Who is Anthony Johnson, why is the right wing using him to slam Black Lives Matter movement?
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that was reinvigorated amid the George Floyd protests brought to focus the centuries of racial oppression faced by the Black community, including slavery. The death of Floyd, an unarmed African-American man, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers also shed light on police brutality and systemic racism, as the BLM movement advocated for the demand to end these racial injustices.
Now, the US' blemished history surrounding slavery has emerged as the talking point of a conversation for the right wing who are using Anthony Johnson, a Black slave owner, to criticize the BLM movement. However, the information backing right wing arguments are based mostly on faulty information and historical misrepresentations.
"Who made them slaves you ask? Well, the Africans who sold them in the first place," said a user on Twitter while another added, "It all started with a BLACK slave trader name Anthony Johnson". While it's unfounded that Johnson was the founder of slavery in the colonies, it is true that he was the first Black person to "legally" own slaves in the 17th century. (Pictured above: A group of African slaves for sale, Jamestown, Virginia, 1619)
He wasn't the first person to own slaves, but he was the first "formally recognized" slave owner to fight for his "right" to own slaves in the US. But who is Johnson, and why is he the subject of criticism? "The first slave in America was held by a black man. When he was finally able to pay for his service, his black slaver took the case to court. Courts from there on allowed for slavery to take place in the US. Anthony Johnson an Angolan was the first real slave owner in America," a Twitter user claimed.
Historians Charles Johnson and Patricia Smith said that according to historical records, an enslaved African named Anthonis arrived in Virginia in 1621. He was captured in Angola and put on the ship James. Virginia had no regulations for slaves at the time, so documents from the time recorded him as "Antonio, a Negro" servant. He worked in a tobacco plantation in Virginia, and married "Mary, a Negro woman" who had sailed to the "New World" on the Margarett and John.
In March 1622, a local Indian Tribe, Tidewater attacked the plantation killing 52 people and Johnson was one of only five survivors. Sometime between 1622 and 1641, he became landowner Anthony Johnson. At this time, the Virginia colony had a handful of Black people and Johnson was one of the original 20.
The Johnsons are believed to have owned 250 acres of land along the Pungoteague Creek, on the eastern shore of Virginia, by 1650. They obtained the land through the headlight system, which enabled planters to claim acreage for each servant brought to the colony. Johnson claimed five headrights — one in the name of his son, Richard, and others from men he was believed to have imported.
A user on Twitter claimed, "Of course the first slave owner Anthony Johnson (Black) 1655 began all-out slavery in America under British rule." But there is only some truth to that. According to court records from 1655, Anthony was the master to a Black servant named John Casor, who went on to be recognized as the first person that was "arbitrarily declared" a slave for life in the US. After convincing Robert Parker and his brother George, Johnson's neighbors, that he was illegally detained indentured servants, Casor had momentarily attained freedom. He was on an indenture contract, which obligated him to work for its holder for a period it set.
However, Johnson fought to retain his ownership of Casor in a long legal battle and won. Previously, John Punch, another African had been sentenced to life enslavement as punishment for trying to escape indentured servitude, but Casor was the first to be declared a slave for life in a civil suit. The court ruled in favor of Johnson, following a disagreement over whether or not Casor's contract lapsed.
Casor's indenture turned into slavery, where he, and not his contract, was considered Johnson's property. Essentially, as this user observed, "Anthony Johnson was not the first slaveholder, ffs, and the fact that a relative handful of blacks owned slaves does not change the fact that they did so within a framework of institutionalized racism created by and perpetuated for the benefit of the white majority."
Johnson died in 1670, and the same year, an all-white jury ruled that his original land in Virginia could be seized [from his surviving family] by the state "because he was a Negro and by consequence an alien." The 50 acres of land that he had left to his son ended up in the hands of his white neighbors, the Parkers. That was pretty much the end of the Johnson legacy, as historians say that by 1730, the Johnson family had vanished from historical records.