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John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), a servant in Northampton County in the
Virginia Colony The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...
, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in the
Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centu ...
to be declared as a
slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slaveā€”someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
for life as a result of a civil suit. In 1662, the Virginia Colony passed a law incorporating the principle of ''
partus sequitur ventrem ''Partus sequitur ventrem'' (L. "That which is born follows the womb"; also ''partus'') was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born th ...
'', ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father's race or status.Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit - Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia"
41 ''Akron Law Review'' 799 (2008), Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School, accessed April 21, 2009
This was in contradiction to English
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...
for English subjects, which based a child's status on that of the father. In 1699 the Virginia
House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been establishe ...
passed a law deporting all free black people. But many new families of free black people continued to be formed during the colonial years by the close relationships among the working class.


Background

At this time, there were only about 300 people of African origin living in the Virginia Colony, about 1% of an estimated population of 30,000. The first group of 20 or so Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619 as
indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of Work (human activity), labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensa ...
s. After working out their contracts for passage money to Virginia and completing their indenture, each was granted of land (headrights). This enabled them to raise their own
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
or other crops. Although most historians believe slavery, as an institution, developed much later, they differ on the exact status of the servitude of Africans before slavery was established legally, as well as differing over the date when this took place. The colonial charter entitled English subjects and their children the rights of the
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...
, but people of other nations were considered foreigners or aliens outside the common law. At the time, the colony had no provision for naturalizing foreigners.


Legal dispute

Anthony Johnson, a black Angolan, was an indentured servant brought to the
James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesap ...
area of Virginia on the ship ''James'' in 1621. During the late 1640s, Johnson moved with his family to Northampton County on the
Eastern Shore of Virginia The Eastern Shore of Virginia consists of two counties ( Accomack and Northampton) on the Atlantic coast detached from the mainland of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The region is part of the Delmarva Peninsula and is s ...
. He acquired property on Pungoteague Creek and began raising livestock. He was the first known African landowner in the colony. By July 1651, he had expanded his holdings, which he referred to in a court record as ''myne owne ground,'' to , then a considerable tract by Eastern Shore standards. He was prosperous enough to import five indentured servants of his own and was granted an additional as " headrights" for bringing in workers. In 1653 John Casor, an African employed by Johnson, filed what later became known as a
freedom suit Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or ter ...
. He said that he had been imported as a "seaven or eight yeares" indentured servant and that, after attempting to reclaim his indenture, he had been told by Johnson that he didn't have one. According to the civil court documents, Casor demanded his freedom. "Anthony Johnson was in a feare. Upon this his son in law, his wife and his two sonnes persuaded the said Anthony Johnson to set the said John Casor free." Casor went to work for Robert Parker, an English colonist who, along with his brother George, later testified that they knew Casor had an indenture. One commentator said that Johnson may have feared losing his headrights land if the case went to court.William J. Wood, "The Illegal Beginning of American Slavery"
''ABA Journal'', 1970, American Bar Association, accessed May 2, 2011
Anthony Johnson brought suit in Northampton County court against Robert Parker in 1654 for detaining his "Negro servant, John Casor," saying "Hee never did see any ndenturebut that hee had ye Negro for his life". 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 March 8, 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.''Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion'', WPA Writers' Program. NY: Oxford University Press, 1940, p. 378.


Slavery

In sustaining the claim of Johnson to the perpetual service of Casor, the court also gave judicial sanction to the right of free blacks to own slaves of their own race. In a 1916 article, John H. Russell wrote, "Indeed no earlier record, to our knowledge, has been found of judicial support given to slavery in Virginia except as a punishment for a crime." Russell makes that distinction because in 1640, John Punch "was reduced from his former condition of servitude for a limited time to a condition of slavery for life."John Henderson Russell. ''The Free Negro In Virginia, 1619-1865''
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913, pp. 29-30, scanned text online
In 1670, the colonial assembly passed a law prohibiting free and baptized negroes and Indians from purchasing Christians, meaning whites, but allowing them to buy people "of their owne nation." In this meaning, "purchase" also related to buying the contract services of indentured servants of various "nations." 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 Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
. Casor remained Johnson's slave for the rest of his life. Legal restrictions continued to be made related to African servants. The courts reasoned that "Insofar as Negroes were heathens, they could never become Englishmen; insofar as they were not Englishmen, they could not be entitled to the protections of the common law," which was limited to English subjects. Africans were considered foreigners or aliens. In 1662, the colony passed a law that children of enslaved women (who were of African descent and thus foreigners) were to take the status of the mother, rather than of the father, as was current under English common law. The principle, called '' partus sequitur ventrum'', had been adopted from
Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
and caused children born of a free white mother and Negro father to be born free. In 1691, the law was amended; such mixed-race children had to serve as indentured servants for 30 years while the mother would be fined fifteen pounds sterling. If the mother failed to pay the fine within a month of birth, she was indentured herself for five years. By the end of the 17th century, colonists were importing many Africans via European slave traders as slaves to satisfy the demand for labor. There was limited demand for slaves and trade with America was not profitable, with the trade with the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...
remaining far more lucrative. The most likely source of slaves was directly from the West Indies, rather than Africa, through the contacts that the American colonists maintained with the European colonies in the region.Billings, ''The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century'', p. 273 By an act of 1699, the colony ordered all free blacks deported, virtually defining as slaves all people of African descent who remained in the colony. Most historians argue that John Punch, an African who was ordered indentured for life in 1640, should be considered the first documented slave in Virginia. Punch had escaped along with two white indentured servants, one from the United Provinces and the other from
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. When they were captured, all three were sentenced to whippings. The Dutchman and the Scotsman were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude. However, John Punch, the African, was sentenced to servitude for the rest of his life. The difference in penalties makes this one of the first cases to show a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.Slavery and Indentured Servants
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See also

*
Indentured servitude in Virginia Indentured servitude in continental North America began in the Colony of Virginia in 1609. Initially created as means of funding voyages for European workers to the New World, the institution dwindled over time as the labor force was replaced wi ...
* John Punch *
Freedom suit Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or ter ...
*
List of slaves Slavery is a social-economic system under which people are enslaved: deprived of personal freedom and forced to perform labor or services without compensation. These people are referred to as slaves, or as enslaved people. The following is a ...


References


External links


Did Black People Own Slaves?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casor, John 17th-century American slaves American indentured servants Virginia colonial people Freedom suits in the United States United States slavery case law Year of birth missing Year of death missing American domestic workers