"Ancient planter" (sometimes called ancient colony men [1] ) was a term applied to early colonists who migrated to the Colony of Virginia when the settlement was managed privately by the Virginia Company of London. A colonist received a land grant if they remained in Virginia for at least three years. Under the terms of the "Instructions to Governor Yeardley" (issued in 1618), these colonists received the first land grants in the New World. [2] [3]
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These land grants constituted a dividend paid out by the Virginia Company of London, which was constituted as a joint stock company. Under the terms of the Second Charter, issued in 1609, the Company offered shares for twelve pounds ten shillings per share, to be invested and reinvested for seven years. Those men who ventured to Virginia in person, investing their time and risking their lives, would each be counted as holding one share. [4] [5]
In 1616, at the end of the administration of Sir Thomas Dale, the first dividend became due and payable to all who had invested, whether by the purchase of shares or by "personal adventure". However, since the colony had not prospered, there was no money to divide. Instead, the Company offered grants of land. Colonists who had paid their own passage to Virginia received a "first dividend" of 100 acres (0.40 km2 ), free of quit-rent, for their "personal adventure", and an additional hundred acres for each share they owned in the London Company:
...the ancient adventurers and Planters which were transported thither with Intent to Inhabit at their own costs and charges before the coming away of Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, and have so continued during the space of three years, shall have upon a first Division to be afterwards by us augmented one hundred acres of Land for their personal adventure and as much for every single share of twelve pounds ten shillings paid for such share allotted and set out to be held by them their Heirs and assigns forever. [3]
Those who had been brought at the Company's expense (as indentured servants) also received 100 acres for their "personal adventure", but in their case the land was subject to an annual rent of one shilling per 50 acres:
And that for all such planters as were brought thither at the Company's charge to Inhabit there before the coming away of the said Sir Thomas Dale after the time of their service to the Company on the common Land agreed shall be expired there be set out one hundred acres of Land for each of their Personal adventure to be held by them their Heirs and assigns for ever paying for every fifty acres the yearly free Rent of one shilling to the said Treasurer and company and their successors at one entire payment on the feast day of Saint Michaels the Archangel forever. [3]
Colonists who arrived after the departure of Sir Thomas Dale were entitled to a lesser grant of 50 acres (0.20 km2 ). The London Company reasoned that "... by the singular Industry and virtue of the said Sir Thomas Dale the former Difficulties and Dangers were in greatest part overcome to the great ease and security of such as have been since that time transported thither",. [3] In other words, those who had come earlier received twice as much land, supposedly in recognition of the greater risks and hardships they had endured. Of course, reducing the size of the grant to 50 acres also saved the hard-pressed Company a great deal of money, and the later colonists can scarcely be said to have experienced the "great ease and security" mentioned by the Company; the death rate continued extremely high. [6]
The phrase "ancient planter" was not an honorific; it was simply a descriptive term, as used in the "Instructions", for a planter of long standing. [7]
According to a letter from John Rolfe dated January 1619/20:
All the Ancient Planters being sett free have chosen places for their dividends according to the Comyssion. Which giveth all greate content, for now knowing their owne landes, they strive and are prepared to build houses & to clear their groundes ready to plant, which giveth great encouragement and the greatest hope to make the Colony florrish that ever yet happened to them. [8]
Because the surviving historical records are incomplete, and sometimes demonstrably inaccurate, [9] it is not possible to compile a definitive list of ancient planters.
The database of Colonial Land Office Patents at the Library of Virginia is the principal source of information as to the identities of those who received grants as ancient planters. Though the record does not begin until 1623, when administration of the colony was taken over by the Crown, many of the subsequent patents identify "ancient planters", or provide information which shows that a tract of land must have been originally granted under the terms applying to Ancient Planters.
Additional information comes from the 1624/5 Muster, a census ordered as part of the handover of the colony from the Virginia Company to the Crown. For some of the colonists, the census includes information on the year and ship of arrival. In many cases this valuable information is missing.
Also as part of the transition to Crown Colony status, a list of grants was compiled in 1625 and sent to London. [10] This list does not identify the ancient planters as such, but in some cases knowledge of the grant combined with information from other sources (e.g., knowledge of the date of arrival) is enough to show that the planter in question must have received the grant as an ancient planter.
The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N.
Sir George Yeardley was a planter and colonial governor of the colony of Virginia. He was also among the first slaveowners in Colonial America. A survivor of the Virginia Company of London's ill-fated Third Supply Mission, whose flagship, the Sea Venture, was shipwrecked on Bermuda for ten months from 1609 to 1610, he is best remembered for presiding over the initial session of the first representative legislative body in Virginia in 1619. With representatives from throughout the settled portion of the colony, the group became known as the House of Burgesses. It has met continuously since, and is known in modern times as the Virginia General Assembly. Yeardley died in 1627.
Sir Samuel Argall was an English adventurer and naval officer.
Sir Thomas Dale was an English naval commander who served as deputy-governor of the Virginia Colony in 1611 and again from 1614 to 1616. Dale is best remembered for the energy and the extreme rigour of his administration in Virginia, which established order and in various ways seems to have benefited the colony, although he was criticised for high-handedness. He is also credited with the establishment of Bermuda Hundred, Bermuda Cittie, and the Cittie of Henricus.
Sir Thomas Gates was the governor of Jamestown in the English Colony of Virginia. His predecessor, George Percy, through inept leadership, was responsible for the lives lost during the period called the Starving Time. The English-born Gates arrived to find a few surviving starving colonists commanded by Percy, and assumed command. Gates ruled with deputy governor Sir Thomas Dale. Their controlled, strict methods helped the early colonies survive. Sir Thomas was knighted in 1596 by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex for gallantry at the Capture of Cadiz. His knighthood was later royally confirmed by Queen Elizabeth I.
Francis West was a Deputy Governor of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia.
Elizabeth City was one of four incorporations established in the Virginia Colony in 1619 by the proprietor, the Virginia Company of London, acting in accordance with instructions issued by Sir George Yeardley, Governor. This allowed the crown to benefit from the offerings of the new land, including its natural resources, new markets for English goods, and the leverage it provided against the Spanish.
Captain Raleigh Croshaw or Crashaw was an English merchant and early immigrant to the Colony and Dominion of Virginia who represented Elizabeth City County in the House of Burgesses in 1624.
Richard Pace was an early settler and ancient planter in colonial Jamestown, Virginia. According to a 1622 account published by the London Company, Pace played a key role in warning the Jamestown colony of an impending Powhatan raid on the colony.
Temperance Flowerdew, Lady Yeardley was an early settler of the Jamestown Colony and a key member of the Flowerdew family, significant participants in the history of Jamestown. Temperance Flowerdew was wife of two Governors of Virginia, sister of another early colonist, aunt to a representative at the first General Assembly and "cousin-german" to the Secretary to the Colony.
Captain Ralph Hamor (1589–1626) was one of the original colonists to settle in Virginia, and author of A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, which he wrote upon returning to London in 1615.
William Powell, was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, militia officer and legislator. Considered an ancient planter for living in the Virginia colony during its first decade, he was one of two representatives from what became James City County, Virginia in the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. His former plantation, now across the James River in Surry County, Virginia is now within Chippokes State Park.
William Farrar was a landowner and politician in colonial Virginia. He was a subscriber to the third charter of the Virginia Company who immigrated to the colony from England in 1618. After surviving the Jamestown massacre of 1622, he moved to Jordan's Journey. In the following year, Farrar became involved in North America's first breach of promise suit when he proposed to Cecily Jordan.
John Ferrar was a London merchant and brother of Nicholas Ferrar the Younger. The son of Nicholas Ferrar the Elder, he was deputy governor and treasurer of the Virginia Company of London under Edwin Sandys.
Cecily Jordan Farrar was one of the earlier women settlers of colonial Jamestown, Virginia. She arrived in the colony as a child in 1610 and was established as one of the few female ancient planters by 1620. After her husband Samuel Jordan died in 1623, Cecily obtained oversight of his 450-acre plantation, Jordan's Journey. In the Jamestown Muster of 1624-1625, she is one of fewer than 10 women who are mentioned as a head of household, and the only woman listed as sharing the head of household with a man she was not married to. In the year of Samuel Jordan's death, she set off the first breach of promise lawsuit in English North America when she chose the marriage proposal of William Farrar, who was bonded to help settle her estate, over that of Greville Pooley, who claimed his proposal had already been accepted. In 1625, Cecily prevailed when Pooley withdrew his claim. Afterward, she married William Farrar.
William Spence was an early Virginia colonist on Jamestown Island. He was member of the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Spence became an ensign in the local militia and is thus sometimes identified as Ensign William Spence or Ensign Spence. He was an early farmer on Jamestown Island, a tobacco taster and landowner at Archer's Hope. He, his wife and his young daughter, Sara, or Sarah, avoided the Indian massacre of 1622, but Spence and his wife were reported "lost" at the census of February 16, 1624.
William Spencer was an early Virginia colonist on Jamestown Island, who was an Ancient planter and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Jamestown, Virginia for Mulberry Island in 1632/33.
Robert Beheathland,(or Behethland), born before 1587 in St Endellion, Cornwall, England, was an English gentleman who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 aboard one of the three founding ships, likely the Susan Constant. He is noteworthy as the only original 1607 Jamestown colonist having documented descendants living today.
This is a timeline of events related to the settlement of Jamestown, in what today is the U.S. state of Virginia. Dates are Old Style calendar.
