Good question, Don. The answer is no, there was no time limit.  So long as a servant, for WHATEVER reason, had not served out his/her term of servitude upon which he/she had agreed way back when he shipped out of the old country, that term he owed could be given as a gift, mortgaged, sold back to the servant, given away by will, passed by descent and distribution, or simply abandoned.  

The result is that a name in a list of headrights really can not be said to provide us any positive evidence of when a servant came, who transported him actually or by paying another who had already paid the fare, where he lived, where he worked, or even, in fact, whether or not that servant ever saw, spoke to or even knew his "master."  It is also known that some headrights were claimed by ships' masters and seamen, since they had "transported" themselves on every trans-oceanic trip.  To render the system even more tedious, it is written that some ships' masters claimed headrights for those they had taken aboard, yet who had died enroute.  In short, headrights as listed really tell us almost nothing.  Paul          
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Donald King 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 9:10 PM
  Subject: Re: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Headrights - Explanation 


  Paul -

  Thanks for the explanation.

  In researching my ancestry, I have seen my ancestor's name a few times 
  which, in itself I would understand; but there was included with his 
  name a duplicate list of what might be considered uncommon names. Now 
  this combination of persons was either actually transported twice OR 
  somebody fabricated a list of transported persons in order to acquire 
  his 50 acres of land.

  I also believe that I have read/heard that at times certain counties 
  would offer 50 acres per person to a "transporter" for him to bring 
  "transportees" across the county line.

  Question - is there a "reasonable" time frame which NORMALLY occurred 
  between the time of the arrival of the transported persons and the date 
  of the award of the land?

  Thanks
  Donald King




  On Jun 11, 2004, at 5:42 PM, Paul Drake wrote:

  >> From Nancy:
  >
  >> "Mr. Drake; I read your explanation in the digest about Nugent's > 
  >> books and how you do not think those lists are correct.  I beg > > to 
  >> differ with you and use it all the time to know who my Hunt > and 
  >> Jordan ancestors brought here and what happened to them.  How am I 
  >> wrong?  Thank you.  Nancy"
  >
  > Nancy, I did not say those lists are "wrong"; what I said was that 
  > those lists are not reflective of who - what persons - actually 
  > "transported" those servants.  In the 17th- and 18th-centuries the 
  > word "transport" did NOT mean only that some named sponsor saw to the 
  > boat trip and trans-Atlantic fare.  That word also was used to 
  > designate those who had reimbursed or otherwise supplied money those 
  > who actually had provided the trip over.  Why the dual definition?  
  > Because Parliament and the Virginia Land Co had provided that any 
  > person who transported another across the sea would gain (usually) 50 
  > acres of VA land to be broken to the plow and rendered habitable to 
  > some minimal extent.
  >
  > Thus it was that if you were of a business mind you could own a ship 
  > (or hire one) and provide the ride across the ocean for enough folks 
  > to fill that ship, folks who would come here as servants for some 
  > number of years in exchange for that ride over.  When your ship 
  > arrived here with those new "servants", you would and usually did sell 
  > the terms of service of those folks to farmers and planters here who 
  > needed those laboring folks to work the crops, the sale price for 
  > those terms being sufficient to make the whole venture profitable for 
  > you.
  >
  > It was said to cost about L10 (Pounds) to ship a person here, 
  > including the food and shelter in England for whatever time it took to 
  > round up a full shipload.  Thus, if you could sell those servants to a 
  > planter for L15, you had a net profit of L5 on the deal per head.
  >
  > The rights to claim the years of service owing by each servant was 
  > called a "headright" (rights per head of people), and - as said - that 
  > headright brought to the new owner 50 acres of new land. Though it 
  > seems to us to be a stretch of the rules, the law took the view that 
  > the new owner really had "transported" that servant since that he had 
  > paid for the fare by reimbursing the ship's master in full, plus a 
  > profit.
  >
  > As you can now see, Nugent's list of servants transported does not 
  > reflect who really brought the person here, but rather who somehow 
  > later saw to the payment to the original transporter.  The last legal 
  > step was that, since if you owned a "headright", as with almost all 
  > other property, you could sell, mortgage, loan, give, trade, will or 
  > deal in those headrights as you chose.
  >
  > Considering that state of the law, notice that you could pay a 
  > shipowner for a man and thereby gain that man-servant's duties, go 
  > downtown and sell that headright to a friend or give it to one of your 
  > kids, and those new "owners" could, in their turn, sell or otherwise 
  > again be rid of that servant and his work period.
  >
  > Since each of those new owners had paid you, who had paid someone 
  > else, they had in fact "transported" that servant.  When the trades 
  > and sales all were finished, the final owner - the last fellow to 
  > "pay" for the fare over went down to the clerk and stated he had 
  > "transported" those people.  He then got his 50 acres per head.
  >
  > Thus, as is now obvious, any list of folks appearing in the records 
  > only reflects the name of those who ended up paying someone else for 
  > the headrights, and in no way reveals who bought and sold anyone.  
  > Many made a lot of money by speculating in headrights, the servants 
  > all the while wondering and waiting to be told for whom they would 
  > work out their terms.
  >
  > The matter is even more complicated, however I have told why I so 
  > stated.  Paul
  >
  >
  >
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