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An introduction to the life of Anthony Johnson Part 2
people in the colonies would eventually be ensnared in. Anthony knew to adapt, converting to the religion of the people around him. Francis Latimer once said "We think of slavery as this complete package that just came to evil landowners. It didn't happen that way. Changes occured one law at a time and to one person at a time." This is true, and it all started with a little thing. Africans couldn't have guns. -
An introduction to the life of Anthony Johnson Part 1
Click here for more information about early servitudeIn 1621, an African arrived in Virginia. His name was Anthony Johnson. He'd come from England after a shipwreck. Anthony was an indentured servant, as Africans were at the time. They served longer years, but not a lifetime. While he was serving, Anthony was one of five to survive an Indian attack. Anthony watched laws get passed that laid the beginning for a delicate trap that all African -
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Diminishing Progress
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1625 Census
Anthony Johnson is an indentured servant according to the 1625 census. This is important because it showed African and English servants were treated similarly. Anthony was a Christian, and according to the Siete Partidas laws, you couldn't have a Christian slave because they recognized bondage was not a natural human condition. -
Anthony Johnson's slave's case
Anthony Johnson's slave, John Casar, goes to court, demanding his freedom. Casar says that the agreed amount of years was eight. Johnson argued that there was no such areement and the slave was his for life. Anthony won. A free African's word is better than their own slave's. This is important because is shows how dependent our society was on the African's labor. Anthony Johnson was greedy for the work of his slave. -
Casual Killing of slaves
This law presented a "get out of jail free" card for the slave owners. They could punish slaves by whipping them, but then they began to die. As a result, a law was passed saying that an Englishman couldn't be arrested for accidentally killing a slave, if it was a result of a punishment. This put the Englishmen in control over the fearing Africans. -
More on the Harsh Punishment of Slaves
The Englishmen were so greedy; they couldn't let two hogs go without nearly killing the thief, as long as they weren't white. The African's descendants were punished physically, as opposed to the former adding of time to their sentence. This law clearly demonstrates the power-hungry Englishmen trying to avoid loss of money. -
Harsh punishment
A law was passed deciding the punishment for the first and second offenses of hog stealing done by a slave or negroe. For the first offence, a slave would receive thirty-nine lashes on the back (forty was said to kill). On the second offence, a slave would stand in a pillory for two hours with their ears nailed to it. At the end of the two hours, their ears would be cut off at the nails. They were literally resigning to torture. This leads us to believe they no longer saw slaves as human. -
Slaves declared property
A law was passed declaring slaves were property. This law treated the slaves as a family tool, dehumanized. It also said that slaves were not just for life, but all decendents of that slave were also slaves for life. This law laid out that if a master were to be killed or die, the slaves would be inherited with all of their land. This law is the cincher in deciding slaves were no longer human. The slaves were sold at auctions, just like goods. The Africans were doomed to a life of servitude. -
More on Slaves declarded property
This law tied the rope and pulled as hard as it could, killing their freedom and trapping them in the perpetuity of slavery. This law led into slavery as we've always learned it: they came over to the colonies and were life-long property. No one ever really wants to teach the downfall of civility. -
Conclusion
Anthony Johnson lived a fine life, but his children and grandchildren felt the rope of racial prejudice around their necks, chocking off their hopes of a successful career. Anthony saw a lot of progress in his lifetime, but within a few years, it all went tumbling down into the oblivion, out of the history books, out of knowledge. The sort of thing a lot of people will never know. It doesn't make any sense, because if we don't learn, history might just repeat itself, as it has before. The reason -
Conclusion part 2
For more informationwe study history is to understand the past and the patterns that lead to this sort of systematic passage of laws ever happening again. We learn history to know the consquences of mistakes we'll never have to make. We make progress and try to assure it's not diminished.
