Historical Documents Court document regarding Anthony Johnson 1670

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Click here for the text of this historical document. In August of 1670, several months after Anthony Johnson's death, a jury in a Virginia court decided that, because "he was a Negro and by consequence an alien," ownership of the 250 acres Johnson once owned should be escheated, or reverted, to England. Anthony and Mary Johnson had sold 200 acres of this land to two white settlers; the other 50 they gave to their son, Richard, who soon thereafter sold the land to another white settler. Image Credit: From the collections of the Library of Congress previous | next

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