Anthony Johnson Acquires 250-Acre Land Grant in Virginia

Anthony Johnson, one of the original African arrivals of 1619 who had survived indenture and gained freedom, acquired a 250-acre land grant on Virginia's Eastern Shore in the late 1640s. He and his wife Mary built a successful farm, owned livestock, and even held indentures over other workers including a Black man named John Casor — demonstrating that in this early period, some Africans navigated the colonial system to achieve landownership. His success represented a brief window of Black economic agency that colonial law would systematically close.