Anthony Johnson is a man whose life traversed the thin lines between freedom and bondage. Born in Angola, Johnson was captured and transported to the English colonies in the early 17th century. Eventually gaining his freedom, he became the first African American landowner and, surprisingly, the first to legally own slaves. (See page 95)

Johnson’s journey unfolded in Virginia, where he acquired land and cultivated it into a successful farm. Strikingly, he became a slaveholder himself, a fact that raises eyebrows and invites reflection on the complexities of power and circumstance during that time.

A step further, Johnson found himself at the center of a legal battle that would echo through history when in 1655, he went to court to seek the return of a black indentured servant, John Casor, who claimed he had fulfilled his term of service. This case is often considered one of the earliest involving the legal status of enslaved individuals in the English colonies. The court’s decision in Johnson’s favor marked a chilling precedent, laying the foundation for a system that would entrench slavery as an institution in America.

Original Slave Masters refers to the fact that when commodities like Ivory, gold, cotton, and other trades drew European traders to West Africa in search of cheap labor to work on plantations, enslaved West Africans became the most valuable commodity because Slavery was already in existence in African before any Europeans arrived.

Tags: Early African American History, Legal Precedents, Landownership, Slavery in America