Question

What does Hellier’s account say about indentured servitude in late seventeenth-century Virginia? How might such a story affect the view of indentured servitude in Virginia? Why did Virginians move away from indentured servitude and toward slavery?

Answer 1

Throughout the Seventeenth century the entire system of Virginia life rested, not upon a civil division-the township, as in New England, but upon an economic division-the plantation. A just conception of its economic framework, either in whole or part, may be obtained by studying the character of a single large plantation in any section of the colony. The community was simply a series of plantations, differing one from another really only in size; in all, the same staple crop was produced, the same kind of labor was employed. Practically, the cultivation of tobacco was the only occupation. There were no towns, no organized manufactures, few trained artizans. A perfect simplicity, an almost complete monotony, was the universal economic keynote.Taking the plantation as the centre of the economic life, it is easy to follow the growth of one of these communities from its very birth. The pressure of the advancing landowners against the barrier of the frontier forest was, from the start, like the pressure of an army besieging a town; the progress was step by step, but ever forward, irresistibly though slowly. A public grant of one little corner in the wilderness, at the outer edge of the settlements, was followed by the grant of another corner, close at hand but slightly ahead, until what was wild land to-day became tilled and inhabited land to-morrow. Most of these patentees were men who had been long established in the colony, and who, in choosing new ground, understood by experience what were the physical conditions desirable. There were two of prime importance : first, the soil must be rich in the elements suitable for tobacco, the best indication of which would be a thick growth of towering trees; secondly, the land must lie upon the banks of a stream navigable either by ships or shallops, so as to give access to the great highway of the ocean and thereby to the markets of the world.Having inspected the soil, satisfied himself as to its quality and defined its bounds, the would-be grantee petitioned the Governor and Council to issue, in his favor, the necessary patent, under the colony's great seal. These officers, in consenting, were presumed to represent the King, in whom the paramount title to every acre was supposed to be invested. This was the legal fiction even before the Indians had been driven from the lands which they had held long before the English throne itself had come into existence. The King's right was thought to be as positive, absolute and exclusive as if it had descended undisputed from a remote ancestry. But in spite of this view there was, especially after the revocation of the charter in 1624, a disposition to recognize the Indian's real ownership of the country back of the frontier. This arose from a desire to avoid all causes of quarrel with those restless and treacherous people. But whether the paramount title of the King had been acquired by force or by treaty, the method of conferring on the private individual title in a given area of ground was substantially the same throughout the century-the only difference was that, in the company's time, the governor and council issuing the patent had to transmit it to the quarter court in London for confirmation, while, after the company's overthrow, the patent was granted under a general law which did away with such unnecessary delay.There were two grounds on which the public lands were conveyed to individuals. First, the performance of public services which were thought to be worthy of some reward. During the company's existence such services were generally performed only by officers of state who had made extraordinary sacrifices of ease and fortune to increase the prosperity of the colony. Latterly, meritorious service usually consisted of some form of self-exposure in defending the frontiers against Indian attack.But by far the most important basis of conferring title was the headright. Every person who came out to the colony or paid the expense of some other person's transportation, whether a member of his own family, a friend or a servant, could claim a patent for fifty acres out of the public domain. There was but one condition imposed : the person or persons whose importation had led to the grant must remain in Virginia at least three years, unless in the interval overtaken by death.