local legislature had the most beneficial influence on the agricultural interests of the Colony, as it was composed of burgesses who had a personal knowledge of the agricultural needs of Virginia. Among its principal enactments were laws with reference to grain and tobacco, silk and vines. The same brief interval saw the introduction of the negro slave, who in time was to become the principal agricultural laborer of one-half of the United States. It also saw, what was more important in its immediate consequences, the extension of an absolute freedom to those persons among the colonists who had come into Virginia during the previous administrations, and had been detained beyond their legal time in the service of the Company. The right of acquiring property in fee simple was now freely granted. Every one of the “ancient” planters[1] became entitled to what was defined as a dividend, the term applied to a certain area of soil. William Spencer and Thomas Barret, who had been the first to go forth as farmers under the regulation adopted by Sir Thomas Dale, were now the first to choose the lands which they were to hold in absolute ownership. The conversion of a common laborer into a farmer had, as we have seen, an immediate effect in stimulating the industry of that large section of the population who were chosen to be the beneficiaries of the provision as to the conditional tenure. Far more powerful was the influence of a fee simple title upon those who received this invaluable gift on account of their long connection with the Colony; it is stated that a strong
- ↑ An “ancient” planter was one who had come into the Colony previous to the final departure of Dale in 1616.
previous history of each member, will be found in William Wirt Henry’s “First Legislative Assembly in America,” in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. II, p. 55. This article has also been printed in American Historical Association Publications.
