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Sorry, 1619 Project—The first legal slaveowner in the American colonies was black
Why isn’t everyone who is obsessed with race and slavery in the US talking about Anthony Johnson? Why isn’t the 1619 Project called the 1655 Project? Before 1655, African slaves and European indentured servants in the English colonies shared the same working and living conditions, the contracts for both groups could be bought and sold, and after their contracts expired, usually in seven years, both groups were freed so long as they had done what was expected of them. Some historians say the first slave in the colonies was John Punch, a black man who ran away from his master and was punished with a term of life service, but he was sentenced in a criminal case because running away was a crime. Most historians agree that slavery in the colonies begins with John Casor, a servant who became a slave after his former master, Anthony Johnson, went to court and argued in a civil case that Casor belonged to him for life.
The inconvenient fact for fans of the 1619 Project? Anthony Johnson was black.
John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala),[1] a servant in Northampton County in the Virginia Colony, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as a result of a…
