In 1676, a Black teenager named Ann Joice arrived on the shores of Maryland with hopes of a new life.
She had traveled to the recently founded colony from England, destined for indentured servitude, and worked as a maid for the ruling Calvert family, who for three generations had presided over Maryland as a religious haven for Catholics fleeing persecution in England.
Contracts of indenture then could lead to relative autonomy at their completion, but Joice had arrived at a perilous time in the fledgling colony’s history, as the formal legalization of slavery had already spread quickly along the Atlantic coast.
Eventually, her contract – the only evidence of the agreement – was set aflame by a plantation owner and military officer named Henry Darnall. She was imprisoned in a kitchen cellar for about six months and then emerged as an enslaved woman, forced to work in Darnall’s
— source theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland | 31 Aug 2023