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This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Great Deed of Grant

by Edward Smith, 2006

Great Deed of Grant (1668) was a petition from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina permitting settlers in Albemarle County to hold land under terms equivalent to those offered settlers in Virginia. The petition was submitted by the Grand Assembly of Albemarle County to the Proprietors to encourage settlement in the county by removing the disparity between the landholding terms of Albemarle and those of Virginia. Virginia landholders were permitted to hold larger tracts than settlers in Albemarle County, and were charged a much lower quitrent (a rent paid in lieu of service by feudal custom) than was the case in Albemarle and which was payable in produce. The granting of this petition on 1 May 1668 removed these formidable barriers to the growth of Albemarle County.

Additional Resources:

The State records of North Carolina, Volume 3 By North Carolina, William Laurence Saunders, Stephen Beauregard Weeks, North Carolina. Trustees of the Public Libraries.

Upheaval in Albemarle: The Story of Culpeper's Rebellion, Office of Archives & History, NC: http://www.ncpublications.com/colonial/Bookshelf/Monographs/upheaval/upheaval2.htm.

Subjects:

Colonial period (1600-1763)

Law and legal history

Authors:

Origin - location:

From:

Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.

1 January 2006 | Smith, Edward