1671, Berkeley testified that in the course of the previous seven years the importation of negroes into Virginia did not go beyond two or three cargoes.[1] This statement is confirmed by the evidence of the patent books. The founders of powerful colonial families appear in this decade for the first time as the patentees of large tracts of land on the basis of African head rights. In 1662, Richard Lee obtained a grant upon the presentation of a list of persons that included eighty negroes, the largest number which had previous to this time formed a part of the basis of title. In 1665, Carter of Corotoman sued out a patent that included twenty negroes in its lists of head rights. In a list of sixty-nine belonging to the Scarboroughs, which was made the basis of a single grant, thirty-nine were represented by slaves. In some instances the number of such head rights preponderated to the extent of fifteen to five, and in others they constituted the whole list, ranging as high as fifteen.[2]
In 1672, the Royal African Company received a new charter and became in a few years a powerful agency in the exportation of slaves to America. At first, however, it does not appear to have exercised an increased influence in promoting the transportation of negroes to Virginia. The decade between 1670 and 1680 was one of extraordinary commotion in the affairs of the Colony, owing to the insurrection under the leadership of Nathaniel Bacon, an event which was preceded and followed by a state of great impoverishment among the people. In 1679, Culpeper,
- ↑ Replies to Interrogatories of the English Commissioners, Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 516. In 1664, a Dutch slaver was captured by an English privateer, and, with her living cargo, carried to Virginia. Commissioners were sent by Stuyvesant to the Colony to reclaim the ship and the negroes. Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York, vol. II, p. 222.
- ↑ See Va. Land Patent Books for these years.
