Elizabeth Key Grinstead

Biography

Elizabeth Key Grinstead (also Greenstead; c. 1630 or 1632 – 1665) was one of the first mixed race people in the Thirteen Colonies to sue for freedom from slavery and win. Key won her freedom and that of her infant son, John Grinstead, on July 21, 1656, in the Colony of Virginia. Key based her suit on two connected arguments: her father's status as a free English man and her status as an indentured servant.

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