Documentary Account Of Anthony Johnson's Life

Through the relationships Johnson acquired while working at a tavern, he was able to have very influential white people help him emancipate himself. Regardless of the countless relationships with important figures in the community, Johnson was still looked at as a black man in society. Through the testimony in petitions, it is obvious that Johnson shows promise to others in the community. In Almost Free: A Story About Family and Race in Antebellum Virginia, thirty-eight members of the white community sign a testimony for Samuel Johnson. This proves that despite his color, white men believed he would be a great addition to society if emancipated. In contrast with that, a law prevented Samuel Johnson from staying in Virginia as a free man. People were concerned that a numerous population of free men could spark problems within the state.

Though Johnson was officially a free man, He still struggled with white supremacy. Throughout his lifetime, he viewed whites as a priority over blacks, even if they were free. Johnson had been taught by society that no black man could ever become anything more than subservient to whites. On the other hand, white slave owners viewed Johnson’s story as an opportunity to show the north that slavery was a fair and just system that provided most blacks with the opportunity to free themselves and others by only paying a fair price. Imagine reading a news headline that read “Black man buys himself out of slavery”, this is what the South would attempt to feed the North with. On the other hand,

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

William H. Johnson was a successful painter who was born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina. Johnson began exploring his level of creativity as a child, and it only amplified from there because he discovered that he wanted to be an artist. After making this discovery he attended the National Academy of Design in New York which is where he met his mentor Charles Webster Hawthorne who had a strong influential impact on Johnson. Once Johnson graduated he moved to Paris where he was exposed to different artists, various artistic abilities, and evolutionary creations. Throughout Johnson’s time in Paris he grew as an artist, and adapted a “folk” style where he used lively colors and flat figures. Johnson used the “folk” style to express the experience of most African-Americans during the years of the 1930s and 1940s.

Douglass was born a slave in 1817, in Maryland. He educated himself and became determined to escape the horror of slavery. He attempted to escape slavery once, but failed. He later made a successful escape in 1838.

At first Africans were not slaves but servants. Anthony Johnson is an example of African servant who acquired lands and servants (even white servants) after he managed to become free. Due to development of famers in America tobacco in particular settlers needed more labors, and since lands were limited and most of former indentured servants were not able to receive a land, so they were did not want to go back to work, settlers saw African as a good opportunity for cheap labors. Since Africans were not England citizen, they had no rights to claims, as a result, settlers were able to work them for their whole life. Slavery became profitable especially in Virginia, soon rules were made to make slavery legal, and took away any rights that slaves had. Based on the documentary, for a Virginia plantation it was more profitable to work a slave to death and buy a new slave than let slaves to work in a humane condition. Another reason for development of racial slavery was Englishmen projected slaves as aliens and inferior, as Blight stated “as an outsider”, in different factors such as: color, religion, and

Breen implies that Anthony Johnson's accomplishments were great but held no place in a predominantly white colony and I will have to agree with his assumption. The making of black gentlemen in the seventeenth century would have to take a back seat to the white's self centered ideals. It was obvious that whites held most of the power and with that power were able to decide much of a black man's life especially his status in society. That status would hover above black slaves and indentured servants but still stay beneath any white

Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in 1818. He was born in Maryland specifically in Baltimore. At the time of his birth, his last name was Bailey. Douglass began to receive an education as a child, which shows that he had more freedom than most slaves of the time. At the age of twenty Douglass fled Baltimore in pursuit of New York.

In 1619, Virginia was an isolated British settlement on the Chesapeake Bay. It was sparsely populated by men trying to make the colony profitable for England. But the colonists were devastated by hunger, disease, and raids by Native Americans. So when the White Lion, a badly damaged Dutch slave ship arrived, carrying 20 kidnapped black Africans, the colonists bartered food and services for the human cargo. The Africans started working for the colonists. They would work 7 years of hard labor in exchange for land and freedom. But when colonies started to prosper, the colonists were reluctant to lose their labor. Since the Africans did not have citizenship, they were not subject to English common law. They were workers with no rights.

20 African Americans went with the Europeans who landed at Jamestown,Virginia,in1619.Those people were indentured servants according to the contract which said that they were free to enjoy the privileges. “It is estimated that fifteen percent of those who were shipped to

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Carolina’s. His parents, Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, were Irish immigrants that had immigrated right before Jackson was born. Just weeks before Jackson was born his father died suddenly with an unknown cause of death. Jackson had a very troubling childhood, as a teenager Jackson’s older brother was killed in battle and at the age of 13 him and his brother were captured by the British where there, Jackson would have received his permanent scar on his hand and face from not following orders from the Redcoats. While being captured both him and his brother had received smallpox but his brother would not recover and at the death of

Born in Galveston on March 31,1878 to Henry and Tiny Johnson was the worlds first African American heavy weight champion of the world, Arthur (Jack) Johnson.

Anthony Johnson was a black man who arrived in Virginia around 1621 and was purchased to work as a slave in the tobacco fields of the Bennett Plantation. At that time he was merely known as “Antonio a Negro”, as it wasn’t common for black slaves to have last names. On March 22nd, 1622, an Indian attack on the Bennett plantation left only 12 surviving slaves, one of them being Anthony. In that same year a woman named Mary arrived at the plantation. Being that she was the only woman living at the Bennett plantation in 1625, Anthony could be considered fortunate to have received her as his wife. Together they had at least four children. It isn’t known how Anthony received his full name of Anthony Johnson, but the

Samuel Johnson, despite being an enslaved African American, was widely respected and was looked at as an honorable man by many of the upper class, white males in Virginia. Men such as Edward Digges, Johnson’s owner, and John Scott, a local lawyer, aided Johnson in his plan to achieve freedom. Johnson worked in the Tavern where some of the most influential people in the country were present daily. His relationships with these men grew and they began to see that Johnson was a man of character so when he fought for his freedom, they supported him and vouched for him. Johnson and Edward Digges, his owner, came to an agreement that for a wage of $500 he would be granted freedom, but would be required to leave the state of Virginia. This is a great example of how even though he was called a freeman, he was not free to live in the state that he loved and grew up in. In Early

Considered a better writer than his now much more famous colleague. He was a posthumous son