There are too many misconceptions among us about indentured servants, erroneous ideas giving rise to question after question having to do with determining when any particular servant arrived in the VA Colony.  We all need to remember that in most instances we simply can not know anything about arrival here unless we have found that ancestor in the records, not here, but of the place from which he/she came. Almost never do our land patent records reveal WHEN that ancestor came. 

Indeed, the patent may have and often did issue many years after the arrival of the immigrant ancestor. How so? Because not only did it take a couple years at very best to perfect a patent after making application containing the names of the servants, but also because only in very rare circumstances did the person who claimed the headright ever pay any shipper or ship's master to bring anyone here.

The business of moving servants was brisk, widespread and profitable in the 17th and 18th centuries.  The fare for most servants to come here was paid for by old country entrepreneurs (or so ordered by courts which paid those entrepreneurs) who wanted to bring a boat load over, after which that entrepreneur here sold the headrights of those servants, sometimes even by going about the countryside peddling such, but more often through brokers here who also added a measure of profit to what the shipper had been paid and then resold the people.   

Much more often than not, it would have been silly and very poor business for a Virginia planter to take the risk of paying in advance for a shipper in Britain (or Germany or wherever) to bring, say, 10 people to his Southern plantation. Why?  Because almost always the planter would have been buying a "pig in a poke", having never seen - examined - or conversed with the new servant, and even more importantly, as often happened, the servant might die during the passage and the planter would be out his investment.

So it was that ships' captains, ships' owners, brokers and speculators of every color and stripe, usually operating out of the old country, advertised or otherwise got the word out that they intended to take a shipload of servants to "Virginia" (or wherever).  Those poor folks who wanted to trade years of their life for the chance to come here searched out those shippers and made a deal for some number years of work to pay for the trip, often for themselves and all their family - wives and kids and whoever. All then waited for the ship to depart, suffered the hardships of the voyage and, once here, watched as their shipper sold their headrights to a broker or whoever else was in the market for such labor.

Did some planters actually pay the shipper ahead of time?  Of course, but only when that planter wanted to see to the passage of specific persons - family or friends. Those deals were few and far between however, and as said, most servants were unknown to the person who ultimately claimed land through the headright of that person.  After buying the headright, the new owner here was free to sell that headright as and to whom he chose, and the servant then was obligated to serve out his/her term for that new owner.

No better example of the system exists than that of Owen Griffith who bargained his headright to a ships captain in Bristol in 1657, arrived here not long thereafter almost surely, watched as his headright was sold to someone, following which in in 1666 - 9 years later! - the well known Virginian, Anthony Spiltimber, received a patent using Griffith's headright. After Spiltimber's patent, 2 more people used that same headright on different occasions, one usage in 1703, 4 full years after poor old Owen had died. Nugents writings are literally FULL of such examples.

So, all should forever remember that the date of a patent tells you nothing whatever about when your ancestor arrived here, nor who first owned his/her headright, nor where that servant lived after arriving here.   Enough. If you want more information, records, and evidence of this widespread practice, tell me privately and I will provide some sources.    Paul    




To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html