English
settlement was apparently an impossibility. Therefore, Governor William
Berkeley and the Council, upon representation from the Burgesses,
consented to the opening of the land north of the York and Rappahannock
rivers after 1649. At the same time the provision making it a felony for
the English to go north of the York was repealed. This turn in policy,
based upon the assumption that some intermingling of the white and red
men was inevitable, led to the effort to provide for an "equitable
division" of land supplemented by attempts to modify the Indian economy
which had previously demanded vast areas of the country.

Endeavoring to provide for this "equitable division" of land, the
Assembly in 1658 forbade further grants of lands to any Englishmen
whatsoever until the Indians had been allotted a proportion of fifty
acres for each bowman. The land for each Indian town was to lie together
and to include all waste and unfenced land for the purpose of hunting.
This provision did not relieve all pressure on Indians' lands, partly
because some of the natives never received their full proportion and
partly because some had been accustomed to even larger areas. But it did
serve as a basis for reservation of land for different tribes.

[Illustration: From a portrait reproduced in J. H. Claiborne, _William
Claiborne of Virginia_.
Photo by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce.

William Claiborne, Surveyor for Virginia, Secretary of the Colony of
Virginia]

[Illustration: _How to reduce all sorts of grounds into a square for
the better measuring of it._

From John Norden's "Surveior's Dialogue"
Photo by T. L. Williams]

Two years later the Assembly in 1660 took definite steps to relieve the
pressure of English encroachments upon the territory of the Accomac
Indians on the Eastern Shore. Enough land was assigned to the natives of
Accomac to afford ample provisions for subsistence over and above the
supplies that might be obtained through hunting and fishing. To insure a
fair and just distribution of these lands, the Assembly passed over
surveyors of the Eastern Shore and required that the work be done by a
resident of the mainland, who obviously would be less prejudiced against
the aborigines because of personal interest. When once assigned to the
natives, the land could not be alienated.

By 1662 this last provision, forbidding the Accomacs to alienate their
lands, was extended to all Indians in Virginia.