White and Black in chess

As Howard Staunton observed, "In the earlier ages of chess, the board was simply divided into sixty-four squares, without any difference of colour".

François-André Danican Philidor in the original (1749) edition of his famous treatise Analyse du jeu des Échecs cited one game in which Black moved first.

[9] He also took the Black pieces but moved first in the sixth, eighth, and tenth games of his famous 1858 match against Paul Morphy.

"[13] On October 19, 1857, Mr. Perrin, the Secretary of the New York Chess Club, informed those assembled at the First American Chess Congress that he had received a letter from Johann Löwenthal, a leading English master, "suggesting the advisableness of always giving the first move in public games, to the player of the white pieces".

[14] Löwenthal also wrote that London's chess clubs had adopted a new rule that White always moves first.

[16] Chess historian Robert John McCrary writes that the earliest rule he has found requiring that White move first is Rule 9 given on page 126 of the New York, 1880 tournament book, which specified, "In each round the players shall have the first move alternately; in the first game it shall be determined by lot.

[19] In 1889, Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion, wrote that "In all international and public Chess matches and tournaments ... it is the rule for the first player to have the white men".