John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), a servant in Northampton County in the Virginia Colony, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave 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 was in contradiction to 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. Background At this time, there were only about 300 people of African origin living in the Virginia Colony, about 1% of an estimated population of 30,000. The first group of 20 or so Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619 as indentured servants. After working out their contracts for passage money to Virginia and completing their indenture, each was granted of land (headrights). This enabled them to raise their own tobacco or other crops. Although most historians believe slavery, as an institution, developed much later, they differ on the exact status of the servitude of Africans before slavery was established legally, as well as differing over the date when this took place. The colonial charter entitled English subjects and their children the rights of the common law, but people of other nations were considered foreigners or aliens outside the common law. At the time, the colony had no provision for naturalizing foreigners. Legal dispute Anthony Johnson, a black Angolan, was an indentured servant brought to the James River area of Virginia on the ship James in 1621. During the late 1640s, Johnson moved with his family to Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He acquired property on Pungoteague Creek and began raising livestock. He was the first known African landowner in the colony. By July 1651, he had expanded his holdings, which he referred to in a court record as myne owne ground, to , then a considerable tract by Eastern Shore standards. He was prosperous enough to import five indentured servants of his own and was granted an