From 2019 EJI Calendar
1655: Virginia Colony court rules against John Casor, a black indentured servant who sued for his freedom after being forced to work past his term, and declares him a slave for life.
From EJI Timeline
Virginia Colonial Court Declares Black Man Enslaved for Life
In 1655, John Casor–a man enslaved in the Virginia Colony–sued for his freedom. Casor argued that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by his “owner,” Anthony Johnson, to serve past his term. On March 8, 1655, the court ruled against Casor, declared him enslaved for life, and ordered him to return to Johnson.
The first Africans brought to Virginia were treated as indentured servants. After working their contracts for passage to Virginia, each was granted fifty acres of land and released to live free. During Casor’s lifetime, slavery became entrenched and indentured servitude a less economical source of labor.
In 1640, fifteen years before Casor’s civil suit, the Virginia Governor’s Council considered the case of John Punch, a black indentured servant accused of attempting to escape with two other indentured servants who were white. Punch was sentenced to life servitude as punishment, while the two white indentured servants were only sentenced to four extra years of labor. The fates of Casor and Punch signaled a shift from indentured servitude to a form of racialized slavery that would come to shape America.
In their ruling in Johnson v. Parker, the court of Northhampton County upheld Johnson’s right to hold Casor in lifelong slavery, ordering “John Casor, Negro, forthwith return unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson.”