies as their starting point. They begin with Jamestown and Plymouth.
I don’t see how the “starting point” for American history matters, but that is probably because I was not talking about the first American slaves, I was talking about the first slaves in what became America.
I don’t particularly count the original settlements when I discuss what “America” is responsible for — it’s not like Jamestown was part of the state of Virginia when it was first founded. But I don’t reject the concept, so if someone wants to blame “America” for slaves in Jamestown, I’m not going to argue with them.
But South Carolina and Florida are definitely part of America, and the first slaves on that land were spanish.
So if we talk about the “history of slavery” in America, the slaves that were part of the settlements of Spain count — some of their descendants were our slaves, it’s not like we drove out the entire population of those states and re-populated them.