John Casor

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John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), [1] a servant in Northampton County in the Colony of Virginia, in 1655 became one of the first people of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be enslaved for life as a result of a civil suit.

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In 1662, the Virginia Colony passed a law incorporating the principle of partus sequitur ventrem , ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father's race or status. [2] This contradicted English common law for English subjects, which based a child's status on that of the father. In 1699, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law deporting all free Black people.[ citation needed ] But many new families of free Black people continued to be formed during the colonial years by the close relationships among the working class. [1]

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 servants.

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. [3] The colonial charter entitled English subjects and their children the rights of the common law. Still, people of other nations were considered foreigners or aliens outside the common law. At the time, the colony had no provision for naturalizing foreigners. [2]

Anthony Johnson, a Black Angolan, was an indentured servant brought to the James River area of Virginia on the ship James in 1621. [4] During the late 1640s, Johnson moved with his family to Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. [5] He acquired property on Pungoteague Creek and began raising livestock. [4] 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 250 acres (100 ha), 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 250 acres (100 ha) as "headrights" for bringing in workers. [4]

In 1653, John Casor, an African man employed by Johnson, filed what later became known as a freedom suit. He said that he had been imported with an indenture of "seaven or eight yeares", and that Johnson told him he did not have one after he attempted to reclaim it. 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." [6]

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. [6] One commentator said that Johnson may have feared losing his headrights land if the case went to court. [7]

In 1654, Johnson sued Robert Parker in Northampton County court for detaining his "Negro servant, John Casor," saying, "Hee never did see any [indenture] but 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 enslave Casor, 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. [6] [8]

Slavery

In sustaining the claim of Johnson to the perpetual service of Casor, the court also gave judicial sanction to the right of free Black people to enslave another Black person. 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." [9] 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." [10] In 1670, the colonial assembly passed a law prohibiting free and baptized Black and Indigenous people from purchasing white, Christian persons, but allowing them to buy people "of their owne nation." In this meaning, "purchase" is also related to buying the contract services of indentured servants of various "nations." [9]

In 1665, Anthony Johnson and his wife, Mary; his son John; and his wife, Susanna; and John Casor moved to Somerset County, Maryland. Casor remained enslaved by Johnson for the rest of his life. [1]

Legal restrictions related to African servants continued to be made. 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. [7] Africans were considered foreigners or aliens. [2]

In 1662, the colony passed a law that children of enslaved women (of African descent and thus foreigners) were to take the mother's status rather than the father's, as was current under English common law. The principle, called partus sequitur ventrum , had been adopted from Roman law [2] and caused children born of a free white mother and Black 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. [11]

By the end of the 17th century, colonists were importing many African slaves via European slave traders to satisfy their demands for labor. There was limited demand for slaves, and trade with America was unprofitable, with the trade with the West Indies and South America remaining far more lucrative. The most likely source of slaves was directly from the West Indies, rather than Africa, through the contacts the American colonists maintained with the European colonies in the region. [12] By an act of 1699, the colony ordered all free Black people deported, virtually defining slaves as all people of African descent who remained in the colony. [7]

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. 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. [11] [13]

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Johnson (colonist)</span> Indentured servant, farmer, enslaver (1600–1670)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom suit</span> Enslaved persons lawsuits for freedom

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 territory.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in North Carolina</span>

Slavery was legally practiced in the Province of North Carolina and the state of North Carolina until January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Prior to statehood, there were 41,000 enslaved African-Americans in the Province of North Carolina in 1767. By 1860, the number of slaves in the state of North Carolina was 331,059, about one third of the total population of the state. In 1860, there were nineteen counties in North Carolina where the number of slaves was larger than the free white population. During the antebellum period the state of North Carolina passed several laws to protect the rights of slave owners while disenfranchising the rights of slaves. There was a constant fear amongst white slave owners in North Carolina of slave revolts from the time of the American Revolution. Despite their circumstances, some North Carolina slaves and freed slaves distinguished themselves as artisans, soldiers during the Revolution, religious leaders, and writers.

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Jane Webb, also known as Jane Williams was an indentured servant in Northampton County of the Colony of Virginia. She entered a seven-year contract with Thomas Savage so that she could marry an enslaved man named Left. It allowed for children born during those seven years to be bound over to Savage, but after she was free, Webb expected her children to be free. Savage used the courts to his advantage and also used stall tactics to prevent the case from being settled. In the end, Left and their children were enslaved to Savage and his heirs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Strong</span> Enslaved woman in the US Northwest Territory (c. 1796–unknown)

Polly Strong was an enslaved woman in the Northwest Territory, in present-day Indiana. She was born after the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. Slavery was prohibited by the Constitution of Indiana in 1816. Two years later, Strong's mother Jenny and attorney Moses Tabbs asked for a writ of habeas corpus for Polly and her brother James in 1818. Judge Thomas H. Blake produced indentures, Polly for 12 more years and James for four more years of servitude. The case was dismissed in 1819.

Mary Bateman Clark (1795–1840) was an American woman, born into slavery, who was taken to Indiana Territory. She was forced to become an indentured servant, even though the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. She was sold in 1816, the same year that the Constitution of Indiana prohibited slavery and indentured servitude. In 1821, attorney Amory Kinney represented her as she fought for her freedom in the courts. After losing the case in the Circuit Court, she appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court in the case of Mary Clark v. G.W. Johnston. She won her freedom with the precedent-setting decision against indentured servitude in Indiana. The documentary, Mary Bateman Clark: A Woman of Colour and Courage, tells the story of her life and fight for freedom.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Heinegg, Paul (2010). "Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware" . Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 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
  3. ↑ Foner, Philip S. (1980). "Slaves and Free Blacks in the Southern Colonies". History of Black Americans: From Africa to the Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on October 14, 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Tucker, George (August 21, 1994). "Ambitious Slave-Turned-Slaveowner Enjoys Farm Success (commentary)". The Virginian Pilot. Archived from the original on February 20, 2008. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  5. ↑ Heinegg, Paul (2010). "Jeffery-Johnson". Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware. Retrieved March 7, 2011., See Preface by Ira Berlin as well. Note: The historian Ira Berlin suggests that early Africans in the colony may have been Atlantic creoles, bilingual and mixed-race descendants of Portuguese or Spanish workers and African women. That may also have been the case for John Casor, whose surname was recorded in colonial records as Cazara and Corsala in 1672 and 1676, respectively.
  6. 1 2 3 Billings, Warren (2009). The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606–1700. pp. 286–287. ISBN   978-1442961265.
  7. 1 2 3 William J. Wood, "The Illegal Beginning of American Slavery", ABA Journal, 1970, American Bar Association, accessed May 2, 2011
  8. ↑ Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers' Program. NY: Oxford University Press, 1940, p. 378.
  9. 1 2 Russell, John H. (June 1916). "Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia". Journal of Negro History. 1 (3): 233–242. doi:10.2307/3035621. JSTOR   3035621. S2CID   149783730 . Retrieved October 6, 2013.
  10. ↑ John Henderson Russell. The Free Negro In Virginia, 1619–1865, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913, pp. 29–30, scanned text online
  11. 1 2 Slavery and Indentured Servants Law Library of Congress
  12. ↑ Billings, The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century, p. 273
  13. ↑ Tunnicliff Catterall, Helen (June 1968). Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, Volumes 1–5. Reprint: Octagon Books. p. 93. ISBN   978-0837103433.
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