{"id":269912,"date":"2023-06-13T06:02:19","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T06:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=269912"},"modified":"2023-06-14T06:58:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T06:58:40","slug":"a-virginia-man-was-one-of-americas-first-black-slave-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=269912","title":{"rendered":"A Virginia man was one of America&#8217;s first Black slave owners"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Margaret Minnicks \u2013 Newsbreak.com June 17, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>It is hard to believe that one of America&#8217;s first slave owners was a Black man in Virginia. It is interesting that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)#:~:text=Anthony%20Johnson%20(%20c.,recognized%20by%20the%20Virginia%20courts.\">Anthony Johnson<\/a> was brought to Virginia in 1620 as an <a href=\"https:\/\/encyclopediavirginia.org\/entries\/indentured-servants-in-colonial-virginia\/\">indentured servant<\/a> from Angola, West Africa.<\/p>\n<p>After Johnson served his time and was freed, he used what he had learned from being a slave on a tobacco farm to become a successful tobacco farmer and landowner. He became wealthy enough to own his own slaves. In 1651, he owned 250 acres of land and the services of four White indentured servants and one Black indentured servant.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Johnson as a slave owner<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Johnson&#8217;s story is interesting because he was a former slave before he become a slave owner himself. In 1654, John Casor, the only Black indentured servant, fled from Johnson&#8217;s tobacco farm. Johnson went to court to demand the return of Casor. The court ruled in Johnson&#8217;s favor, and Casor was the first person in the American colonies to be declared a slave for life.<\/p>\n<p>The Virginia court case was significant because it recognized Johnson as a slave owner. The court proved that Johnson was the first person to legally own a slave in the United States. Following the ruling, Johnson continued to own slaves and land until his death in 1670 because slavery was a widespread practice in the American colonies at that time. After Johnson&#8217;s death, his descendants also owned slaves and became successful landowners in Virginia and Maryland.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Reliable sources<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Some people might reject this information as being true because they might not have heard it before. However, the Virginia court records prove that Johnson was a Black slave owner.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some reliable sources that also back up the information in this article.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Berlin, Ira. &#8220;From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America.&#8221; The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 1996, pp. 251-288.<\/li>\n<li>Higginbotham, A. Leon Jr. &#8220;The Case of Anthony Johnson: Colonial American and African American.&#8221; Journal of Negro History, vol. 59, no. 1, 1974, pp. 1-19.<\/li>\n<li>Johnson, Michael P. &#8220;Anthony Johnson: America&#8217;s First Black, Slaveholding Colonist.&#8221; Journal of Black Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, 1998, pp. 228-242.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/original.newsbreak.com\/@margaret-minnicks-1587632\/3028031586301-a-virginia-man-was-one-of-america-s-first-black-slave-owners\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Johnson was brought to Virginia from Angola, West Africa, as an indentured servant. When he served his time and was freed he went on to become a successful landowner and tobacco farmer, employing slaves, both black and white   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":269914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Hidden_and_Revisionist_History"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269915,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269912\/revisions\/269915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/269914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}