Slave Owner in America Was a Black Man

Something you won’t read about in the US history books. The first legal slave owner in America was black and he owned white slaves. us slavery

Anthony Johnson (BC 1600 – 1670) was an Angolan who achieved freedom in the early 17th century Colony of Virginia.

Johnson was captured in his native Angola by an enemy tribe and sold to Arab (Muslim) slave traders. He was eventually sold as an indentured servant to a merchant working for the Virginia Company.

In March of 1654, according to Delmarva Settlers, The courts ruled in favor of Anthony Johnson and declared John Casor his property in 1655. Casor became the first person of African descent in Britain’s Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as the result of Johnson’s civil suit.

In the case of Johnson v. Parker, the court of Northampton County upheld Johnson’s right to hold Casor as a slave, saying in its ruling of 8 March 1655:

“This daye Anthony Johnson negro made his complaint to the court against mr. Robert Parker and declared that hee deteyneth his servant John Casor negro under the pretence that said negro was a free man. The court seriously consideringe and maturely weighing the premisses, doe fynde that the saide Mr. Robert Parker most unjustly keepeth the said Negro from Anthony Johnson his master … It is therefore the Judgement of the Court and ordered That the said John Casor Negro forthwith returne unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson, And that Mr. Robert Parker make payment of all charges in the suit.”

It’s not clear if Anthony Johnson also kept his white indentured servants as slaves.

Paul Joseph Watson has more on slavery in Western culture – the truth not the folklore.

Anthony Johnson was Forrest Gump long before the modern era. A simple man, born in a simple place (Angola), and touched so many of the biggest issues and events of his day, and lucked into (or our of) even more.

Born in 1600 in Angola

Taken as a slave by Muslim slavers (a major issue then, and today)

Sold as an indentured servant to The Virginia Company (one of the first handful of actual corporations in history... like being bought out by Apple or Walmart today).

One of only 5 men allowed to survive, out of 57, in a Powhatan Indian Good Friday massacre on the Virginia settlement where he was laboring.

Married the only female slave on that farm, and never left her side in 40+ years of marriage.

Purchased his and her freedom, and then went into farming for himself.

He took advantage of the headright system granting 50ac homesteads pressing further into Indian lands, in exchange for purchasing indentured servants of his own. He bought 5... one was his son, and the other four were WHITE men. (How this story isn't a Django-style in-your-face Liberal celebration film yet is beyond me.)

One of his future servants claims that he should have been freed, which brought the famous Casor case to the courts. (Colony courts had recognized lifetime slavery before, but never for a person who had not committed a crime of some kind yet.)

2 years later, a neighbor tries to claim a written debt from Mr Johnson, with what was likely a forged document (Johnson couldn't read or write), and Johnson lost this one.

His farm had a terrible fire the next year, and on FEB 28, 1652, he was granted a tax exemption to help recover. However, in THIS court case, he also got his wife and daughters to be declared tax-exempt, which made them the same social standing of white women, another unprecedented decision. (People, not income or property, were taxed back then. Under the 1645 Virginia taxation act, "All negro men and women and all other men from the age of 16 to 60 shall be judged tithable.")

He actually lived to be 70, and helped many other blacks to start their own farms and businesses as well.

For a kid born in Angola in 1600, he certainly was a part of more of the big and unprecedented issues of his day than most.

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