John Casor

John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), an indentured servant and later slave in Northampton County in the Colony of Virginia, in 1655 became one of the first people of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be enslaved for life as a result of a civil suit.

In 1662, the Virginia Colony passed a law incorporating the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father's race or status. This contradicted English common law for English subjects, which based a child's status on that of the father. In 1699, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law deporting all free Black people. But many new families of free Black people continued to be formed during the colonial years by the close relationships among the working class.