Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699

by Walter Stitt Robinson

In as large and ample manner to all intents and purposes as is expressed in the said orders and constitutions, or by consequence may bee justly collected out of the same or out of his Majties. letters pattents whereon they are grounded.

Yielding and paying for every fiftie acres of land herein by these presents given and graunted yearely at the feast of St. Michaell the Archangell [September 29], the fee rent of one shilling to his Majties. use.

Provided always that [if] the said Capt. Hugh Bullock, his heires or assignes shall not plant or seate or cause to bee planted on the said twoe thousand five hundred & fiftie acres of land wth in the time and terms of three yeares now next ensuing the date hereof, that then it shall and may bee lawfull for any adventurer or planter to make choice and seate upon the same.

Given at James Citty under my hand and sealed with the seale of the colony the twelfth day of March one thousand six hundred thirtie fower [o.s.] & in the tenth year of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles &c.

Use of the headright had been adopted by the company as an expedient to increase population of the colony and to encourage immigration without further expenditure from the company treasury. The practice continued with the fifty acres of land granted to the persons who financed the transportation of the immigrant, but the grant itself was not valuable enough to compensate for the expense involved. Therefore, with increasing frequency the system of indentured servitude was used whereby the immigrant agreed to an indenture or contract to work a certain number of years as additional payment for his transportation. This system, in general, proved advantageous to both the master and the servant, to the colony by providing additional immigrants, and to England by serving as a vent for surplus population.

Indentured servants were not slaves but were servants during the specified period of the contract. While the laws of the time did make a distinction in the severity of the penal code as applied to servants and to freemen, still indentured servitude did not have the stigma of bondage or slavery; and many servants upon completion of their term of service rose to positions of social and political prominence in the history of the colony. In 1676 the Lords of Trade and Plantations expressed concern over the use of the word "servitude" because of the implications of slavery, and they preferred "to use the word service, since those servants are only apprentices for years."

At the expiration of the term of service, the servants usually received equipment and supplies necessary to start them as freemen. They received grain enough for one year, clothes, and in some cases a gun and a supply of tools. As to receipt of land, the policy varied from one colony to another, and at times there was uncertainty within one colony about obligations to freedmen. In Virginia the indentured servant did not usually receive land at the end of service unless he had insisted, as John Hammond in Leah and Rachel had advised, that a specific provision be included in the contract to include the award of fifty acres as "freedom's dues." There are some cases in which the provision for land was included as illustrated in one of the earliest indentures known to exist for Virginia. This indenture of September 7, 1619, was made between Robert Coopy of North Nibley in Gloucestershire with the associates of Berkeley Hundred. Coopy agreed to work three years in Virginia and submit to the government of the hundred in return for which the owners were to transport him to Virginia and "There to maintayne him with convenient diet and apparell meet for such a servant, and in the end of the said terme to make him a free man of the said cuntry theirby to enjoy all the liberties, freedomes, and priviledges of a freeman there, and to grant to the said Robert thirty acres of land within their territory or hundred of Barkley...."

The confusion over the question whether the indentured servant was entitled to fifty acres of land upon expiration of his service extended to the mother country. There was a widespread belief in England that such was the case, and there were indefinite statements in commissions and instructions to the Governors that left the matter in doubt. In practice in Virginia, however, it is certain that the fifty acres under the headright claim went to the person transporting indentured servants, not to the servants themselves. Only where the contract specifically stated that the servant was to receive fifty acres was he assured of this grant.

Under the company there had been definite provisions that the fifty acres went to the persons transporting servants, not to the servants themselves. After its dissolution, Governors were instructed to follow the rules of the "late company," and this continued until there was a variation in Sir Francis Wyatt's commission of 1639 authorizing the Governor and the Council to issue grants to adventurers and planters "According to the orders of the late company ... and likewise 50 acres of land to every person transported thither ... until otherwise determined by His Majesty." Did "to every person" mean that the servant was entitled to land? Such was the case across the Potomac in Maryland where the servant could claim fifty acres from his employer or master until 1646; after 1646 and until 1683 the proprietor provided land for the servant. If such were intended, it was not followed and the intentions were far from clear in the later commission to Sir William Berkeley in 1642. In addition to assigning land for "adventurers of money" and "transportation of people," the commission authorized the Governor and Council to grant "fifty acres for every person transported thither since Midsummer 1625, and ... continue the same course to all persons transported thither until it shall otherwise be determined by His Majesty." The loose use of the terminology "to" and "for" recurred in subsequent years and again reflected the lack of precision in this matter as well as the seeming misapprehension in England that the servant was entitled to a fifty-acre grant. Under the articles of the treaty of 1651 between Virginia and the commissioners of the Commonwealth, the reversion to the term "for every person" was made and the policy of no land to servants was implicit in the sixth article of the agreement: "That the priviledge of haveing fiftie acres of land for every person transported in the collony shall continue as formerly granted."

Even though servants were not granted land by the colony at the expiration of their service, a substantial number soon became landowners. The exact proportion of servants that became landholders after 1624 cannot be determined in the absence of a complete census. However, an examination of the land patents and the list of headrights makes possible some estimate of the percentage of landholders that had once been indentured servants. The conclusions cannot be final and are subject to limitations. Identification presents a problem because of the frequency of the same name as Smith or Davis and because of the omission of middle names. The problem is further complicated by the fact that headrights were often transferred by sale. A person entitled to a headright claim on the frontier may not have wished to settle there; rather he may have preferred to sell his headright claim and purchase land in an established county. As a result of the sale of his headright claim, his name may have appeared in the headright list as the basis for the claim for someone else even though he had not been an indentured servant. Therefore, all persons so listed under the headright claim cannot be considered indentured servants.