Johnson, Anthony

Not known

Not known

After 1665

Somerset County, Maryland

Freedman and landowner

" . . . but now I know myne owne ground and I will worke when I please and play when I please."

Anthony Johnson

The life of Anthony Johnson, an African American landowner in colonial Virginia, presents an intriguing story. At a time when few former slaves could own property, Johnson amassed a sizable estate. He was brought to North America in 1621 and worked as a slave on a Virginia plantation. Gaining his freedom around 1635, he began acquiring his own plantation little by little during the 1640s. By 1651 he owned two hundred and fifty acres of land. Even a catastrophic fire that destroyed much of his estate in 1653 could not halt Johnson's rise to success. Historians believe that Johnson was immensely talented and energetic, enabling him to become what they call the "black patriarch" of Pungoteague Creek (the area of Virginia where his estate was located).

Works as plantation slave

Anthony Johnson arrived aboard the James in Virginia in 1621, two years after African slaves were first brought to the colony. Initially he was called "Antonio the negro," and there is no indication of how he acquired the surname Johnson (scholars speculate that a white man named Johnson may

Was Johnson unique?

Historical records show that Anthony Johnson, a freed slave, became a wealthy landowner in colonial Virginia. Yet historians have different ideas about how to interpret his success. They ask: Did other former slaves own large estates? Or was Johnson unique? Scholars did not seriously investigate the history of Virginia until the early twentieth century. By then, they tended to undervalue the significance of African American citizens such as Johnson. For instance, in Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (1907), historian Philip Alexander Bruce commented that Johnson was only one of "a number of persons of African blood in the Colony, who had raised themselves to a condition of moderate importance in the community." John H. Russell, the author of The Free Negro in Virginia 1619–1865 (1913), offered a more thorough account of Johnson's life. After comparing Johnson to his contemporaries, however, Russell still considered his success unusual but not especially remarkable.

have helped Anthony gain his freedom). Nothing is known about his earlier life. At that time, many Africans were indentured servants (people who worked for a specific period of time in order to buy their freedom). Black indentured servitude was prevalent in all colonies, but especially in the North. This was generally the case up to the 1760s, when most Africans remained in bondage for the rest of their lives. Prior to this time, however, some Africans who were indentured servants, and even some slaves were able to gain their freedom. In 1760 there were two thousand freed slaves (two to three percent of the African American population) in Virginia, and in the North about ten percent of the total African American population were freedmen (in Connecticut over twenty percent). Johnson, however, was a slave (a worker who was owned by a plantation owner and had to petition for freedom), and records show that he was purchased to work in the tobacco fields of the Warresquioake plantation, which was located on the James River. Warresquioake was owned by Edward Bennett, a wealthy Englishman who was participating in a program launched by the Virginia Company of London, England. The goal of the program was to make large sums of money in the New World (a European term for North America and South America) by using white and black indentured servants and slaves to cultivate crops such as tobacco. The English had found that buying tobacco from Spain was too expensive, so great hopes were placed in meeting the high demand for tobacco by producing it in English-owned American colonies. The project was led by Edwin Sandys, who favored Bennett and enabled him to purchase an estate that generated especially good profits. Warresquioake was run by Bennett's brother, Robert, and his nephew Richard, who at one time owned or employed more than sixty workers.

Survives Native American attack

Life in the Virginia colony was extremely difficult and even dangerous for slaves and servants, most of whom were teenagers and young men. Required to perform grueling labor in isolated fields, they were provided few comforts. Often these men met early and violent deaths because there was little security from attacks by the neighboring Tidewater tribe, Native Americans who were generally hostile to colonists. Johnson's own experience, which took place a year or so after he arrived at Warresquioake, illustrates the hazards of plantation life. On the morning of March 22, 1622, he was working in the fields when Native Americans launched a preplanned attack and massacred more than three hundred colonists in the area. They killed fifty-two people at Warresquioake, but Johnson was fortunately among the four survivors. By 1625 only twelve servants remained at Warresquioake, which had been renamed Bennett's Welcome.

Africans in America

In 1998 the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television network produced Africans in America, a four-part, six-hour program on the African American experience. The series traces the history of African Americans from their arrival in Virginia in 1619 through the late twentieth century. Anthony Johnson is mentioned in the first segment. Africans in America is available on videocassette. A companion book by the same title was also published.

On an unknown date shortly after the attack, Johnson was married to an African woman named Mary. She had arrived in Virginia in 1622 aboard the Margrett and John. Three years later she was the only woman living at Warresquioake. The unequal ratio of women to men was common at the time, since most employers, especially plantation owners, preferred male indentured servants and slaves for doing heavy labor. Women servants and slaves were used primarily for household work (though women slaves sometimes worked in the fields), and this kind of help was considered an unnecessary luxury that few people could afford. Therefore, most servants and slaves were men. As a result, male slaves and servants, white or black, led very lonely lives because they had few chances of ever marrying and raising a family. Historians consider Johnson lucky to have found a wife. The Johnsons had four children, and over the years the extended family became quite prosperous.

"I know myne owne grounde"

Although little is known about Johnson's life between 1625 and 1650, records show that he and Mary gained their freedom before 1635. They moved to Northampton County, Virginia, with their former master, Richard Bennett. After Bennett became governor of Virginia, he helped the Johnsons with legal and economic matters. As a freedman (former servants and slaves), Johnson was granted land as part of his "freedom dues" (items given when to freedmen when they were released from servitude). As a result, Johnson acquired land during the 1640s and began raising livestock. T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes, in Myne Owne Ground (1980), note that a case involving "Anthony the negro" and a Captain Philip Taylor is mentioned in Northampton County court records for 1645. According to a report given by Edwyn Conaway, the clerk of courts, Anthony and Taylor were both interested in owning a particular cornfield. One day Anthony and Taylor went out to the field to discuss the matter. When they returned, Conaway asked Anthony what they had decided. Conaway quoted Anthony as saying, "Mr. Taylor and I have devided our Corne And I am very glad of it [for] now I know myne owne, hee finds fault with mee that I doe not worke, but now I know myne owne ground and I will worke when I please and play when I please."

By 1651 Johnson owned 250 acres along Pungoteague Creek, which was considered a sizable estate at the time. On his plantation he used slaves and indentured servants as workers. Many white colonists could not afford to own any land at the time, so the fact that Johnson acquired considerable holdings is particularly unusual. Even more remarkably, he ultimately enjoyed a social status fairly close to that of white planters. Tragedy struck in February 1653, however, when much of Johnson's estate was destroyed by fire. This disastrous event set off a series of court cases that tested Johnson and his position as a landowner.

Position supported by courts

The first time Johnson appeared before the Northampton courts, he petitioned for tax exemption (at the time, taxes were levied on people, not land or livestock). The court responded by excusing his wife Mary and their two daughters from paying taxes. This action not only enabled Johnson to recover his losses but also made the Johnson women equal to the wives of white planters in Northampton County. White women did not pay taxes because they were engaged only in domestic work. In addition, physical labor was considered demeaning to a well-bred woman.

Johnson had similar results when he appeared before the court again on October 8, 1653. This time he was involved in a dispute over livestock with Lieutenant John Neale, who belonged to a powerful, white Virginia family. During the case, an investigation into the charges was led by Samuel Gouldsmith and Robert Parker, farmers who were familiar with business practices in the Pungoteague region. In spite of Neale's social status, the court once again ruled in favor of Johnson. While documents provide few details, historians assume that the outcome is further testimony to Johnson's high standing in the community. It also reveals concessions granted by Gouldsmith and Parker, who evidently believed that Johnson needed assistance after the fire on his estate.

Involved in slave ownership dispute

A year after the second court case, Johnson was embroiled in controversy one more time. Gouldsmith was paying a visit to the Johnson plantation when he was approached by John Casor, one of the workers. Pleading with Gouldsmith, Casor claimed that he was an indentured servant, not a slave, and that he had been held on the Johnson plantation illegally for seven years. After Johnson said he was not aware that Casor was indentured, Parker stepped in and took Casor to his farm. Parker claimed that Casor was indentured to a man named Mr. Sandys and that he was a runaway. Parker needed more field hands, so he apparently invented this story and took the opportunity to recruit an able-bodied worker. After deciding to set Casor free, Johnson changed his mind and asked the court to punish Parker for his conduct. On March 8, 1655, the court ruled that Parker had acquired Casor illegally and that Casor should be returned to Johnson.

This case is both culturally and historically significant. All of the participants had different perspectives about the social structure of Northampton County and their position within it. Therefore much of the tension arose from each person's sense of his own status in the community. Johnson saw that his own power lay in the fact that he was in agreement with white authorities on the issue of property ownership. Significantly, Johnson's values as a black owner of black slaves coincided with those held by the white aristocracy (a small privileged social class). Historians note, however, that at no time did anyone question whether or not slavery was wrong.

Johnsons are respected landowners

Although it is not clear why Johnson was granted so many favorable decisions by the Northampton courts, evidence suggests that he was considered a respected member of the community. Historians point out that in 1650 opportunities were available to African Americans—for instance, they could buy their freedom and own land. By the early eighteenth century, however, all Africans in the South were slaves and therefore had no chance of acquiring freedom or owning property. Whatever the reasons for Johnson's affluence and standing in the community, he managed to build a large estate and he and his wife raised equally successful children.

A story of early black identity?

T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes have pieced together whatever facts remain about the Johnson family in the first chapter of "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640–1676 (1980). In the preface to the book they note that Anthony Johnson "more than held his own, and the story of the Pungoteague patriarch and his sons becomes an early chapter in the saga of Old World immigrants 'making it' in America." Yet Breen and Innes are intrigued about the full meaning of the story. The authors point out that even though the Johnsons had assimilated into white society in colonial Virginia, they held themselves apart: "If the Johnsons were merely English colonists with black skins, then why did John, junior [Anthony's grandson], name his small farm 'Angola'? His action, admittedly a small shred of evidence, suggests the existence of a deeply rooted separate culture."

Breen and Innes go on to note that the family "was composed entirely of black men and women, and while one might argue that the Johnsons were constrained by external forces to marry people of their own race, they appear in their most intimate relations to have maintained a conscious black identity." The authors conclude that such an identity appeared to have been possible for African Americans, who were a small minority of the population in the mid-1600s. Families like the Johnsons were able to find their place alongside other struggling immigrant groups. But by 1705, the Johnsons disappear from public records. Breen and Innes speculate that Anthony Johnson's descendants may have lost their freedom or moved to the North, where slavery was illegal. By that time institutionalized slavery was in full force, and African Americans had no role in southern society except as slaves.

By 1652 the Johnsons' son John had acquired 450 acres of land, and in 1654 their son Richard owned 100 acres. Both sons married and had their own families. While they all lived on separate estates, the Johnsons worked together and collaborated on legal and economic matters. Although Mary, John, and Richard had a voice in making decisions, Anthony was head of the family. Around 1665, when many planters were leaving Virginia in search of better land, the entire Johnson family moved to Somerset County, Maryland. They leased a 300-acre plantation, which they called "Tonies Vineyard." Johnson died soon afterwards. John Johnson took his father's position as head of the estate, eventually achieving the status of "planter." (As the owner of a plantation, a planter held considerable power and gained great respect in the southern colonies.) Mary outlived her husband by several years. In 1677 John Johnson's son, John Jr., acquired a forty-acre farm that he named "Angola," perhaps after the African country. Around the turn of the eighteenth century, however, the Johnsons seemed to disappear. Public records do not show any evidence of their existence in Maryland or elsewhere. The end of the Anthony Johnson story, like the beginning, is open to speculation.

For further research

Breen, T. H. and Stephen Innes. "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640–1676. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Introduction to Slavery.http://www.coe.ufl.edu/course/edtech/vanlt/ss/slavery/linkspage.html Available July 13, 1999.

Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and WGBH Research Team. Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1998, pp. 37–39, 42–46. This book is a companion to Africans in America, Public Broadcasting System, 1998. Videocassette recording.