Devalued as a lesser race, the most common role for black people in America's South from the 17th until the 19th century was that of a slave, as the very order of Southern society and economy depended upon the degradation of black Americans by whites. Even so, a small, yet significant, number of free blacks managed to emerge as affluent slave owners themselves, attempting to amass the wealth of the most prosperous white Americans. In some cases that wealth consisted of monetary gain; but most often for these black slaveholders, such wealth merely involved the rare emotional prosperity of being united with the people they loved most, as the unkind institution of slavery had often led to separation from their friends and family.

By 1860, one year prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, approximately 500,000 blacks in the United States - about 9% of the black population - lived in freedom. Over 6,000 of those free blacks owned their own slaves, whether from inheritance, marriage contracts, a kind former master, or their own means. However, the restrictions that the dominating white society imposed on this slaveholding class of black Americans, as well as restrictions the ambitious group tended to impose on themselves, eventually led to the shortfall of the most successful of them.

At the root of those restrictions, and of the legal institution of slavery itself, lies the ironic fact that Anthony Johnson, the first of those black Americans to own slaves, was among the first of any Americans to own a legally affirmed slave for life. Johnson had traveled to Virginia in 1621 to serve as an indentured servant for two years.

After he had filled the requirement for his service, he went on to obtain land and servants of his own. John Casor, one of Johnson's first slaves, had complained to Robert Parker, a visiting white planter, that although he had completed his term of indentured servitude, Johnson would not release him. Upon hearing Casor's unfortunate story, Parker prompted him to run away. Johnson then sued the planter for property damage, insisting that he had not been aware of any indentured servitude and that Casor was his slave for life - and the court supported Johnson. The judge declared Casor as Johnson's permanent slave and ordered the planter to pay for damages to Johnson's property for encouraging Casor's departure.

Though Johnson was not aware of what the future of that type of lifelong ownership held, he may have been somewhat responsible for the initial developments of the legalized institution of perpetual slavery that followed his example and went on to become the basis of Southern society and economy. The laws later authorizing perpetual ownership of black slaves were emulations of the Anthony Johnson court decision.

He could not have known the institution would go on to not only exploit and degrade his fellow black Americans to come, but also generally exclude them from any beneficial aspects of it. He had no way of knowing that as the rest of the American colonies went on to legalized the practice, that they would also go on to actively migrate masses of Africans to America exclusively for the purpose of living in bondage. He had merely possessed the business acumen to recognize the advantage of utilizing free labor in order to flourish in his society, as any man wishes to.