John Casor
John Casor was the first person of African descent, to be made a slave for life, in a court ruling. In 1662,the Virginia Colony  passed the legal principle, Partus sequitur ventrem, which said children would have the legal status of their mother. If their mother was a slave, they would be slaves, 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.