considerable private and public animosity displayed toward the
principles of the proprietary system. There was a distrust of the grants
that were issued, and there was criticism of the proprietary system as
it differed from the remainder of Virginia. Demand for land in the area
was not as great; and with the exception of large holdings such as that
of William Fitzhugh, most of the patents were small. It was not until
the eighteenth century that public antipathy toward the proprietors was
for the most part dispelled and that demands on the Northern Neck land
offices increased to equal other areas in Virginia.
RETROSPECT
The availability of land was a leading motive in the European
colonization of America. Although much of the country was inhabited by
Indians, European nations claimed sovereignty over the area and denied
superior claims by the non-Christian aborigines. The London Company held
essentially to this position, although gradually the colony of Virginia,
like other English colonies, recognized the Indian's right of occupation
and provided some compensation for relinquishment of territory. By the
middle of the seventeenth century Virginia had initiated the policy of
laying out Indian boundaries or creating reservations for neighboring
tribes that were not open to white settlement.
Under the London Company land was held in common until the provision for
distribution to individual stockholders was carried out after 1616. In
addition to grants according to the number of shares of stock owned, the
company rewarded individuals with land for special services rendered to
the colony. And to stimulate immigration, grants were offered as
dividends to voluntary associations or "societies of adventurers" for
organizing and financing settlements such as the hundred or particular
plantations. It was also possible to obtain patents by purchase or by
"treasury right" under the company, but the most significant development
was the provision for acquisition by headright as outlined in the
Instructions to Governor George Yeardley in 1618.
With the dissolution of the company in 1624, the "treasury right" was
discontinued in Virginia and did not reappear other than in the Northern
Neck until 1699. The major method of obtaining title to land was the
headright which attempted to maintain an appropriate balance between the
size of the population and the area patented. However, its basic concept
was distorted by irregular practices and fraudulent acts. Other
conditions for obtaining patents after 1624 were as a dividend for each
share of stock invested in the company, as remuneration for special
services, and as a means of encouraging frontier fortification.
The size of land patents gradually increased during the seventeenth
century with the peak being reached in the third quarter. During the
last quarter of the period there was a definite trend toward the breakup
of large estates by distribution to heirs and by sale of small segments
of the larger patent. Whatever the variation in size, the small
landholder constituted the major group in seventeenth-century Virginia
and assumed a more important role in the socio-economic pattern of the
colony than is evident from the descriptions of plantation life by
romantic writers.
By the end of the seventeenth century the use of the headright as the
major means of land distribution began to give way to acquisition of
title by purchase in all of Virginia other than the Northern Neck. For
the Northern Neck which was granted to various proprietors who were
faithful to the King during the civil war, the headright never served as
the basis of the land system. Rather the distribution of land by the
"treasury right" was employed in the seventeenth as well as the
eighteenth century.
The abuses of the land system and lax enforcement of its major
principles brought forth a detailed discussion of its many facets by the
Board of Trade near the end of the century. Reforms were proposed that
would enhance the royal revenue by collection of the quitrent and would
prevent the accumulation of large estates. But the existence of vast
areas of unoccupied land on the frontier militated against the
restriction, and there was considerable opposition to feudal tenures and
to the payment of rents to the crown. The proposed reforms did not
prevent the acquisition of large landholdings; the few large estates of
the seventeenth century increased both in number and size in the
eighteenth century and from them were developed the large plantations of
some of the well-known Virginia leaders of the American Revolution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. MANUSCRIPTS
Virginia Land Patents. Forty-two volumes. Records of the Virginia
State Land Office now in the custody of the Virginia State Library,
Richmond. Indispensable source for the study of land grants in
Colonial Virginia. Nine volumes cover the period to 1706 with two
additional volumes for the Northern Neck beginning in 1690: Northern
Neck Grants No. 1, 1690-1692 and Northern Neck Grants No. 2,
1694-1700.
Thomas Jefferson Papers. Alderman Library, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville.
II. PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES
Brown, Alexander, ed., _The Genesis of the United States_, New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890. 2 vols.
Force, Peter, ed., _Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to
the Origin Settlement and Progress of the Colonies in North
America, from the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776_,
Washington, D.C., 1836-1846. 4 vols.
Grant, William, Munro (James) and Fitzroy (A. W.), eds., _Acts of
the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, 1613-1783_, London,
1908-1912. 6 vols.
Hartwell, Henry, Blair (James) and Chilton (Edward), _The Present
State of Virginia and the College_. Edited by H. D. Farish,
Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., 1940.
Hening, W. W., ed., _Statutes at Large: being a Collection of All
the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in
the Year 1619_ [to 1792]. Richmond, 1809. 13 vols.
Kennedy, J. P. and McIlwaine, H. R., eds., _Journals of the House
of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1776_, Richmond: The Colonial Press,
1905-1915. 13 vols.
Kingsbury, S. M., ed., _The Records of the Virginia Company of
London_, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906 and
1933. 4 vols.
Labaree, L. W., ed., _Royal Instructions to British Colonial
Governors_, 1670-1776, New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1935.
2 vols.
McIlwaine, H. R. and Hall, W. L., eds., _Executive Journals of the
Council of Colonial Virginia_, Richmond: Virginia State Library,
1925.
McIlwaine, H. R., ed., _Legislative Journals of the Council of
Colonial_ _Virginia, 1680-1775_, Richmond: The Colonial Press,
1918-1919. 3 vols.
----, _Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial
Virginia, 1622-1632, 1670-1676_, Richmond: The Colonial Press,
1924.
Nugent, Nell M., ed., _Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of
Virginia Land Patents and Grants_, Richmond: The Dietz Printing
Company, 1934. Only volume I published covering the period from
1623 to 1666. Excellent source for study of seventeenth-century
land grants.
Sainsbury, W. N. and others, eds., _Calendar of State Papers,
Colonial Series, America and West Indies_, London, 1860-.
III. INDEX AND PERIODICALS
Swem, E. G., comp., _Virginia Historical Index_, Roanoke: Stone
Printing Company, 1934-1936. 2 vols.
Valuable guide to material found in Hening's _Statutes_, _Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography_, _Tyler's Quarterly Historical
and Genealogical Magazine_, _William and Mary College Quarterly
Historical Magazine_--first and second series, _Calendar of
Virginia State Papers ... Preserved in the Capitol at Richmond_,
_Virginia Historical Register and Literary Adviser_, and _Lower
Norfolk County Virginia Antiquary_.
IV. SECONDARY SOURCES--BOOKS
Ames, Susie M., _Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the
Seventeenth Century_, Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1940.
Andrews, C, M., _The Colonial Period of American History_, New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1934-1938. 4 vols.
Beverley, Robert, _The History of Virginia in Four Parts_.
Reprinted from the author's second revised edition, 1722. Richmond,
1855.
Brown, Alexander, _The First Republic in America_, New York:
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898.
Bruce, P. A., _The Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_, New York: Macmillan and Company, 1896. 2 vols.
----, _Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1910. 2 vols.
----, _Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An
Inquiry into the Origin of the Higher Planting Class, together with
an Account of the Habits, Customs, and Diversions of the People_,
Richmond: Whittet & Shepperson, 1907.
Craven, W. F., _Dissolution of the Virginia Company: The failure of
a Colonial Experiment_, New York: Oxford University Press, 1932.
----, _The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century,
1607-1689_. Volume I of _A History of the South_, Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1949.
Harrison, _Fairfax, Virginia Land Grants: A Study of Conveyancing
in Relation to Colonial Politics_, Richmond: The Old Dominion
Press, 1925. Valuable for its emphasis upon the Northern Neck.
Osgood, H. L., _The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century_,
New York: Macmillan Company, 1904-1907. 3 vols.
Voorhis, M. C., The Land Grant Policy of Colonial Virginia,
1607-1774, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia.
Valuable study with emphasis upon analysis of land policy. Does not
include the Northern Neck.
Wertenbaker, T. J., _Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia; or, The
Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion_,
Charlottesville, 1910.
----, _The Planters of Colonial Virginia_, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1922.
----, _Virginia under the Stuarts, 1607-1688_, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1914.
Wright, L. B., _The First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual
Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class_, San Marino: The
Huntington Library, 1940.
VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY COMMISSION
_Honorary Chairman_
THOMAS B. STANLEY, Governor
LEWIS A. MCMURRAN, JR., _Chairman of the Commission_
_Members of Senate appointed by President of the Senate_:
LLOYD C. BIRD, Vice Chairman HARRY F. BYRD, JR.
EDWARD L. BREEDEN, JR. W. MARVIN MINTER
_Members of the House of Delegates appointed by the Speaker of the House_:
RUSSELL M. CARNEAL FELIX E. EDMUNDS
HALE COLLINS LEWIS A. MCMURRAN, JR.
JOHN W. COOKE W. TAYLOE MURPHY
EDMUND T. DEJARNETTE FRED G. POLLARD
_Members appointed by the Governor_:
MISS ELLEN BAGBY CARLISLE H. HUMELSINE
ALVIN D. CHANDLER VERBON E. KEMP
ALLEN R. MATTHEWS
PARKE ROUSE, JR., _Executive Director_
* * * * *
THE JAMESTOWN-WILLIAMSBURG-YORKTOWN
CELEBRATION COMMISSION
_Appointed by the President of the United States_
ROBERT V. HATCHER, Chairman SAMUEL M. BEMISS, Vice Chairman
FRANK L. BOYDEN BENTLEY HITE
DAVID E. FINLEY WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
CONRAD L. WIRTH
_Appointed by the Vice President of the United States_
HARRY F. BYRD A. WILLIS ROBERTSON
_Appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives_
EDWARD J. ROBESON, JR. RICHARD H. POFF
H. K. ROBERTS, _Administrative Director_
_FEVDIGRAPHIA._
THE SYNOPSIS
OR EPITOME OF
SVRVEYING METHODIZED.
Anatomizing the whole Corps of the
Facultie; _Viz._
_The Materiall, Mathematicall, Mechanicall and
Legall Parts_,
Intimating all the Incidents to Fees and Possessions, and
whatsoeuer may be comprized vnder their Matter, Forme,
Proprietie, and Valuation.
_Very pertinent to be perused of all those, whom the Right, Reuenewe,
Estimation, Farming, Occupation, Manurance, Subduing,
Preparing and Imploying of Arable, Medow, Pasture, and all
other plots doe concerne._
And no lesse remarkable for all Vnder-takers in the Plantation
of Ireland or Virginia, for all Trauailers for Discoueries of
_forraine Countries, and for Purchasers, Exchangers, or Sellers_
of Land, and for euery other Interessee in the Profits
or Practise deriued from the compleate
SVRVEY
_Of Manours, Lands, Tenements, Edifices, Woods, Waters, Titles,
Tenures, Euidences, &c._
Composed in a compendious Digest by
W. FOLKINGHAM. G.
QUA PROSUNT SINGULA, MULTAIUVANT.
LONDON
Printed for _Richard Moore_, and are to be solde at his shop in Saint
_Dunstanes_ Church-yard in Fleete-streete,
1610.
[Photograph by T. L. Williams]
THE
SVRVEIORS
DIALOGVE,
Very profitable for all men to pervse, but
_especially for Gentlemen, Farmers, and Husbandmen_,
that shall either haue occasion, or be willing
to buy, hire, or sell Lands: As in the ready and perfect
Surueying of them, with the manner and Method of
keeping a Court of Suruey with many necessary rules,
and familiar Tables to that purpose.
* * * * *
_As also_,
The vse of the Manuring of some Grounds, fit as well
_for_ LORDS, _as for_ TENNANTS.
* * * * *
Now the third time Imprinted.
* * * * *
_And by the same Author inlarged, and a sixt Booke newly_
added, of a familiar conference, betweene a PVRCHASER,
and a SVRVEYOR of Lands; of the true vse of both being
very needfull for all such as are to purchase Land,
whether it be in Fee simple, or by Lease.
_Diuided into sixe Bookes by_ I. N.
* * * * *
PROV. 17.2.
_A discreate Seruant shall haue rule ouer an vnthriftie Sonne, and he shall
deuide the heritage among the brethren._
Voluntas pro facultate.
* * * * *
LONDON:
Printed by THOMAS SNODHAM. 1618.
[Photograph by T. L. Williams]