headright

1 9.9

Land given to settlers in the early American colonies as a reward for bringing people

noun
/ˈhɛdˌraɪt/

Archaic

: derecho de cabeza

By taking advantage of the headright system, many families secured farms in the New World.

Examples

It was the times, really, with headrights and claims to land multiplying with the birth of a child, and white men marrying Indian women to possess their wives' and children's allotments of land.

Fiction book (1990)
Through headright deeds, Revolutionary War grants, and simple purchases, many men owned parcels of the future Fruitlands property.

Academic text (2015)
In colonial Virginia, each settler received a headright for every person they transported to the colony.
The system of headrights allowed wealthy planters to accumulate vast amounts of land by bringing in laborers.

Synonyms

homesteading

vsheadright

Archaic

1 5.8

Claiming and farming land to gain legal ownership under a government program

is a colonial grant given based on how many people were brought

Surface Forms

headright singular

headrights plural

Morphology

headright = head + right (semi-transparent) = head + right

The compound literally reads as 'a right per head' which suggests an entitlement per person, but the specialized legal meaning 'a land grant given per settler' is a domain-specific extension not fully predictable for all learners.

Etymology

Headright comes from the two English words head and right, where head meant a person and right meant a legal 'claim'. In colonial America it was a land 'claim' given for each person brought to the colony, so a family with more 'heads' got more land.