consuming task, it was obviously cheaper to take land from the Indians. But
Indian agricultural lands could not satisfy the increasing number of
colonists; Indian hunting grounds were needed as well.
From 1618 on, newcomers were offered a “head right” if they would
clear and work plots; that program would remain a feature of colonial
America throughout the century. Larger areas were also granted or sold. As
expected revenues failed to materialize, the Virginia Company began in
1616 to sell “particular plantations” to individuals or companies who con-
tracted to bring over and settle colonists at their own expense. Organized
like the subdivision of an English county or shire known as a “hundred,”
each settlement became legally semiautonomous. By 1620, nearly fifty such
grants had been made.
Except for passing out land, government in Virginia and Maryland was
restricted in its interventions in society and economy. One reason may have
been that farmers settled so far apart as to be out of reach of any authority,
but the restriction was also an echo of what was familiar in England. In the
original patent given to Sir Walter Ralegh, Queen Elizabeth had specified
that whatever arrangements Ralegh or his successors made to govern the
territories they colonized must be “as nere as conveniently may bee, agree-
able to the forme of the lawes, statutes, governement, or pollicie of
England... nor in any wise to withdrawe any of the subjects or people of
those lands or places from the alleagance of us, our heires and succes-
sours.” That is, Ralegh could do whatever was necessary as long as he did
not violate English law or wean his new state away from the crown. Walking
that fine line would be accomplished initially, but the attempt was always
precarious and ultimately failed completely, eventually resulting in the
American Revolution.
Accommodation with the Indians was never seriously considered. The
“chiefe adventurer” of the voyage to Roanoke in 1583 had written that by
international law, the Indians had no right to resist the colonists: “I say that
the Christians may lawfully travel into those Countries and abide there:
whom the Savages may not justly impugne and forbidde in respect of the
mutuall societie and fellowshippe betweene man and man prescribed by
the Law of Nations.” In practice, the Virginia colonists took this as license
to raid Indians’ food caches to steal corn. And, as their descendants
Early Days in the Colonies 117