Richard Johnson's Land Seized After Anthony Johnson's Death — 'Alien' Ruling

After Anthony Johnson died around 1670, a Virginia court ruled that his son Richard Johnson's inherited land — originally part of Anthony's 250-acre grant — could be seized by the colonial government on the grounds that as a Black man, Anthony Johnson had been an 'alien' and therefore could not have held land under the same terms as English subjects. The ruling retroactively stripped the Johnson family of property accumulated over decades, demonstrating how colonial courts weaponized racial redefinition to dispossess free Black families.