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Message Subject Black minister admits blacks started slavery in America
Poster Handle Anonymous Coward
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From evidence found in the earliest legal documents extant, it is Anthony Johnson, a black man, who we now must recognize as the nation's first slaveholder. After all, the court battle he eventually won in 1655 to keep John Casor as his servant for life, identifies this unfortunate soul as the first slave in the recorded history of our country. Claiming that he had been imported as an indentured servant, Casor attempted to transfer what he argued was his remaining time of service to Robert Parker, a white, but Johnson insisted that "hee had ye Negro for his life".

The unfortunate defendant in the court action, John Casor, thus became the first individual known to be legally declared and legally recognized slave by any colonial government.

The court ruled: "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."

Antonio Johnson (who later changed his name to Anthony), a black or black-hispanic mixed man, and his future wife Mary, a black woman, were among the very first non-white and non-Native American people to arrive in America. They came by boat to Virginia in 1619, with other blacks and whites, as indentured servants. Upon their release they were given land and eventually became wealthy enough to take on indentured servants of their own. John Casor became one of Anthony Johnson's indentured servants. In 1665 Anthony and Mary Johnson moved to Maryland to live out the rest of their lives, but not before setting the legal precedent for lifelong slavery of Christians, (mostly white Scots and Irish).It didn't take long for rich land-owners and politicians to contrive ways to change the focus of slavery from religion to color, and slavery as we generally know it was born.
 
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