Ancient planter
"Ancient planter" was a term applied to early colonists who migrated to the Colony of Virginia in what is now the United States, when the colony was managed by the Virginia Company of London. They received land grants if they stayed in the colony for at least three years. Under the terms of the "Instructions to Governor Yeardley" (issued by the London Company in 1618), these colonists received the first land grants in Virginia.
These land grants constituted a dividend paid out by the Virginia Company of London, which was constituted as a . 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.
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.
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.
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