Robert Beverly Quotes


Each Servant has then also a Right to take up fifty Acres of Land, where he can find any unpatented [unowned]: But that is no great Privilege, for any one may have as good a right for a piece of Eight


Context

While the economics of land is described accurately, immigrants from most of the world would never in their home country ever be able to earn enough in a few years to acquire that much land. So the prospect of land ownership was a fundamental selling point and was a major spur to immigration to America where land was and is plentiful.


Citations

Robert Beverly, *, Virginia Planter, The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

His expedition to Kentucky was illegal as it was against British law to expand to the West. Soon, hundreds of thousands of Americans would follow Boone and his men.


This is an important quotations for two reasons. First, one of the white Europan myths in the colonial era was that the Native America had not concept of land ownership and title. This quotation clearly refutes that/ Second, this shows that some Europeans coming to the new world opposed the view that the white Christians and a moral right to the Native American “heathen” land. A few like Williams did not.


Use included renting it. What he opposed was simply holding land when whites were driving Indians off their lands because all the unused land outside of the reservation was owned by someone and the asking price was very high. Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.


The Romans were very organized regarding land ownership. When they conquered Africa, defeating Carthage, they found no written records of land ownership, no deeds, no bills of sale. Therefore, they opened up the entire land mass of Africa for what amounted to public colonization where the land could be worked and claimed legally. Illiterate Africans had no written records, and most areas where under the control of a strongman who “owned” all of the land with no notion of private ownership of land.


The railroads that opened up the West are often used as examples of American corporate and entrepreneurial achievement. But private enterprise would not risk the capital for such a visionary and innovative scheme. It was the Federal Government which provided loans to start and paid for every mile of track with huge grants of land along the right of way. Then the Federal government provided the security and conducted numerous wars against the Indians to make the construction and operation possible. Had the Government and President Lincoln not pushed and supported the plan, there would have been no transcontinental railroad.


See {638124} for how this Biblical passage evolved into a concept of property ownership


The Irish Earls of Ulster, after a failed rebellion against English rule, fled to the European continent. As Chichester realized, this created an opportunity for the King to name new Earls and grant them the lands and possessions of the Earls who had fled. And since the Irish people were loyal to their traditional Earls. He suggested that English and Scots colonists be recruited to settle the lands. The King agreed and referred to the project as the “Ulster Plantation”. This was the reason that Northern Ireland had a much larger Protestant population percentage than the rest of Ireland and wanted to remain part of England when Ireland obtained its independence.


No Photo Available
  • Born: April 21, 1722
  • Nationality:
  • Profession:

Robert Beverley Jr. was a historian of early colonial Virginia, as well as a planter and political figure. He was born in Jamestown and died in King and Queen County, Virginia.