"

 Anachronisms and other reference errors. 

a·nach·ro·nism   əˈnakrəˌnizəm/  
noun
plural noun: anachronisms

a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.
""everything was as it would have appeared in centuries past apart from one anachronism, a bright yellow construction crane""
an act of attributing a custom, event, or object - whether or not inappropriately - to a period to which it does not belong.
""Eleanor Roosevelt was the quintessential dyke.""

 
""Everything in the movie based on the Wikipedia® article was as true to the time as it would have appeared to the Council on July 9th1640 apart from one anachronism, the emergence of a black slave named ""John Punch"" from the courtroom.

In Sparing Ishadrian
[This discussion has been  transplanted from another user's talk page.  I have opted to reply to sentences as they appear.  My replies are in [green]. Sorry SD/WP.]

I don't know why  and  are spending their time arguing on your talk page. Neither Wayne or PresidentitstVB have submitted any strong reliable source that claims Punch wasn't a slave, sentenced to slavery, or wasn't enslaved.  [I agree that it is possible Punch could have been made ""subject to a superstition, passion, etc.,"" and thus, enslaved, according to the definition of the word at the time.  I have stated ad infinitim et nauseum that he was not in any way made a slave, when viewed through any lens of the time, no matter how many oxymoronic historians state otherwise.  Slaves were specifically identified by the edicts of 1618 (as ""slaves to the Colony""), by the slave traders and, most significantly, by the slaves themselves, especially those who converted to Christianity as slaves on board the early 17th C ships for the sole person of not being treated as slaves upon their arrival in the new world.  I'm tired of trying to argue the facts with a brick wall, except to ask you, , if I were to write what two other, reliable sources had considered in publications...  ""Scoobydunk is a brick wall,"" would you be able to find two reliable sources, which specifically stated, as if to state the obvious for no apparent reason, ""Scoobydunk is not a brick wall?""  I rest my case.]  They've also failed to provide any reliable source to claim there were slaves recognized and officially documented by a legal institution before Punch.  [Go ahead.  Do what  did at 5:36 PM (EST) on July 31st 2012, just make that leap of faith and write it!... (over and over again). [WP:OR]  After all, you have already said you removed it in response to my objections, so why should I be surprised, looking at the article's history, that you wouldn't continue the ""flip flip flam?""]. Wayne thinks this quote from Foner supports his argument but it doesn't because Foner is specifically talking about the institution of slavery and when historians consider the institution to have originated. I've already supplied a quote from a strong reliable source by Vaughan that further substantiates this point:

""On the first pointthe status of blacks before the passage of the slave lawsthe issue is not whether some were free or some were slave. Almost everyone acknowledges the existence of both categories by the 1640s, if not from the beginning."" Alden T. Vaughan. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 97, No. 3. July,1989.  [It is well known, , that slavery existed long before Punch's case - it was documented in Massachusetts (in present day Somerville, I think), in the Sugar Islands (the English colony of Barbados, primarily), from where a number of our first black immigrants emigrated, and most notably, on the slave ships departing West Africa, from where Punch himself is alleged to have come.]

So, even though historians may differ on when the institution of slavery started, Vaughan clarifies that ""almost everyone"" recognizes the existence of both slaves and free blacks by 1640, if not, from the beginning of the colony. Wayne is trying to use his OR interpretation to pretend what Foner says contradicts what numerous historians have said about Punch, and it doesn't. He's failed to refute this fact and has repeatedly ignored this point made