John H. Russell defined slavery in his book The Free Negro In Virginia, 1619-1865:
"The difference between a servant and a slave is elementary and fundamental. The loss of liberty to the servant was temporary; the bondage of the slave was perpetual. It is the distinction made by Beverly in 1705 when he wrote, "They are call'd Slaves in respect of the time of their Servitude, because it is for Life." Wherever, according to the customs and laws of the colony, negroes were regarded and held as servants without a future right to freedom, there we should find the beginning of slavery in that colony."
John Punch was a servant of Virginia planter Hugh Gwyn, a wealthy landowner, justice, and member of the House of Burgesses, representing Charles River County (which became York County in 1642).
In 1640, Punch ran away to Maryland accompanied by two of Gwyn's European indentured servants. All three were caught and returned to Virginia. On July 9, the Virginia Governor's Council, which served as the colony's highest court, sentenced both Europeans to extend their indenture terms by another four years each. However, they sentenced Punch to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere". In addition, the council sentenced the three men to thirty lashes each.
Sentenced to life
The General Court of The Governor's Council provided this verdict on July 9, 1640.
Whereas Hugh Gwyn hath by order from this Board brought back from Maryland three servants formerly run away from the said Gwyn, the court doth therefore order that the said three servants shall receive the punishment of whipping and have thirty stripes apiece. One called Victor, a Dutchman, the other a Scotchman called James Gregory, shall first serve out their times with their master according to their Indentures, and one whole year apiece after the time of their service is expired by their said indentures in recompense of his loss sustained by their absence, and after that service to their said master is expired, to serve the colony for three whole years apiece. And that the third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere.
Three sources are cited in a 2012 article written by Jeffrey B. Perry, in which he quotes Ancestry.com, stating "'only one surviving [written] account ... certainly pertains to John Punch's life ... ' a paragraph from the Journal of the Executive Council of Colonial Virginia, dated July 9, 1640:"
Three matters decided by the Virginia Governor's Council from June 4, 1640, through July 9, 1640
Historians have noted that John Punch ceased to be an indentured servant and was condemned to slavery, as he was sentenced to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life." Edgar Toppin states that "Punch, in effect, became a slave under this ruling." A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. said, "Thus, although he committed the same crime as the Dutchman and the Scotsman, John Punch, a black man, was sentenced to lifetime slavery." Winthrop Jordan also described this court ruling as "the first definite indication of outright enslavement appears in Virginia ... the third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere".
Theodore W. Allen notes that the court's "being a negro" justification made no explicit reference to precedent in English or Virginia common law and suggests that the court members may have been aware of common law that held a Christian could not enslave a Christian (with Punch being presumed to be a non-Christian, unlike his accomplices), wary of the diplomatic friction that would come of enslaving Christian Europeans, and possibly hopeful of replicating the lifetime indentures of enslaved Africans held in the Caribbean and South American colonies.
In his A Biographical History of Blacks in America since 1528 (1971), Toppin explains the importance of Punch's case in the legal history of Virginia:
Thus, the black man, John Punch, became a slave unlike the two white indentured servants who merely had to serve a longer term. This was the first known case in Virginia involving slavery. It was significant because it was documented.
The National Park Service, in a history of Jamestown, notes that while it was a "customary practice to hold some Negroes in a form of life service," Punch was the "first documented slave for life."
Other historians have also emphasized the importance of this court decision in establishing a legal acceptance of slavery. John Donoghue said, "This can be interpreted as the first legal sanctioning of lifelong slavery in the Chesapeake." Historians consider this difference in penalties to mark the case as one of the first to make a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.
Tom Costa in his article, "Runaway Slaves and Servants in Colonial Virginia" says, "Scholars have argued that this decision represents the first legal distinction between Europeans and Africans to be made by Virginia courts."
Due to some challenges by racially mixed children of Englishmen to their enslavement, in 1662, the Virginia colony incorporated the principle of partus sequitur ventrem into slave law. This law held that children in the colonies were born into the status of their mothers; therefore, children of enslaved mothers were born into slavery, regardless of whether their fathers were free or European. In this way, slavery was made a racial caste associated with people of African ancestry. The law overturned the English common law applicable to the children of two English subjects in England, in which the father's social status determined that of the child.
...interesting sidenote:
Drawing on a combination of historical documents and autosomal DNA analysis, Ancestry.com stated in July 2012 that there is a strong likelihood that 44th United States President Barack Obama is an eleventh-great-grandson of Punch via Obama's mother, Ann Dunham.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Punch_(slave)
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