1706 (printed under October 1705 in Hening)
Virginia recognizes a conditional fifty-acre claim for imported Christian servants
Colonial Virginia
A separate Virginia land act recognized a fifty-acre importation right for Christian servants after their service ended. Claimants needed proof of importation, certificates, a survey and a patent. The act also allowed larger tracts to people holding at least five taxable servants or enslaved people, tying access to larger estates to control of labor.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
This was a conditional right to claim land, not an automatic farm or part of the freedom dues in the servants-and-slaves act. Patents carried rent and settlement conditions. Hening prints the act under October 1705, while contemporary correspondence dates its passage to 1706; the statute alone does not show how many freed servants obtained land.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2, p. 37; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Virginia land act, chapter XXI; Hening 3:304–306, 309, 313: eligibility, patent process, tract limits, rent and settlement ↗
- Alexander Spotswood to the Lords Commissioners of Trade, 11 February 1712/13; Official Letters, vol. 2, pp. 13–15: 1706 act and abuses of importation rights ↗
- Holly Brewer, Slavery, Sovereignty, and “Inheritable Blood” (2017), notes 116–117: June 1706 deliberations and Hening’s date discrepancy ↗