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Date: | Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:37:21 -0400 |
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Harold et al.,
Thanks. Aside from inaccuracies, the Wikipedia entry on Johnson misleads
the reader in one other important way--leading him or her to suppose
that this is about all we know or can know about this individual. Not so.
Casar (who, by the way, was not "legally declared a slave" by the court
but was, strictly speaking, only required to be released by Parker and
returned to Johnson) was--as late as 1672--referred to in Maryland
records as a "negro servant." Mary Johnson approved his request to enter
his cattle mark in the records. Ironically, Casar's cattle had also
played a small part in his 1654-55 dispute with the Johnsons and
Parkers. there are at least a handful of Virginia court records showing
that some slaves were permitted to own cattle.
This matter and many others are discussed in my book (Race and Class in
Colonial Virginia), Breen and Innes's Myne Owne Ground, and Ira Berlin's
Many Thousands Gone. There are about thirty separate references in the
county court records to Johnson and his family in Virginia and Maryland
through the 1670s, by which time their migration into Maryland and
Delaware had begun. Their story is much more interesting and
multifaceted than the Wikipedia entry suggests. It doesn't even refer
the reader to any of the relevant, up-to-date secondary sources by
historians (such as those just mentioned).
Doug Deal
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