The name Myne Owne Ground is what Michael Johnson called his 250 acre property along the shore in Virginia. The reason why Johnson is so important is because he was part of the first court case in America regarding slavery. The case was brought up because one of indentured servants, John Casor, had stated that he had served his indentured and was free. Casor had gone to work for Johnson’s neighbor whom Johnson proceeded to sue and won. On March 8, 1654 the courts ruled that Casor was no longer indentured but must work for Johnson the rest of his life, but didn’t give much reason why. This ruling was the first one that institutionalized slaver. Another reason why this is was such an interesting case is because Johnson himself was an indentured servant for six to seven years until he had worked off his indenture and got set up on his own. …show more content…
After the ruling is when he lost nearly half of his property and then moved with his family to Maryland where they prospered. Another important ruling came after his death when the courts ruled he was “a Negro and by consequence, an alien” so his property was forfeited to the state instead of being passed to his family. The reason all of this was so important, and the authors decided to write about the subject was to highlight that even though slavery and racism was big in the early days of our country, it was different in the early 17th century. They highlight various laws, court cases, and documents that skin color didn’t have as big of an impact on race that we think. Blacks that were free had a lot of the same rights as whites, and the two groups interacted fairly well with one another. Johnson for example not only owned land and slaves, but also had quite a few successful interactions with white