Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

first imported Germans were Swiss, who soon moved to new land of their
own, at which point Spotswood made certain to import Palatine Germans to
be indentured servants, who could not leave their work so readily.
The policy of land engrossment was continued and expanded by Spotswood's
successors, among whom was William Gooch, who governed Virginia
from 1726 to 1749. In 1730, Gooch made the lot of the land monopolist still
easier by deferring quitrents and permitting a settlement of one family for
every thousand acres. These terms were specified in a grant of 30,000 acres to
John van Meter. Between 1730 and 1736—just six years—eight grants were
made by the Virginia government totaling 500,000 acres of unsettled land.
The largest grant was 130,000 acres to William Beverly. Some of these grants
passed through the Piedmont and into the Shenandoah Valley. These grants
began in 1728 with gifts of 26,000 acres to Larkin Chew and his associates;
the Van Meters soon received 40,000 acres.
The actual settlers, however, were not necessarily worse off in securing this
land here than elsewhere. In no colony was a libertarian homestead principle
in full operation, and many settlers found it cheaper to purchase small farms
from these speculators than to battle for patents from the Virginia bureaucracy
or to buy land in Pennsylvania.
In the march westward, Virginia came into conflict with competing land
monopolists, the owners of the huge Northern Neck. Lord Culpeper had been
proprietor of Northern Neck as well as coproprietor of Virginia itself in the
late seventeenth century. But when he sold back his proprietary right in Virginia
to the Crown in 1684, he could not negotiate a sale for Northern Neck,
for which he then obtained a perpetual charter from King James II in 1688.
By the turn of the eighteenth century, the Northern Neck grant had passed
by inheritance into the hands of Lord Fairfax. Fairfax, by loose construction
of the charter, contended that Northern Neck should extend to all the land
between the headwaters of the Potomac and Rappahannock (including Rapidan)
rivers. Finally, in 1745, the case was decided in favor of Lord Fairfax
over the protests of the governor and the House of Burgesses. By this appalling
decision, Lord Fairfax was granted the ownership of the enormous total
of six million acres of northern Virginia, including a large piece of the Shenandoah
Valley.*
In the meanwhile, leading tidewater planters had for decades received land
grants from Virginia in this expanding region. Particularly active was William
Beverly, nephew of William Byrd II, and the Beverly family had secured
over sixty thousand acres and, in fact, a large part of Augusta County. In contrast,
Robert ("King") Carter, an agent of Lord Fairfax and senior member
*The decision awarded to Fairfax the present Virginia counties of Culpeper, Fa\iquier,
Rappahannock, Madison, Prince William, Stafford, Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington,
Warren, Page, Shenandoah, Clarke, Frederick, King George, Westmoreland, Richmond,
Northumberland, and Lancaster; and the West Virginia counties of Jefferson, Berkeley,
Morgan, Hampshire, and Hardy.
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