Possibly if you can seed the first 10-50 rows with sample/dummy data you'll clue the report engine correctly. Sort of like giving it a hint.
text text text text
text text text text
text text text text
text text text text
text text text text
1 Mr Sam Bay
2 Mr Joe Wig
3 Mrs Joy Red
The above, if you can later ignore or filter out the dummy data, would probably transfer over correctly - including the first column as text, even though in the last lines there are numbers.