Anthony Johnson was an Angolan African held as an indentured servant by a merchant in the Colony of Virginia in 1620, but later freed to become a successful tobacco farmer and owner. His death in 1670 a court ruled that he was: "a negro and by consequence, an alien", and the colony seized his land.
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Johnson was captured by slave traders in his native land of Angola and sold as a slave to a merchant working for the Virginia Company.[1] He arrived in Virginia in 1621 aboard the James. At this time he was known in the records as "Antonio, a Negro".[2] Johnson was later sold to a white planter named Bennet to work on his Virginia tobacco farm.
Prior to 1654, all Africans in the thirteen Colonies were held in indentured servitude and were released after a contracted period[3] with many of the slaves receiving land and equipment after their contracts for work expired. Bennet allowed Johnson to own his own plot of land to be used for farming.[4]
In 1622, he almost lost his life due to a Powhatan Indian attack on his farm. The Powhatans, who were native to Virginia, were upset at the advance of the tobacco planters on their business and planned an attack on Good Friday. Of the fifty-seven men on the farm where Johnson worked, fifty-two died during the attack. In 1622, 30 Native Americans attacked Jamestown to avenge the death of one of their leaders.
The following year (1623) "Mary, a Negro" arrived aboard the ship Margaret and was brought in to work on the plantation, where she was the only woman. They were married and lived together for over forty years.[5]
By around 1635 Antonio and Mary were free, and Antonio changed his name to Anthony Johnson.[6] In the late 1640s he moved to the Pungoteague River in Northampton County, Virginia where he aquired 250 acres (100 ha) of land on the eastern shore.
By July 1651, Johnson had five indentured servants of his own and he claimed an additional 250 acres (100 ha) of land based on the headright system.[7] He is recognized in Virginia court documents when he pled for tax relief after a fire destroyed much of his plantation,[8] and in a case in which he contested the freedom suit of a servant, John Casor. Johnson won the suit and retained Casor as his servant for life, the first true slave in Virginia.[9] In the tax-relief case (1653) 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".[10]
In 1657, Johnson’s white neighbor, Edmund Scarburgh, forged a letter in which Johnson acknowledged a debt. Even though Johnson was clearly illiterate and couldn’t have written the letter, the court granted a substantial amount of Johnson’s land (100 acres) to pay off his "debt".[11]
In 1665, Anthony Johnson and his family moved to Somerset County, Maryland, and negotiated a lease on a 300-acre (120 ha) plot of land for ninety-nine years. Johnson used this land to start a tobacco farm, which he named Tories Vineyards.[12]
After Johnson’s death in 1670, a court ruling set a precedent that would be an important factor in determining the social status of freed black men in the colonies. A white Virginian planter was allowed to seize Johnson’s land because a ruling by a local court that said, "as a black man, Anthony Johnson was not a citizen of the colony." [13]
Johnson’s children were only able to hold on to enough land to become independent farmers.
The remaining forty acres of Johnson’s original property were inherited by his grandson, John Johnson Jr. He named the farm Angola, as a tribute to his grandfather's birth country, however, after an inability to pay taxes he lost the land. He died in 1721.[14]
Slavery was officially established in Virginia in 1654, when Anthony Johnson convinced a court that his servant (also a black man), John Casor, was his for life. Johnson himself had been brought to Virginia some years earlier as an indentured servant (a contracted person who must work from five to seven years for no wages in exchange for food and shelter before being freed) but he had saved enough money to buy out the remainder of his contract and that of his wife. The court ruling in Johnson’s favor resulted in Casor becoming the first state-recognized slave in Virginia.
Although it was Anthony Johnson's court case against John Casor that established the legal status of slavery in Virginia, it is difficult to identify him as the 'first' slaveholder in the state as indentured servants were, in effect slaves for the term of their contract. Johnson was the first to hold servants who were legally slaves for life.
Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World. The landowner received 50 acres of land from the state (headrights) for each servant purchased (around £6 per person in 17th cen) from a ships captain. An indentured servant (who could be white or black) would work for several years (usually four to seven) without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery. Servants could be bought, sold, or leased. They could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Unlike slaves they were freed after their term of service expired or was bought out, their children did not inherit their status, and on their release from contract they received "a year's provision of corn, double apparel, tools necessary" and a small cash payment called "freedom dues."—John Hammond Indentured Servitude. Johnson himself had arrived in Virginia as an indentured servant.
The practice of importing Africans started in the Virginia area in 1619, a practice earlier established in the Spanish colonies as early as the 1560s.[15]
Native Americans were not immune to slavery by the colonising Europeans, and there is evidence of earlier small scale slavery among Native Americans in the United States.