found in a regulation adopted in 1660 with reference to the record of the acknowledgment given by the Wicocomico tribe to Governor Mathews in conveying to him the land in Northumberland, which, as has been seen, they proposed to abandon. This acknowledgment did not disclose upon its face that there was a valuable consideration for the transfer of the property. The grantee himself was now dead, but the guardians of his heir were directed by the Assembly to tender to these Indians the equivalent in value of fifty pounds sterling. If this was rejected, then the rights acquired by Mathews under his original conveyance and transmitted to his heir, were to remain in abeyance until the tribe of their own motion deserted the lands. No step was to be permitted tending to coerce them in their action, and the Governor and Council were to decide as to whether the merchandise ordered to be offered had been accepted or refused. Still more scrupulous care was displayed by the Assembly in the instance of an Indian grant to Colonel Fauntleroy of Rappahannock; no evidence being offered to prove that it was made for a sufficient consideration, he was commanded to cover the deficiency by an additional recompense the amount of which was carefully prescribed.[1]
The regulation adopted for the protection of the Indians of Accomac denying them the right to alienate their lands, was not extended in its scope to the aborigines in the older parts of the Colony. In 1661, the privilege was granted to the Chickahominy tribe to dispose of their grounds to the English, provided that each sale received the approval of a majority of their great men, which was to be announced in a Quarter Court or the Assembly.[2] How far mere apprehension entered into these equitable regulations is revealed in an Act, passed in 1661, with
