John Casor
Northampton County Court orders John Casor returned to Anthony Johnson's service
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The judgment never used the word "slave." It called John Casor a servant, and ordered him back to Anthony Johnson's service forthwith.
8 March 1655: a complaint in Northampton County
On 8 March 1655, Anthony Johnson — a free Black landholder — complained to the Northampton County Court in Virginia that Robert Parker was detaining his servant John Casor under the pretense that Casor was free.
The date is conventionally modernized. Surviving records may express it as March 1654/55, because the English legal year began on 25 March.
Two accounts of one indenture
The court weighed a deposition by Samuel Goldsmith, which set out Casor's claim to a seven- or eight-year indenture — plus a further seven years he said Johnson had extracted from him — against Johnson's claim that he held Casor for life.
The judges found that Parker had unjustly kept Casor from Johnson, ordered Casor to return immediately to Johnson's service, and ordered Parker to pay the costs of the suit.
What the order did and did not do
This was not a freedom suit brought by Casor. Johnson sued Parker, and the order settled that one dispute; it enacted no colony-wide slave code and created no statute.
The judgment calls Casor a servant and orders his return, but does not itself say slave, property, or explicitly for life — the lifetime character is inferred from Johnson's claim and the outcome. Calling Casor the first legally recognized slave in the future United States is a retrospective and disputed characterization; earlier records document lifetime enslavement, including John Punch's 1640 sentence.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The date is conventionally modernized as 8 March 1655; surviving records may express it as March 1654/55 because the English legal year began on 25 March.
- The judgment calls Casor a 'servant' and orders his return but does not itself say 'slave,' 'property' or explicitly 'for life.' The lifetime character is inferred from Johnson's claim and the outcome.
- Describing Casor as the first legally recognized slave in the future United States is a retrospective and disputed characterization. Earlier records document lifetime enslavement, including John Punch's 1640 sentence, and the Casor order was local and case-specific.