HIST 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: London Company, Primogeniture, Tillage
Document Summary
Colonial agriculture, industry, and commerce: the land and the westward movement, the significance of land tenure. It rendered for the mass of those who labored on the land a form of tenantry or servitude inevitable. It also allowed the landlords to remain in power as a governing class and to keep the tenants and workers subject to their economic and political control. If land tenure in europe was so significant, it was equally important in the development of america, where circumstances forced virtually all the first immigrants to derive their livelihood from the soil. In maryland, the owner often received from that source as much as 9000 (equal to about ,000 a day) in one year: the quit rents in pennsylvania put a fine annual tribute into the penn family"s exchequer. In the maryland colony alone there were sixty three thousand acre manors each, owned by wealthy men and tilled by tenants holding small plots under certain tenure restrictions.
