The following article was written by Bryan Mulcahy, with the Lee County Library System. Used by Permission.
Headrights were grants of land to settlers and played a significant role in the expansion of the American colonies in North America prior to the American Revolution. Both the Virginia Company and Plymouth Company offered headrights to settlers as an incentive to come to the American colonies. The headright system was used in several colonies, primarily Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.
Most headright grants were for 1 to 1,000 acres of land, and were given to anyone willing to cross the Atlantic Ocean and help populate the colonial America. Headrights were granted to anyone who would pay for the transportation costs of a laborer or indentured servant. These land grants usually consisted of 50 acres for someone newly moving to the area and 100 acres for people previously living in the area.
This concept began in Jamestown, Virginia in 1618 to solve labor shortages due to the growth and economic dependence of tobacco in Virginia as its major source crop. The growth of tobacco required large plots of land with many workers. The disproportion that existed between the amount of land available and the population created a situation with a low supply of labor, resulting in the growth of indentured servitude and slavery.
The headright system attracted many new colonists. Colonists who had already been living in Virginia were each given two headrights of 50 acres. Those who in turn paid for a newcomer immigrant to America would subsequently receive one headright each time they paid for the passage of another individual. Headrights were given to heads-of-households and because 50 acres were accumulated for each member of the household, families had an incentive to make the passage to the colonies together.
The headright system directly impacted the growth of indentured servitude where poor individuals would become workers for a specified number of years and provide labor in order to repay the landowners who had sponsored their transportation to the colonies. The claimants to headrights could receive grants for men, women and children since anyone could become an indentured servant. Early documentation from the Virginia Company seems to suggest that a landowner could receive a headright even if the indentured servant whose trip they sponsored did not make it to Virginia alive which was not an uncommon occurrence.
From a genealogical research perspective, many cases where these people passed away had to be documented in the court of record where the indentured servant was supposed to have performed their duties before their demise on the trip. While the majority of headrights distributed were issued under the names of British immigrants, as time went on, indentured servants who provided the heads-of-households with land came from throughout Europe and could be used as headrights, as could slaves from Africa.
The headright system also played a significant role in the development of the slave trade. Plantation owners benefited from the headright system when they paid for the transportation of imported slaves. This, along with the increase in the amount of money required to bring indentured servants to the colonies, contributed to the shift towards slavery in the colonies. Until 1699, a slave was worth a headright of fifty acres. According to records, in the 1670s over 400 slaves were used as headrights in Virginia. This number increased in the 1680s and 1690s. Many families grew in power in the colonies by receiving large tracts of land when they imported slaves.
Searching for records related to headright grants can be problematic. Significant discrepancies exists between the number of headrights issued and the number of new residents in the throughout the colonies. Even when allowing for the high mortality rates among people during their journey to the colonies, many historians and genealogists continue to question the high number of discrepancies. Landowners would receive headrights for the dead and thus, the gap would widen between confirmed population growth and amount of headrights issued. Another explanation suggests that the secretary’s office that issued the headrights grew more lax over time due to bribes or political pressure. There were few regulations in place to keep the headright system in check.
