Anthony Johnson who was Catholic, came to the United States in 1621 after being captured by an African tribe in his native country of Portuguese Angol. He was sold to an Arab slave trader who brought him to Virginia aboard a ship called "the James" and was sold as an indentured servant to a tobacco farmer in the British colony of Jamestowne, by the name of Bennet.
Bennet was a merchant who worked for the Virginia Company, an English trading company chartered by King James 1, on 10 April 1606. Such workers if they couldn't afford the trip they typically worked under a limited indenture contract for four to seven years to pay off their passage, room, board, lodging, and freedom dues.
As was the system, he was required to work to gain his freedom, though the precise number of years he was indentured is unknown. Those who completed their contract of indenture would receive land and equipment. Most white laborers in this period also came to the colony as indentured servants.
In 1622, Bennet's plantation was attacked by the Powhatan Indian tribe when they raided the settlement where Johnson worked and killed 52 of the 57 men working that day, and by noon over 350 colonists were murdered. Only Anthony and 4 other men survived the attack in the Indian Massacre of 1622 popularly known as the Jamestown Massacre.
Supplies and food were running low and the region was just coming out of a 7 year drought that strained trade relationships with neighboring tribes. Many of them were forced to resort to canibalism in the face of starvation. In 1623 a black woman named Mary arrived aboard the ship called "the Margaret". She was brought to work on the same plantation as Antonio, where she was the only woman present.
At some point Anthony and Mary were married; a 1653 Northampton County court document lists Mary as Anthony’s wife. Married for over forty years, they produced at least four children including two sons and two daughters. The couple was respected in their community for their “hard labor and known service,” according to court documents.
When Antonio and Mary concluded the terms of their indentured servitude around 1635 he was granted a large plot of farmland by the colonial government after he paid off his indentured contract by his labor. On July 24, 1651, he acquired 250 acres (100 ha) of land under the "headright system" which is a legal grant of land given to settlers during the period of European colonization in the Americas.
He purchased the contracts of five indentured servants, one of whom was his son Richard Johnson. The headright system worked in such a way that if a man were to bring indentured servants over to the colonies (in this particular case, Johnson brought the five servants), he was owed 50 acres a "head", or servant.
Headrights were given to heads-of-households, and because 50 acres were accumulated for each member of the household, families had an incentive to make the passage to the colonies together.
The land was located on the Great Naswattock Creek, which flowed into the Pungoteague River in Northampton County, Virginia. With his own indentured servants, Johnson ran his own tobacco plantation.
A fire in 1653 destroyed much of the Johnson’s plantation. As a result of the fire, Anthony and Mary petitioned the court for tax relief, which was granted on the grounds that they would have difficulty obtaining a livelihood.
By 1654 Johnson’s two sons, Richard and John, both owned acreage adjoining their father’s land. John Johnson acquired 450 acres next to his father’s land, listing Mary Johnson (his mother) as one of the indentures on the deed.
Two years later Richard Johnson acquired a 100-acre tract next to his father and brother listing Anthony (his father) as one of the indentures upon which he was claiming headrights.
In 1655 Court records reveal that Johnson won a case against white planter, Robert Parker, to retain ownership of John Cassor. Cassor, with the help of Robert Parker, tried to claim that he was an indentured servant, not a slave. He claimed his slave master had died, but his slave master was a woman named Dilsey Pope and alive and well. They just didn't get along.
Dilsey Pope, a free black woman was John's slave master from Columbus Georgia. She was also (his) wife, who contracted him out to Anthony Johnson. When the contract was up, Anthony refused to release him. Pope, for a black slave owner in early America, there is a surprisingly little amount of information available about her. Aside from names, there were very few confirmable specific dates, so this is as good as it gets for her.
They keep calling them slaves, but that's not an accurate description. Most would earn their freedom, if they could support themselves. Unless you were owned by Anthony Johnson that is. It's all archived and a lot of it, is in a mixture of French.
A few correspondences noted that they argued a lot and in a heated argument one day, Dilsey once sold her husband John to a (white) neighbor that refused to give him back. Or was John begging these guys not to send him back to his evil manipulative wife? Official court documents show that on a separate occasion in another fit of anger she sold him off to Anthony Johnson. A black man.
Although the courts initially found in Parker’s favor, temporarily freeing Cassor, they subsequently reversed the decision, returning Cassor to the service of his master, Anthony Johnson making (John Cassor) the first recorded slave in early American history.
John Cassor may have had it so bad at home that he begged Anthony and that un named white farmer not to send him back. It's at least probable. Parker was said to have contracted John Cassor from Andrew. All documents show that Parker was helping John become a free man, and I noticed there was no mention of his wife or him wanting to go back to her. It's most likely why the court overturned the ruling because his wife/slave master wasn't dead as he claimed.
Sometime in the 1660s Anthony and Mary Johnson took their family and moved north into Maryland where Anthony leased a 300-acre farm and named it Tonies Vineyard Plantation, where he lived until his death in 1670.
After Anthony’s death, Mary assumed the central role in the family. She renegotiated the plantation lease agreement obtaining a ninety-nine year lease for payment of colony taxes and an annual rent of one ear of Indian corn. Mary died 2 years later in 1672. In her will she bequeathed a cow to each of her grandsons.
Five years later, in 1677, Anthony and Mary’s grandson, John Jr., purchased a 44-acre farm which he named Angola. John Jr. later died without leaving an heir, and by 1730 the Johnson family had vanished from historical records.
When the British were colonizing America it cost money and resources to make that ship ride over to American shores. Almost half of the population arriving in the new world didn't survive the trip. When you arrived if you survived the trip, you would get 50 acres per head to start. If you couldn't afford the trip you could get someone to hold you under contract until you worked off your debt or purchased your own freedom.
Anthony was captured by his own people, and sold into slavery to an Arab and then sold to a white merchant who took good care of him. He put him to work until his debt was paid. When his freedom was granted and he applied the skills he learned through indentured servitude, he became very successful businessman. He just became wealthy through the enslavement of his own people. Sound's horrible doesn't it?
Most of these people had a debt to repay under indenture which was a mutual agreement and they were treated reasonable for the time. Sure, some slave owners were abusive and cruel, but it wasn't that common and a lot of them were black too, so spare me the victimhood routine. We all had it rough. Right when I was starting to like this guy, he breeched a legal contract and became a crook.
Sincerely,
Lonnie T. Locke LMT
Comments