Some readers may be inclined to regard the case of the slave John Casor as
altogether exceptional and peculiar to an early period in the growth of
slavery before custom had fully crystallized into law. It is true that
similar examples are hard to find in the seventeenth century when the free
Negroes were few in number. But if from the paucity of examples it is
argued that such a case was a freak of the seventeenth century and that
nothing similar could have occurred after slavery became a settled and much
regulated institution, the answer is that slave-owning by free Negroes was
so common in the period of the Commonwealth as to pass unnoticed and
without criticism by those who consciously recorded events of the times.
For abundant proof of the relation of black master and black slave we must
refer again to court records and legislative petitions from which events
and incidents were not omitted because of their common occurrence. Deeds of
sale and transfer of slaves to free Negroes, wills of free Negroes
providing for a future disposition of slaves, and records of suits for
freedom against free Negroes, all relate too well the story of how black
masters owned slaves of their own race, to require additional proof.
The following record of the court of Henrico County under date of 1795 is
an example of what is to be found in the records of any of the older
counties of Virginia:
Know all men by these presents that I, James Radford of the County
of Henrico for and in consideration of the sum of thirty-three pounds
current money of Virginia to me in hand paid by George Radford a
black freeman of the city of Richmond hath bargained and sold unto
George Radford one negro woman aggy, to have and to hold the said
negro slave aggy unto the said George Radford his heirs and assigns
forever.