Editing Northampton County, Virginia (section)

===Slavery===
[[File:Notice! Persons desiring to establish Supply Stores in the Counties of Accomac and Northampton, Va. Drummondtown, Virginia, 1864.png|thumb|right|Notice to persons "desiring to establish supply stores" in [[Accomack County, Virginia|Accomac]] and Northampton Counties, Virginia, September 19, 1864]]

Northampton County is notable for a colonial court case involving an [[Indentured servitude in British America|indentured servant]]. The first [[free negro]] (a term used prior to the abolition of slavery) in North America was [[Anthony Johnson (colonist)|Anthony Johnson]] of Northampton County. Johnson was one of the first black Americans to own land in America.<ref>{{cite web|title=Anthony Johnson|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p265.html|website=pbs.org|access-date=January 15, 2018}}</ref> In 1653, Johnson brought suit in Northampton County Court to argue that one of his servants, [[John Casor]], was indentured to him for life. Casor had left him and was working for a neighbor. This was the first instance of a judicial determination in the [[Thirteen Colonies]] holding that a person who had committed no crime could be held in servitude for life.<ref name="Project">{{cite book | last = Federal Writers' Project | author-link = Federal Writers' Project | year = 1954 | title = Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion | publisher = US History Publishers |page=76 | isbn = 978-1603540452 }}</ref>

This court ruling decision also gives insight to how owners of indentured servants could easily choose to ignore the expiration of indentured contracts and force their servants into lifetime slavery. Although Casor, an African, had well-known white planters taking his part, he was reduced to lifetime slavery. Some planters sought more profitable methods of labor by taking advantage of Negro indentured servants, who had little recourse in the legal and social system to protect their rights.<ref>{{Cite book |section=Slaves and Free Blacks in the Southern Colonies|title=History of Black Americans: From Africa to the Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom |first=Philip S. |last=Foner |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |date=1975 |url=http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc_print.aspx?fileID=GR7529&chapterID=GR7529-747&path=books/greenwood |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014135617/http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc_print.aspx?fileID=GR7529&chapterID=GR7529-747&path=books%2Fgreenwood |archive-date=October 14, 2013 |location=Westport, CT|series=The African American Experience|access-date=April 27, 2022}}</ref>