Editing Ancient planter (section)

==History==
{{organize section|date=April 2024}}
These [[land grant]]s 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.<ref>Craven, Wesley Frank, ''The Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624'', pp.19-20</ref><ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va02.asp#1, 2008. ''The Second Charter of Virginia; May 23, 1609''], Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University:</ref>

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 {{convert|lk=on|100|acre|km2}}, free of [[quit-rent]], for their "personal adventure", and an additional hundred acres for each share they owned in the London Company:

{{Quote|...the ancient adventurers and [[Planter class|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.<ref name=Yeardley/>}}

Those who had been brought at the Company's expense (as [[indentured servant]]s) 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:

{{Quote|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.<ref name=Yeardley/>}}

[[File:James river va historical marker k311.jpg|thumb|left|Historical marker mentioning ancient plantations along the James River]]
Colonists who arrived after the departure of Sir Thomas Dale were entitled to a lesser grant of {{convert|lk=on|50|acre|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",.<ref name=Yeardley/>  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.<ref>Morgan, Edmund S., ''American Slavery, American Freedom''.  Morgan states: "One reason why the King dissolved the Virginia Company [in 1624] was that it seemed to have sent so many men to their deaths without taking adequate measures to feed and shelter them."</ref>

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.<ref>''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', 3rd Edition, p.64:"Ancient", (2) of early origin; going far back.</ref>

According to a letter from [[John Rolfe]] dated January 1619/20: 
{{Quote|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.<ref>''Records of the Virginia Company of London'', ed. Susan Myra Kingsbury, III, 245</ref>}}