I have been asked privately by a researcher to comment re indentured
servitude and passage from Britain.  Though I have spoken to the
subject in depth in my book - "Now In Our Fourth Century, etc.", and
have mentioned it before here (and in the Drake website archives),
here is a brief response to your questions.

As often as not, the person who claimed the headright did not
transport anybody at anytime ever; he purchased or traded for that
headright often VERY long - many years - after the actual voyage of
passage.  The best illustration perhaps is that of the passage of
Owen Griffith (c1635-1698).  Though he shipped from Bristol to I of
W in 1658, his headright was later used by no less than three (3)
separate men to claim 50 acres of land.  Indeed, were that not
enough, the last time his headright was used appears in 1703 - 5
years after his death, and 45 years after his emigration from
Britain.

The reason for such activity was simple.  The law did NOT require
that you transport anyone in order to own a headright and trade it
for land.  It was only required that you gain title to such a
"right" by paying or otherwise dealing or bargaining with someone
who had already transported or had paid still someone else for the
transport of the servant(s), be that an owner of a headright who had
previously purchased it, an entrepreneur/speculator who dealt in
indentures (there were many in the 17th- and early 18th-centuries),
ships' captains and owners who regularly brought such folks over at
their own risk and sold those headrights at the wharves or through
brokers, or a headright might be purchased from the person/servant
himself who had paid his own way over and then wanted to sell
himself into servitude to a tradesman or artisan, since jobs were
quite scarce from time to time and he might learn a trade in that
way.  Many indentures passed through 4, 5, or 6 or more hands before
land was claimed for that "right".  Recording of such documents was
almost unknown.

Thus, good research does not permit us EVER to infer WHEN a person
arrived based upon the date his or her headright was exchanged for
land - "cashed in".  The subject is not complicated, but we must
remember that the person who owned the headright may have never even
seen, known of, much less been acquainted with the person who
actually transported the servant.    Paul

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