Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699Robinson, Walter Stitt
History
Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699
Robinson, Walter Stitt
Land grants -- Virginia -- History; Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
For settlers arriving after the departure of Dale in 1616 or those
migrating during the seven-year period following Midsummer Day of 1618,
separate regulations applied. If transported at company expense, the
colonist was to serve as a half-share tenant for seven years with no
promise of a land grant; if at his own expense, he was to receive as a
headright fifty acres on the first dividend and the same amount on the
second dividend. This provision for the fifty-acre headright was set up
for the seven-year period prior to Midsummer Day of 1625, but it
continued beyond this date as the essential key to Virginia's land
policy of the seventeenth century.
Out of the number of people who purchased a share in the company and
thereby received a bill of adventure, Alexander Brown in his _Genesis
of the United States_ estimated that about one-third came to Virginia
and took up their land claim; approximately one-third sent over agents,
or in some cases heirs, to benefit by the grants; and the remaining
one-third disposed of their shares to others who occupied the lands.
Provisions for special lands were also stated in "the greate charter."
At each of the four focal points of settlement--James City, Charles
City, Henrico, and Kecoughtan, 3,000 acres were to be set aside as the
company's land. Half-share tenants were to cultivate the lands and half
of the company's profits was to be used to support several of the
colonial officials. For the Governor, a special plot known as the
Governor's land was to be designated at Jamestown, and half of the
proceeds of the tenants was to go to the Governor. For local government,
additional provisions were made for support by setting aside 1,500 acres
as "burroughs land" at the four points of settlement listed above.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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