John Casor

In 1654, John Casor of Northampton County in the Virginia Colony became the first person to be declared a slave for life.

Background

At this time, there were only about 300 persons of African origin living in the Virginia Colony, about 1% of an estimated 30,000 population. The first came to Jamestown in 1619 as indentured servants. After working out their loans for passage money to Virginia, 50 acres of land was granted to each when freed from their indentures, so they could raise their own tobacco or other crops.

Legal dispute

Anthony Johnson was a Black colonist, one of the original 20 brought to Jamestown in 1619. By 1623, Johnson had achieved his freedom as was a "free Negro". During the late 1640s, Johnson moved with his family to Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore where he acquired property on Pungoteague Creek and began raising livestock. By July 1651, he had brought his holdings, which he referred to in a court record as "myne owne ground," to convert|250|acre|km2, then a considerable tract by eastern shore standards and was prosperous enough to import five people of his own and was granted convert|250|acre|km2 as "headrights". [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp940821/08190821.htm]

John Casor, a Black man employed by Johnson, said that he had been imported as an indentured servant and attempted to transfer what he argued was his remaining time of service to Robert Parker, a White colonist. However, Anthony Johnson brought suit in Northampton County court against Robert Parker in 1654 for detaining his "Negro servant, John Casor," saying "hee had ye Negro for his life". In the case of "Johnson vs Parker", the court of Northampton County upheld Johnson's right to hold Casor as a slave, saying:

"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."Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion", WPA Writers' Program. NY: Oxford University Press, 1940, p. 378.]

Sustaining the claim of Anthony Johnson to the perpetual service of John Casor the court gave judicial sanction to the right of Negroes to own slaves of their own race. Indeed no earlier record, to our knowledge, has been found of judicial support given to slavery in Virginia except as a punishment for crime. The defendant, John Casor, thus became the first individual known to be declared a slave in what later became the United States. [http://www.dinsdoc.com/russell-1.htm]

In 1665 Anthony Johnson and his wife Mary, his son John and his wife Susanna, and their slave John Casor moved to Somerset County, Maryland. Casor remained Johnson's slave for the rest of his life. [http://freeafricanamericans.com/Jeffery_Johnson.htm]

By the end of the 17th century, large numbers of slaves from Africa were brought by Dutch and British ships to the colonies extending from Delaware south.

References

* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/johnson.html] PBS, "Blurred racial lines"