In Virginia the indentured
servant did not usually receive land at the end of service unless he
had insisted, as John Hammond in _Leah and Rachel_ had advised, that a
specific provision be included in the contract to include the award of
fifty acres as "freedom's dues." There are some cases in which the
provision for land was included as illustrated in one of the earliest
indentures known to exist for Virginia. This indenture of September 7,
1619, was made between Robert Coopy of North Nibley in Gloucestershire
with the associates of Berkeley Hundred. Coopy agreed to work three
years in Virginia and submit to the government of the hundred in return
for which the owners were to transport him to Virginia and "There to
maintayne him with convenient diet and apparell meet for such a
servant, and in the end of the said terme to make him a free man of the
said cuntry theirby to enjoy all the liberties, freedomes, and
priviledges of a freeman there, and to grant to the said Robert thirty
acres of land within their territory or hundred of Barkley...."

The confusion over the question whether the indentured servant was
entitled to fifty acres of land upon expiration of his service extended
to the mother country. There was a widespread belief in England that
such was the case, and there were indefinite statements in commissions
and instructions to the Governors that left the matter in doubt. In
practice in Virginia, however, it is certain that the fifty acres under
the headright claim went to the person transporting indentured servants,
not to the servants themselves. Only where the contract specifically
stated that the servant was to receive fifty acres was he assured of
this grant.

Under the company there had been definite provisions that the fifty
acres went to the persons transporting servants, not to the servants
themselves. After its dissolution, Governors were instructed to follow
the rules of the "late company," and this continued until there was a
variation in Sir Francis Wyatt's commission of 1639 authorizing the
Governor and the Council to issue grants to adventurers and planters
"According to the orders of the late company ... and likewise 50 acres
of land to every person transported thither ... until otherwise
determined by His Majesty." Did "to every person" mean that the servant
was entitled to land? Such was the case across the Potomac in Maryland
where the servant could claim fifty acres from his employer or ma