Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in America.
Virginia’s first legal cases involving slaves.
In 1640 the first case in Virginia to make an indentured servant a slave was that of John Punch.
On July 9, 1640, members of the General Court decided the punishment for three servants-a Dutchman, a Scotsman, and an African-who ran away from their master as a group. The proceedings reveal an example of interracial cooperation among servants at a time when the colony’s leaders were starting to create legal differences between Europeans and Africans. John Punch became the first African to be a slave for life by law in Virginia (and all 13 colonies).
Massachusetts
Massachusetts First Slaves
The exact date slaves first entered Massachusetts is unknown but many sources suggest
Samuel Maverick was the first slaveholder in the colony after he arrived in early Boston in 1624 with two slaves. According to the book
“Bound for America: The Forced Migration of Africans to the New World,” the first slaves imported directly from Africa to Massachusetts arrived in 1634.
A few years later, in December of 1638, a slave ship named Desire brought Boston’s first shipment of slaves from Barbados, whom had been exchanged for enslaved Pequot Indians from New England.
Massachusetts First Laws involving slaves.
In 1641, Governor John Winthrop, a slave owner himself, helped write the first law legalizing slavery in North America. In 1641 he helped write the
Massachusetts Body of Liberties which was the first legal code established in Massachusetts.
New York
First Slaves in New York.
In Leslie M Harris’s book,
In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Historical Studies of Urban America) she says the first slaves in the Colony of New York came in 1626, when 11 African slaves were imported by the Dutch West India Company. In 1635 roads were built by slaves, timber and firewood cut by slaves, and they cut and burned limestone and seashells used in outhouses. In 1636 settlers bought slaves from a ship’s captain from Providence Island, in 1642 a French privateer sold and unknown number of slaves
Was the First Slave Owner in America a Black Man?
These situations pre date Johnson by at least a decade.
Hoax Alert: First Slave Owner in America WAS NOT a Black Man
First off, it should be noted that the man portrayed in the above image isn't Anthony Johnson, but more ironically,
Lewis Hayden. It is ironic because Hayden was actually an African-American leader who escaped with his family from slavery in Kentucky. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife aided numerous fugitive slaves on the
Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Secondly, while the case of Anthony Johnson and John Casor was not a matter of the first slave owner, it might have been the first civil case involving slavery. At the very least this is the first known example of a black man owning either indenture servants or slaves in the colonies. Slaves had been here since 1619, and all slaves had been "legal" slaves (and thus their owners "legal" slave owners) since the first law legalizing slavery passed. The first man to be considered a slave by a court of law was
John Punch, and his owner Hugh Gwyn considered the first slave owner by a court of law.
In conclusion, a black man did own slaves in Jamestown Va., but he was NOT the first slave owner. The first "20 odd" slaves arrived in 1619 on a Dutch boat and were then sold to Jamestown residents.
Hoax Alert: First Slave Owner in America WAS NOT a Black Man | Lead Stories
