HIST 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Headright
Document Summary
No english legal tradition so there was no ready made system of slave law. It was not always clear who was a slave race was not an absolute marker: race itself was not a fully developed concept. Some early slaves managed to buy or sue their way out of slavery, buy land, and start families. In the 1620s, a white man could come to virginia and make his fortune. Free colonists: started with a headright of land, made money and purchased servant indentured (which gave them more land, grew tobacco and expanded. Land scarcity: tobacco required large tracts of land, land speculators, beyond that, lay the indians. Decreasing mortality: virginia-born englishmen more likely to have immunities, settlements spread further inland, food supply improved somewhat. More servants survived their indentures: more ex-servants competing for dwindling reserves of land, planters would rather buy servants than hire freedmen.
