8 March 1655 A.D. John Casor, Virginia, and Slavery
8 March 1655 A.D. John Casor, Virginia, and Slavery Editor. No title. This Day in U.S. Military History. N.d. https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/march-8/ . Accessed 6 Mar 2015. 1655 – John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England’s North American colonies where a crime was not committed. John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), a servant in Northampton County in the Virginia Colony, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in Britain’s Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as the result of a civil suit. In one of the earliest freedom suits, Casor argued that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by Johnson to serve past his term; he was freed and went to work for Robert Parker as an indentured servant. Johnson sued Parker for Casor’s services. In ordering Casor returned to his master for life, Anthony Johnson, a free black, the court both declared Casor a slave and sustained the right of...