On this day in 1654, Richard Johnson, a free Black man, was granted 100 acres of land in Northampton County, Virginia, as a reward for importing two individuals (a common colonial practice under the “headright” system). Johnson’s land grant is a rare example of Black land ownership in 17th-century colonial America, during a period when slavery and racial discrimination were rapidly expanding.
His case reflects the complex and shifting status of Africans in early America—where, for a brief time, some free Black individuals could own land, import labor, and participate in colonial economic systems before the codification of racial slavery.
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