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Anthony Johnson (colonist)

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For other people named Anthony Johnson, see Anthony Johnson (disambiguation).
Anthony Johnson
Bornc.1600
Angola
Died1670
Colony of Virginia
Other namesAntonio
OccupationFarmer
Known forOne of the first black Africans to own a slave in America
The most prominent early colonial black to acquire freedom and wealth.

Anthony Johnson (b. c. 1600 – d. 1670) was a black Angolan known for achieving freedom and wealth in the early 17th-century Colony of Virginia. He was one of the first Negro property owners and had his right to legally own a slave recognized by the Virginia courts. Held as an indentured servant in 1621, he earned his freedom after several years, and was granted land by the colony.[1]

He later became a successful tobacco farmer in Maryland. He attained great wealth after completing his term as an indentured servant, and has been referred to as "'the black patriarch' of the first community of Negro property owners in America".[1]

Biography

Early life

Johnson was Indigenous Negro Indian Accawmacke Indian. The Accawmacke Indians are Indian Indigenous of North America who were first called Negroes by the Spaniards in the 1500's and later by the English in the 1600's.

Johnson was an experienced American Indigenous Accawmacke Indian Negro Agriculturalist running his Virginia tobacco farm. He was able to Negotiate Trade and generate wealth as a farmer. Contrary to other false reports, Anthony Johnson was never a slave and he was Indian Negro from Accawmacke Virginia. In the past, to hide the truth of the true Negroid appearance of the original Indians of America. Johnson was said to be from Angola. In truth, No person would be able to withstand the voyage from Angola, combat disease, learn new Terrain, learn two new Languages,master new Agriculture, survive and Indian war, pay for his freedom and those of others and becoming a Negro Planter in a foreign land in less than 7 years. Anthony Jonson was Indigenous Negro Accawmacke Indian.

Along with his Accawmacke Indian kin, Anthony Johnson did not participate in the Indian Massacre of 1622. The following year (1623), he met Mary, a Indian Negro. Mary also was of the Accawmacke Indians.. Antonio and Mary married and lived together for more than forty years.[2]

Virginia land greed and racial tension lead to what was deemed to be in 1652 "an unfortunate fire" caused "great losses" for the family, and Johnson applied to the courts for tax relief. The court reduced the family's taxes and on 28 February 1652, exempted his wife Mary and their two daughters from paying taxes at all "during their natural lives." At that time taxes were levied on people, not property. 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."[3][4] It is unclear from the records why the Johnson women were exempted, but the change gave them the same social standing as white women, who were not taxed.[4] During the case, the justices noted that Anthony and Mary "have lived Inhabitants in Virginia (above thirty years)" and had been respected for their "hard labor and known service".[5]

Casor suit

When Anthony Johnson was released from servitude, he was legally recognized as a "free Negro." He became a successful farmer. In 1651 he owned 250 acres (100 ha), and the services of five indentured servants (four white and one black). In 1653, John Casor, a black indentured servant whose contract Johnson appeared to have bought in the early 1640s, approached Captain Goldsmith, claiming his indenture had expired seven years earlier and that he was being held illegally by Johnson. A neighbor, Robert Parker, intervened and persuaded Johnson to free Casor.

Handwritten court ruling.
March 8, 1655

Parker offered Casor work, and he signed a term of indenture to the planter. Johnson sued Parker in the Northampton Court in 1654 for the return of Casor. The court initially found in favor of Parker, but Johnson appealed. In 1655, the court reversed its ruling.[6] Finding that Anthony Johnson still "owned" John Casor, the court ordered that he be returned with the court dues paid by Robert Parker.[7]

This was the first instance of a judicial determination in the Thirteen Colonies holding that a person who had committed no crime could be held in servitude for life.[8][9][10][11][12]

Though Casor was the first person declared a slave in a civil case, there were both black and white indentured servants sentenced to lifetime servitude before him. Many historians describe indentured servant John Punch as the first documented slave in America, as he was sentenced to life in servitude as punishment for escaping in 1640.[13][14] The Punch case was significant because it established the disparity between his sentence as a negro and that of the two European indentured servants who escaped with him (one described as Dutch and one as a Scotchman). It is the first documented case in Virginia of an African sentenced to lifetime servitude. It is considered one of the first legal cases to make a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.[15][16]

Significance of Casor lawsuit

The Casor lawsuit demonstrates the culture and mentality of planters in the mid-17th century. Individuals made assumptions about the society of Northampton County and their place in it. According to historians T.R. Breen and Stephen Innes, Casor believed he could form a stronger relationship with his patron Robert Parker than Anthony Johnson had formed over the years with his patrons. Casor considered the dispute to be a matter of patron-client relationship, and this wrongful assumption resulted in his losing his case in court and having the ruling against him. Johnson knew that the local justices shared his basic belief in the sanctity of property. The judge sided with Johnson, although in future legal issues, race played a larger role.[17]

The Casor lawsuit was an example of how difficult it was for Africans who were indentured servants to prevent being reduced to slavery. Most Africans could not read and had almost no knowledge of the English language. Planters found it easy to force them into slavery by refusing to acknowledge the completion of their indentured contracts.[1] This is what happened in Johnson v. Parker. Although two white planters confirmed that Casor had completed his indentured contract with Johnson, the court still ruled in Johnson's favor.[18]

Later life

1666 Marke of Anthony Johnson

In 1657, Johnson’s white neighbor, Edmund Scarborough, forged a letter in which Johnson acknowledged a debt. Johnson did not contest the case. Johnson was illiterate and could not have written the letter; nevertheless, the court awarded Scarborough 100 acres (40 ha) of Johnson’s land to pay off his alleged "debt".[19]

In this early period, free blacks enjoyed "relative equality" with the white community. About 20% of free black Virginians owned their own homes. By 1665, however, racism was becoming more common. In 1662 the Virginia Colony passed a law that children in the colony were born with the social status of their mother, according to the Roman principle of partus sequitur ventrem. This meant that the children of slave women were born into slavery, even if their fathers were free, English, Christian, and white. This was a reversal of English common law, which held that the children of English subjects took the status of their father. Africans were considered foreigners and thus were not English subjects.[20]

Anthony Johnson moved his family to Somerset County, Maryland, where he negotiated a lease on a 300-acre (120 ha) plot of land for ninety-nine years. He developed the property as a tobacco farm, which he named Tories Vineyards.[21] Mary survived, and in 1672 she bequeathed a cow to each of her grandsons. In 1677, Anthony and Mary’s grandson, John Jr., purchased a 44-acre farm which he named Angola. John Jr. died without leaving an heir, however. By 1730, the Johnson family had vanished from the historical records.[22]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Foner, Philip S. (1980). "History of Black Americans: From Africa to the Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom". Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2013-10-14. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Heinegg, Paul (2005). Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina from the Colonial Period to about 1820, Volume 2. Pg 705: Genealogical Publishing. ISBN 9780806352824.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Heinegg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Breen, T. H. (2004). "Myne Owne Ground" : Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676. Pg 12: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199729050.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Breen10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Walker, Juliet (2009). The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship, Volume 1. Pg 49: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807832417.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  7. ^ Frank W. Sweet (July 2005). Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule. Backintyme. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-939479-23-8. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  8. ^ Federal Writers' Project (1954). Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion. Pg 76: US History Publishers. ISBN 9781603540452.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  9. ^ Danver, Steven (2010). Popular Controversies in World History. Pg 322: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598840780.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  10. ^ Kozlowski, Darrell (2010). Colonialism: Key Concepts in American History. Pg 78: Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781604132175.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  11. ^ Conway, John (2008). A Look at the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments: Slavery Abolished, Equal Protection Established. Pg 5: Enslow Publishers. ISBN 9781598450705.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  12. ^ Toppin, Edgar (2010). The Black American in United States History. Pg 46: Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 9781475961720.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  13. ^ Donoghue, John (2010). "Out of the Land of Bondage": The English Revolution and the Atlantic Origins of Abolition" (PDF). The American Historical Review. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  14. ^ Russell, 29
  15. ^ Slavery and Indentured Servants Law Library of Congress
  16. ^ "Slave Laws". Virtual Jamestown. Retrieved 2013-11-04.
  17. ^ Breen and Innes, "Myne Owne Ground," p. 15
  18. ^ Klein, 43-44.
  19. ^ Rodriguez, Junius. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 2. Pg 353: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851095445. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |year 2007= (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
  20. ^ Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit – Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia", Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School. Retrieved April 21, 2009.
  21. ^ Johnson (1999), Africans in America, p. 44.
  22. ^ "Johnson, Anthony - 1670", Black Past.org

Sources

  • Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone, The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Harvard University Press, 1998.
  • Breen, Timothy and Stephen Innes. "Myne Own Ground" Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1979/reprint 2004, 25th anniversary edition: Oxford University Press
  • Cox, Ryan Charles. "The Johnson Family: The Migratory Study of an African-American Family on the Eastern Shore", Delmarva Settlers, University of Maryland Salisbury, accessed 16 November 2012.
  • Horton, James Oliver and Lois E. Horton, Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America, Rutgers University Press, 2002.
  • Johnson, Charles; Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Research Team, Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999.
  • Klein, Herbert S. Slavery in the Americas; A Comparative Study of Virginia and Cuba.
  • Nash, Gary B., Julie R. Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, and Allan M. Winkler. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. 6th ed. New York: Pearson, 2004. 74-75.
  • Matthews, Harry Bradshaw, The Family Legacy of Anthony Johnson: From Jamestown, VA to Somerset, MD, 1619-1995, Oneonta, NY: Sondhi Loimthongkul Center for Interdependence, Hartwick College, 1995.
  • Russell, Jack Henderson. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1913
  • WPA Writers' Program, Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940 (p. 378)
  • "Anthony Johnson", Thinkport Library

http://www.blackpast.org/aah/johnson-anthony-1670 http://www.snopes.com/facts-about-slavery/ http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Court_Ruling_on_Anthony_Johnson_and_His_Servant_1655

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