The Nature and Size of Land Grants

A variety of reasons led the King to dissolve the London Company and to assume royal control over the first experiment in colonization under an incorporated company. Failure of the colony to thrive economically, the poor financial condition of the company, political differences between Sir Edwin Sandys and the King, internal dissensions between the Sandys faction and the Smith-Warwick group, the extremely high death rate in the colony, and the impact of the Indian massacre of 1622 all contributed in varying degrees of importance to the dissolution. The company rejected efforts of the crown to substitute a new charter drawn up in 1623 providing for the King to resume control of the colony by establishing a royal Council in England and a Governor and Council in Virginia. Consequently the Privy Council obtained a writ of quo warranto which terminated with a decision by the court of King’s Bench in May, 1624, annulling the charter of the company.

With the advent of royal control there was a significant continuity in practice in the colony, and the political framework was little changed. The Governor and Council were then appointed by the King, but the House of Burgesses continued without major revision. In order to assure continued respect for public authority, a royal commission was dispatched to Governor Wyatt and an eleven-man Council empowering them to act “as fully and ampley as anie Governor and Councell resident there at anie tyme within the space of five yeares now last past.” A similar commission was issued to Sir George Yeardley in 1626, and for the next sixteen years royal instructions to the Governors reflected a striking resemblance.

A similar continuity was evident in economic affairs as revealed in land policy. The London Company as a corporate body in charge of the colony terminated in 1624 after eighteen years, and the following year after the death of King James I the colony of Virginia by proclamation was made a part of the royal demesne. The landholder in Virginia became then in effect a freehold tenant of the King. The rights and property of the company were taken over by the crown, but recognition was made of the private property right of the planter and of individual claims of those who had invested in the company. Even land rights to planters and adventurers that had not been taken up were recognized, but few proceeded to effect settlement or to exercise the right of taking up 100 acres per share of stock.

The land rights of the private joint-stock associations also continued to be recognized, but there was less enthusiasm on the part of individual adventurers to promote the projects started some years earlier. This development was indicative of the major change in the economic life of the colony that resulted in the decline, if not disappearance, of absentee ownership. As previously noted, Berkeley Hundred had suffered the loss of many of its settlers in the massacre of 1622; and upon expiration of term of service of the few remaining servants, only the land and a few cattle were left in the settlement. By 1636 the adventurers had sold their claims to London merchants. In the case of Martin’s Hundred located about seven miles from Jamestown, the massacre doomed the active settlement and only the title to the land continued. Eventually the title to this hundred was withdrawn to permit natural expansion of the colony, and the associates or adventurers were awarded claims to land allotments commensurate with the number of shares held in the joint stock.

The tracts known as company land were maintained for a while under royal control. The rôle of the public estate, however, never assumed great significance, yet there is evidence of the continued practice during the seventeenth century of endowing an office such as Governor or secretary with the proceeds of a land grant.

Theoretically tenants and contract laborers who were still alive at the time of the dissolution of the company were to continue their labor either on the public land or on private associations. In practice, however, it is likely that lax enforcement of the contracts resulted in a substantial diminution of the obligations of many workers. The scarcity of records for this period makes it impossible to trace all of this group, but there is enough evidence to indicate that some continued to serve out their term of labor. The General Court in 1627 expressed concern about the approaching expiration of leases and indentures of persons for whom there were no provisions for lands; and action was taken to permit them to lease land for a period of ten to twenty-one years in return for which they were to render a stipulated amount of tobacco or corn for each acre, usually one pound of tobacco per acre. This lenient provision notwithstanding, only about sixty persons availed themselves of the opportunity, the remainder presumably either squatting on frontier land, working as laborers, or eventually obtaining title to land by purchase from an original patentee.

With the dissolution of the company the issuing of land patents continued in the hands of the Governor and Council. The King and Privy Council assumed power over land distribution but apparently left the issuing of patents as it had been before. Up until January, 1625, Governor Wyatt issued patents in the name of the company. At that time news reached Virginia that the writ of quo warranto of June, 1624, had dissolved the company and that King James I upon assumption of control of the colony had issued on August 26, 1624, the first commission of a royal Governor to Wyatt. But the commission made no reference to land grants, and Governor Wyatt issued none after January, 1625.

Charles I succeeded to the throne following the death of James I on March 27, 1625. His proclamation stating policy relative to Virginia professed protection of the interests of private planters and adventurers but made no direct reference to land grants. Governor Yeardley replaced Wyatt by a commission of March 14, 1625/26 and arrived in Virginia in May, 1626. There is no record extant to show that Yeardley received direct instructions to start issuing grants; but it is certain that he did begin in February, 1626/27, interpreting his instructions and commission as authorizing the action.

Land patents during this period were to be issued on four main conditions: (1) as a dividend in return for investment in the founding of the colony; (2) as a reward for special service to the colony; (3) as a stimulus to fortify the frontier by using land to induce settlement; and (4) as a method of encouraging immigration by the headright.

The first of these was simply an assurance by the King that the former stockholders in the company still had the right to take up land at the rate of 100 acres for each share of stock owned. As late as 1642 this privilege was still being confirmed in instructions to the Governor; but the stockholders appeared to be little interested at this time in coming to Virginia, for very few took up their claim and apparently the shares bearing the holder’s name could not be transferred after the dissolution. The plan for the distribution of the first dividend in 1619 also provided for a second allotment. As late as 1632 patents still included authorization for a second dividend when the first had been cultivated. But no second allotment was ever made. There are, however, examples to indicate that claims for the first dividend were upheld after the company was dissolved. In 1628 Thomas Graies obtained a patent as a dividend for his subscription of twenty-five pounds sterling; in 1636 Captain John Hobson was issued a patent covering a bill of adventure that went back to 1621; and on another occasion the land dividend due a deceased father was awarded to his son.

The next condition of awarding patents for meritorious service to the colony was of long standing. Used to award ministers, political officials, physicians, sea captains, and various other individuals under the company, the practice continued under royal control after 1624. Governor Wyatt in 1638 was instructed to issue land patents for meritorious service according to provisions previously adopted for such cases. And a few years later Charles II awarded lands in Virginia to servants or others who aided him, although it is not certain whether these individuals were ever able to take up the claim bestowed upon them.

The third condition for a patent was practically a corollary to the second, for it involved rendering service to the colony by settling and fortifying the frontier. One example during this period may be found in securing the Peninsula. Following the massacre of 1622 Governor Wyatt and his Council wrote to the Earl of Southampton about a plan for “winning the forest” by running a pale between Martin’s Hundred on the James River and Cheskiack on the York. Again in 1624 the suggestion was made to the royal commissioners who were sent over by the King to determine the most suitable places for fortification. To effect the construction of this palisade, the General Assembly in 1633 offered land as an inducement to settle between Queen’s Creek and Archer’s Hope Creek, promising fifty acres and a period of tax exemption to freemen who would occupy the area of Middle Plantation, later Williamsburg. In February, 1633, the order was issued for a fortieth part of the men in the “compasse of the forest” between the two previously mentioned creeks and Chesapeake Bay to meet at Dr. John Pott’s plantation at the head of Archer’s Hope Creek for the purpose of erecting houses to secure the neck of land known as the Peninsula. With this encouragement by the Assembly, a palisade six miles in length was completed, running from Queen’s Creek to Archer’s Hope Creek and passing through Middle Plantation. Houses were constructed at convenient distances, and a sufficient number of men were assigned to patrol the line of defense during times of imminent danger. By setting off a little less than 300,000 acres of land, this palisade provided defense for the new plantations between the York and James rivers and served as a restraining barrier for the cattle of the colony.

Granting of land was again used on a large scale for the establishment of forts after the Indian massacre of 1644. By order of the Assembly in 1645 blockhouses or forts were established at strategic points: Fort Charles at the falls of the James River, Fort Royal at Pamunkey, Fort James on the ridge of Chickahominy on the north side of the James, and in the next year Fort Henry at the falls of the Appomattox River. The maintenance of these forts involved considerable expense, more than the officials of the colony wished to drain from the public treasury. Therefore, they decided to grant the forts with adjoining lands to individuals who would accept the responsibility of their upkeep as well as the maintenance of an adequate force for defense. Fort Henry, located at present-day Petersburg, was granted to Captain Abraham Wood with 600 acres of land plus all houses, edifices, boats, and ammunition belonging to the fort. Wood was required to maintain and keep ten persons continuously at the fort for three years. During this time he was exempted from all public taxes for himself and the ten persons. Upon similar terms Lieutenant Thomas Rolfe, son of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, received Fort James and 400 acres of land; Captain Roger Marshall, Fort Royal and 600 acres. Since there was no arable land adjoining Fort Charles at present-day Richmond, other inducements were made for its maintenance. These forts served as the first line of defense against possible attacks by the natives. Being the center of the varied activities of the frontier, they also were the starting point for expeditions against the Indians and became the center of trade for the outlying regions.

The fourth condition for granting of land the headright was by far the most important and became the principal basis for title to land in the seventeenth century. Its origin goes back to “the greate charter” of 1618 in which the following provision was included:

That for all persons ... which during the next seven years after Midsummer Day 1618 shall go into Virginia with intent there to inhabite If they continue there three years or dye after they are shiped there shall be a grant made of fifty acres for every person upon a first division and as many more upon a second division (the first being peopled) which grants to be made respectively to such persons and their heirs at whose charges the said persons going to inhabite in Virginia shall be transported with reservation of twelve pence yearly rent for every fifty acres to be answered to the said treasurer and company and their successors for ever after the first seven years of every such grant.

Under these provisions of “the greate charter,” it is evident that not only was the headright grant of fifty acres per person open to shareholders who brought settlers to the colony, but also to anyone who had migrated to the colony at his own expense or who had financed the expedition of other persons. Individuals paying their own transportation were entitled to fifty acres for themselves and for every member of the family, providing they fulfilled the residence requirement of three years.

Governors under the company issued patents based on the headright until dissolution by the crown in 1624. Beyond that time the status of the headright was uncertain. The “charter” of 1618 had specified a term for this right for seven years ending on Midsummer Day of 1625. After this term expired, royal governors continued to honor headright claims based on immigration, although no direct authorization for such action had come from the crown. Therefore, the issuance of these claims after 1625 was based primarily on custom, brief as it was, until more direct instructions were issued to Governor John Harvey in 1634 following the proprietary grant of Maryland in 1632.

The Maryland grant enhanced the concern of the Virginia inhabitants about their title to land, and correspondence conducted by Governor Harvey finally brought forth a statement from the Privy Council. Apprehension over Maryland led to assurance of the headright for Virginia as the Privy Council issued the following dispatch of July 22, 1634, to the Governor:

We have thought fit to certify you that his Majesty of his royal favor, and for the better encouragement of the planters there doth let you knowe that it is not intended that the interestes which men had settled when you were a corporation should be impeached; that for the present they may enjoy their estates and trades with the same freedom and privileges as they did before the recalling of their patents: To which purpose also in pursuance of his Majesty’s gracious intention, wee doe hereby authorize you to dispose of such proportions of lands to all those planters beeing freemen as you had power to doe before the yeare 1625.

With this explicit royal endorsement of land patent principles followed under the company and confirmation of the headright, Governor Harvey modified the wording in the patents and adopted the following form illustrated in a grant of 2,500 acres to Captain Hugh Bullocke:

To all to whome these prsents. shall come, I Sr. John Harvey Kt.
Governr. and Capt. Generll. of Virginia send greeting in our Lord
God Everlasting.

Whereas by letters pattents bearing date the twoe and twentieth of July one thousand six hundred thirtie fower from the Rt. Honble. the Lords of his Majties. most Honoble. Privie Councell their lordshipps did authorize the Governr. and Councell of Virginia to dispose of such pportions of land to all planters being freemen as they had power to doe before the yeare 1625, whene according to divers orders & constitutions in that case provided and appointed all devidents of lands any waies due or belonging to any adventurers or planters of what condicon soever were to bee laid out and assigned unto them according to the severall condicons in the same menconed.

Now Know Yee therefore that I the said Sr. John Harvey doe, with the consent of the Councell of State give and graunt unto Capt. Hugh Bullocke and to his heires and assignes for ever by these prsents

Twoe thousand five hundred and fiftie acres of land, scituate, lying & being from the runn that falleth downe by the eastern side of a peece of land knowne by the name of the Woodyard and soe from that runn along the side of the Pocoson (or great Otter pond soe called) northwest and about the head of the said Otter pond back southeast leaveing the Otter pond in the middle.

To have and to Hold the said twoe thousand five hundred and fiftie acres of land with his due share of all mines and minneralls therein conteyned and with all rights and priviledges of hunting, hawking, fishing and fowling, wth in the prcincts of the same to the sole and pper use benifitt and behoofe of him the said Capt. Bullocke his heires and assignes for ever.

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.

Fully aware of the limitations just suggested and equally conscious that estimates in the absence of more complete records cannot be final, Professor Thomas J. Wertenbaker in his Planters of Colonial Virginia summarized his analysis of patents and concluded that both before 1635 and in the following two or three decades, thirty to forty per cent of the landholders of Virginia came to the colony as indentured servants.

Professor Wertenbaker also indicated general agreement with conclusions drawn by William G. Stanard about the proportion of immigrants that were indentured servants. From an analysis of the patent rolls from 1623 to July 14, 1637, printed in the April, 1901, issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Stanard estimated that seventy-five per cent of immigrants from 1623 to 1637 were imported under term of the indenture. Out of 2,675 names on the rolls, 336 entered as freemen at their own cost and an additional 245 persons were believed for the most part to be of the same status although there was some uncertainty about this group. Transportation expenses were paid by others for 2,094. From these numbers, the conclusion was reached that 675 persons on the patent rolls were freemen, including women and children; the remaining 2,000 were servants and slaves, the latter in very small number at this time. Thus the analysis roughly confirms the conclusion that three-fourths of the immigrants during this period were indentured servants.

Use of the headright system for distribution of land had a close correlation with expanding population, for it was hoped that the increase of population would keep pace with the acquisition of private title in the soil. As the seventeenth century progressed, there were many abuses and evasions of the system; and by the end of the period its significance declined in favor of acquisition of title by purchase, or the “treasury right.” To understand the various deviations from the system, it will be helpful to review the steps by which title to land by headright was obtained.

The first step involved the proving of the headright by the claimant appearing before either a county court or the Governor and Council and stating under oath that he had imported a certain number of persons whose names were listed. The clerk of the court issued a certificate which was validated in the secretary’s office. Authorization for the headright was then passed on to a commissioned surveyor who ran off fifty acres for each person imported and located the grant in the area selected by the claimant as long as the land had not already been patented and had not been barred for white settlement in order to maintain peace with the Indians. Upon completion of the survey and of marking the boundaries, a copy of the record along with the headright certificate was presented to the secretary’s office where a patent was prepared and a notation made of those imported. The final step was the signing of the patent by the Governor in the presence of, and with the approval of, the Council.

One deviation from the spirit of the law of the headright involved claims based upon the person being imported into the colony more than once. For example, John Chew in 1637 received 700 acres, using his own transportation in 1622 and 1623 as the basis for the claim to 100 acres in the grant. Carrying this practice to a greater extreme, Sarah Law received a grant for 300 acres of land based upon the fact that she had imported John Good, probably a sailor, six times.

On a larger scale, ship masters submitted lists for headright claims which in actuality contained the roster of both the sailors of the ship and the passengers. In neither case should the right have been acknowledged, for the sailors were under agreement to continue service at sea and the passengers had paid their own transportation to the colony. But the lax administration of the system usually permitted approval of such applications, and the ship master therefore found himself with headright certificates which he could sell to others for whatever price he could wangle. This practice was sometimes repeated by the same unscrupulous ship master who was aided in the irregular procedure by the failure of the clerks of the secretary’s office to make careful checks of lists submitted, and also by the fact that he could present his lists to a different county court when importing the same sailors for the third or fourth time.

Like the ship master, the sailor engaged in falsifying the record by swearing that he had imported himself and sometimes others at his own expense. Patents were obtained on the basis of the headright. Philip A. Bruce concluded that the land obtained in Virginia by mariners was “very extensive.” To substantiate this general statement, he referred to powers of attorney found in the county court records, authorizing an agent in Virginia to handle the estates of the mariner. In the records of Rappahannock County for 1668 is an example of the practice, in which Thomas Sheppard of Plymouth, England, designated William Moseley to handle his interest in 150 headrights which he claimed for importing 150 people to Virginia. It was likely in this case that duplicate claims were issued, either to the individual if he paid his own transportation or to some master if the immigrant became an indentured servant. In some instances, as many as three or four claims were made for one importation: one for the ship master, one for the merchant who acted as middle-man in purchasing the service of the immigrant, one for the planter who eventually purchased the indentured servant, and less often one for a second planter who may have joined with the first in obtaining the services of the imported person.

As abuse of the system increased, headright lists sometimes included fictitious names or in some cases names copied from old record books. The final stage in irregular procedure was reached when the clerks in the office of the secretary of the colony sold the headright claim to persons who would simply pay from one to five shillings. The exact date at which this practice began has not been determined, but it was prevalent sometime before 1692. Francis Nicholson reported to the Board of Trade that while serving as Governor of Virginia from 1690 to 1692, he had “heard” that the sale of rights by the clerks in the secretary’s office was “common practice.” Another report to the Board in 1697 described the clerks as being “a constant mint of those rights.”

The combined variations in the operation of the headright system resulted in the distortion, if not destruction, of its original concepts. The system continued to bring immigrants into the colony which had been a very important purpose when inaugurated. But the abuses threw out of balance the relation between patented land and the number of people in the colony; and furthermore through perversion of the system, speculation in land was not prevented and there resulted large areas of wholly uncultivated and uninhabited lands to which title had been granted. The headright was also originally intended to apply to inhabitants of the British Isles, but by the middle of the seventeenth century the names of persons imported from Africa appeared occasionally as the basis for headright, and by the last decade of the century they were frequently found.

The distortion of the headright system was done with considerable public approval and in some ways reflected the evolution of economic development that seemed to demand a more convenient and less expensive method for obtaining title to large areas of unoccupied land. As the population of the colony increased and as the labor supply became more plentiful, there was a rather widespread demand to be able to obtain additional land, particularly adjacent undeveloped tracts, without having to import an additional person for every fifty acres. Partly through this demand, impetus was given to the custom, which was not at first sanctioned by law, to permit the granting of patents by simply paying a fee in the secretary’s office.

While the headright system was designed to maintain some proportion between the population of the colony and the amount of land patented, it was also designed to stimulate the migration of immigrants to the colony. Therefore, under the system it was possible for individuals who would engage in transporting or financing the transportation of immigrants to obtain large areas of land. This trend was started under the company; and in the four years prior to 1623, forty-four patents of 5,000 acres each were awarded to persons who were to transport at least 100 immigrants to the colony. In 1621, for example, 5,000 acres were granted to Arthur Swain and Nathaniel Basse and a similar grant to Rowland Truelove and “divers other patentees” each grant to be based on the transportation of 100 persons; 15,000 acres were to go to Sir George Yeardley for engaging to transport 300 persons.

For the years following the dissolution of the company, valuable information of the nature and size of land grants can be found in the “Virginia Land Patents” which fortunately have survived the usual hazards of fire and carelessness.

The existence of the small farm and the small farmer as a major part of the socio-economic system of Virginia at the end of the seventeenth century has been well established. Professor Wertenbaker suggested that “a full 90 per cent of the freeholders” at the time the rent roll was compiled in 1704/05 included the “sturdy, independent class of small farmers.” Through examination of land patents, land transfers, tax rolls, and a sampling of other county records, he found substantial evidence to corroborate the suggested trend of the breakup of a number of large patents and their distribution to small freeholders. Illustrative of this development was the land known as Button’s Ridge in Essex County. Originally including 3,650 acres, the tract was patented to Thomas Button in 1666. The estate then passed first to the brother of Button and later was sold to John Baker. Baker divided the large tract and sold small amounts to the following people: 200 acres to Captain William Moseley, 600 to John Garnet, 200 to Robert Foster, 200 to William Smither, 200 to William Howlett, 300 to Anthony Samuell, and 200 to William Williams.

Professor Susie M. Ames in Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century found evidence of the same trend by which original land grants increased in size by the middle of the century and reached its peak in the third quarter of the century. Near the end of the period many of the larger tracts were being divided by wills distributing them among children or by sales in smaller units. Much of the land obtained by the first two generations on the Eastern Shore was broken up into small holdings by the third. As stated by Professor Ames, “It is the subtraction and division of acres, with only occasionally any marked addition, that seems to be the chief development in land tenure during the last quarter of the seventeenth century.”

Even with the trend of dividing some of the large estates on the Eastern Shore, a small per cent of the population held a considerable part of the land. In 1703/04 the average size of landholding in Northampton County was 389 acres, in Accomack 520 acres. When analyzed by use of the list of tithables, Northampton County had twenty-one persons, only three per cent of the tithables, holding thirty-nine per cent of the land; Accomack County had a total of forty-six persons, only four per cent of the tithables, holding forty-three per cent of the land.

Considering all of Virginia of the seventeenth century, one cannot say that it was primarily a land of large plantations, of cavaliers, and of noble manors which have been romanticized by some writers. Yet there was a significant number of prominent planters who took an active part in the social and political life of the colony and exerted an influence disproportionate to their ratio of the population. Professor Wertenbaker listed the following men among the prominent planters of the first half of seventeenth-century Virginia George Menefie, Richard Bennett, and Richard Kinsman; for the second half of the century, a more extensive list Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Thomas Ballard, Robert Beverley, Giles Brent, Joseph Bridger, William Byrd I, John Carter, John Custis I, Dudley Digges, William Fitzhugh, Lewis Burwell, Philip Ludwell I, William Moseley, Daniel Parke, Ralph Wormeley, Benjamin Harrison, Edward Hill, Edmund Jennings, and Matthew Page. Members of this group accumulated large landholdings, mostly by original patent through the headright system or by private purchase from holders of original patents. For example, William Byrd I had obtained 26,231 acres of land at the time of his death; and William Fitzhugh acquired during his lifetime 96,000 acres of land and left at the time of his death in 1701 a little over 54,000 acres in family “seats” to five sons.

The land system and its administration that permitted the accumulation of a few of these substantial plantations came under detailed discussion by crown officials near the end of the seventeenth century. Before examining this analysis of Virginia land policy, it will be helpful to survey in the following chapter the major laws and the officials responsible for their administration.