From the Fox News Almanac of Twisted History? – or Blame Obama for White History Channel?
Some racist sounding claptrap making
its snaking way through social media.
“Our findings is that Anthony Johnson
was in fact a black man that owned slaves, but to call him the first slave
owner in America would be a stretch. If anything he owned the first slave
declared a slave in a civil court of law.
John Casor wasn’t the first slave in
America and Anthony Johnson wasn’t the first slave owner, slaves had been in
America since 1619 When the first 20 Africans were sold to the Jamestown
Virginia Colony by a Dutch man of war [1]. John Casor was declared a slave as a
result of a civil suit in 1655, he was an indentured servant until the civil
suit had declared him a slave for life. [2]
15 years earlier in 1640, John Punch (owned by Hugh Gwyn, a white man)
was the first man documented as a slave in the Virginia Colony, sentenced to
life in servitude for attempting to escape his indenture. 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. [3]”
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