Mother Earth

Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699, is credited to Walter Stitt Robinson. The first chapter, headed The Land and the Indian, says that among the motives for English colonization of America in the seventeenth century, the desire for free land occupied a prominent place. The availability of land in the New World is said to have appealed to all classes and ranks in Europe, particularly to the small landholder who sought to increase his landed estate. Thomas Jefferson thought much of the land had been purchased, but the book says Jefferson overestimated the amount of land that was purchased by Virginia.

On other occasions the Indians voluntarily gave up their land, such as the present from Opechancanough in 1617 of a large body of land at Weyanoke. The book reviews the steps by which title to land by headright was obtained: the first step involved 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.