Anthony Johnson's mark, as he would have signed court documents. Like many indentured servants and poor farmers, Johnson likely had limited skills in reading and writing.
Anthony Johnson
Anthony Johnson, recorded in ship’s logs as “Antonio a Negro,” was brought to America in 1621 on a ship named the James. Johnson was sold as an enslaved person to an Englishman in the colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. For nearly 12 years, he was forced to work on a plantation for the Bennetts, a wealthy white family.
The Bennetts owned Johnson but allowed him to farm a small plot of land for himself. This was in addition to the work he did on the Bennett plantation. There, he most likely grew tobacco and corn. He was also able to own several head of cattle while enslaved. In the early years of the Virginia and Maryland colonies, enslaved people were similar to servants, not necessarily enslaved for life. Africans and African Americans were often granted more privileges at this time than during later years of slavery in America.
Johnson married an African woman named Mary and they had four children together. He was praised for his hard work and good service, and eventually earned his freedom. One of the first things he did was change his name from Antonio to Anthony Johnson. Most enslaved people did not have last names, or, if they did, they used their master's name. By creating a new name for himself, Anthony Johnson was announcing that he was no longer enslaved.
Anthony Johnson continued to work hard and became the first African landowner in the colony, acquiring a patent for 250 acres of land, a fairly sizable plot. Two of his sons, John and Richard, also acquired land once they became adults. Johnson even made enough money to hire indentured servants. Those servants included an African man named John Casor, whom Johnson enslaved when his indenture period ended. When a white neighbor tried to hire Casor as an indentured servant, Johnson went to court to keep Casor in his service. The court ruled in his favor and upheld Johnson’s right to enslave Casor, even against a wealthy white man. Thus, in early Maryland, some Africans could gain wealth, own enslaved people, and become respected in the community. About a decade later, slavery would evolve into a race-based system, and the slim opportunities that once existed for African-descended people to gain status would decline.
In 1653, an unfortunate fire caused great losses for the Johnson family. He appealed to the court for help and was relieved of paying some taxes. The Johnsons also faced discrimination because of their race and dealt with white neighbors’ attempts to take their land. Most likely because of increasing harassment from their neighbors, the Johnsons moved to Somerset County, Maryland, around 1665.
The Johnsons brought 14 head of cattle and 8 sheep with them when they moved to a less settled area on Wicomico Creek. In 1666, Anthony Johnson signed a lease renting a 300-acre plot of land called "Tonies Vinyard" from Stephen Horsey, a white man. When Anthony Johnson died in 1670, the lease passed to his wife Mary and then to their sons. The Johnson family’s ability to acquire wealth and land was somewhat unusual in 17th-century Maryland. Still, it shows that not all Africans were enslaved and that in this early society, Englishmen and African-descended people were more integrated into the community than in later years.
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Sources:
Berlin, I. (1998). Many thousands gone: The first two centuries of slavery in North America. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Breen, T. H., & Innes, S. (1980). "Myne owne ground": Race and freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640–1676. Oxford University Press.
Deal, J. D. (1993). Race and class in colonial Virginia: Indians, Englishmen, and Africans on the Eastern Shore during the seventeenth century. Garland Publishing.
Matthews, H. B. (1995). The family legacy of Anthony Johnson: From Jamestown, VA to Somerset, MD, 1619–1995. Sondhi Loimthongkul Center for Interdependence, Hartwick College.