DELAWARE HISTORY BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2019

DELAWARE HISTORY

BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2019

Anthony and his son John Johnson, Negro's of Sussex county interest beginning 1619 at Jamestown, Virginia, the only English colony in America. This was a year before

the Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower.

Unlike the Pilgrims, looking for a new life in America, Anthony had been captured

during a war in Africa with 300 more captives , thrust into chains and shackles, put on a

Spanish sailing ship bound for Mexico, which when it entered Campeche Bay just off the

Yucatan Peninsula was taken by two British ships, the White Lyon and the Treasurer. The

Africans were taken aboard the White Lyon. In August 1619 the White Lyon sailed into

Chesapeake Bay, up the James River to Jamestown and the Africans were traded to the

English for food and staples. Anthony Johnson was not considered a slave, but was

voluntarily bound to a master on an indenture which when paid off,   he  became freemen.

Anthony Johnson became a freeman and by 1650 he owned 250 acres of land,

with five hands . He had a wife named Mary, two sons and two daughters.

In the 1650's Jamestown colony had expanded across the Chesapeake Bay to

Delmarva's Northampton and northward into Maryland's Somerset, and Delaware.

Anthony Johnson had moved his family to Northampton and in 1665 moved to Somerset,

settled on Wicomico Creek south of the Nanticoke River.

Anthony Johnson passed way in 1670 or before, and one of the two sons ,   John,

left the family and moved to Sussex county, bought or traded for a 400 acre tract of land on

Rehoboth Bay with the closest settlement Lewestown., a small village of a few dozen

Dutchmen.

The next thirty years John Johnson lived on Rehoboth Bay. Several times he was called to Sussex Court in Lewes to testify in cases concerning land ownership, the court

being reluctant to accept his disposition because he was black. John Johnson told the

court, “ I am a Christian and do rightly understand the taking of an oath”, after which

the court accepted his testimonies.

Johnson had other court appearances, one he was convicted of stealing corn from a neighbor, ordered to make restitution of two barrels of corn. When his wife Susan died,

he was accused of killing her but this case was dismissed for lack of evidence. John Johnson

was considered a trusted member of the community. In 1684 , records show, John Johnson,

Negro, had custody of the Nathaniel Bradford Estate.

Neighbors of Johnson as he aged, thought highly of him , and in 1704, when he was 80 years old , unable to care for himself, petitioned Sussex court to order fifty shilling

to go to the 'keep' and maintaining John Johnson, an old free Negro, who did “rightly

understand the taking of an oath” .

Abstract: Delaware Coast Press, Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Michael Morgan's

Delaware Diary.