Like no white proletariat developed because there really wasn’t a white proletariat. At least a sizable one for a significant period of time. The worst jobs went to (usually) black slaves. White labour either costed a lot more, or griped with over exertion as non whipped people tended to do. Putting white people as labourers tended to import a lot of the class problems of the mother country. As said in Counter Revolution of 1776:

For the absence of Africans would serve to allow class and ethnic tensions among Europeans to fester, replicating Europe on the mainland, which was not exactly the goal of many colonizers. Banning Africans would mean that Europeans would have to perform tasks they might not otherwise, while being bossed—perhaps menaced—by other Europeans. Adding enslaved Africans, on the other hand, meant that brute agricultural labor could be assigned to the degraded dark folk, which would boost certain Europeans up the class ladder and enrich others.

Whiteness afaik wasn’t a common term before slavery. Europe before 1700 was filled with divisive hatreds between countries and religions. The English feared the Spanish and the Irish. Protestants despised Catholics. Whiteness was designed to create an artificial solidarity against the slaves who were, in many places, a majority and a real threat to the settlers of an area. Wrote Dr. Horne:

Then there was the developing notion of “whiteness,” smoothing tensions between and among people hailing from the “old” continent, which was propelled by the need for European unity to confront raging Africans and indigenes: this, inter alia, served to unite settlers in North America with what otherwise might have been their French and Spanish antagonists, laying the basis for a kind of democratic advance, as represented in the freedom of religion in the emergent U.S. Constitution.

I read this thinking about how European whites more feel a sense of class conflict compared to settler countries where it’s been hidden for centuries. Or at least until recently as fascism has been rearing its head. White solidarity, and I assume a social pact, has reduced a lot of class antagonisms in settler countries, especially as non whites are often exploited harder.

BTW, if you’re not yet a “read Settlers” person, I’m not saying that you white worker are not exploited. This is especially true now as Western hegemony is failing and internal exploitation is increasing. Maybe you’re like me, had working class parents who did well because they were white after WW2, and you’re struggling but doing better than other marginalised people.

Sorry to make you all read my book report. It helps to remember what I read.