home.[2] Once in a long while he might even find some opportunity
for education, as when the church became the legal warden of Negro
apprentices. Frequently he found a place in such a trade as that of
the barber or in other personal service, and such work accounted very
largely for the fact that he was generally permitted to remain in
communities where technically he had no right to be. In the North his
situation was little better than in the South, and along economic lines
even harder. Everywhere his position was a difficult one. He was most
frequently regarded as idle and shiftless, and as a breeder of mischief;
but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave his
home and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the free
Negro did not possess. For all the finer things of life--the things that
make life worth living--the lot that was his was only less hard than
that of the slave.

[Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 32-33, cites from
the court records of Northampton County, 1651-1654 and 1655-1658, the
noteworthy case of a free negro, Anthony Johnson, who had come to
Virginia not later than 1622 and who by 1650 owned a large tract of land
on the Eastern Shore. To him belonged a Negro, John Casor. After several
years of labor Casor demanded his freedom on the ground that from the
first he had been an indentured servant and not a slave. When the case
came up in court, however, not only did Johnson win the verdict that
Casor was his slave, but he also won his suit against Robert Parker, a
white man, who he asserted had illegally detained Casor.]

[Footnote 2: Hening: _Statutes_, IV, 131.]


3. _First Effort for Social Betterment_