Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/520

 that injustice in dealing with the aborigines in relation to their lands had never been the policy of the colonial authorities; that, on the contrary, these authorities had always been moved by a desire to protect them in their rights. The Assembly, in consequence, provided that no one should be suffered to establish himself on the soil of the Indians without the consent of the Governor and Council, or of the commissioners of the place where it was sought to make an entrance. These latter authorities were held strictly accountable for any permission of this character which they granted. All sales of Indian lands were to be consummated only at Quarter Courts, a greater publicity in the transfer being thus assured, and the opportunity for fraudulent action being diminished. The anxiety of the Assembly to avoid every reason for conflict with the Indians was shown in their order, that all the English who had taken up their residence on the north side of the Pamunkey River in the vicinity of the Chickahominy and Pamunkey tribes, should abandon their estates and return within the old line of settlements. Where a tribe disclosed an unmistakable purpose to withdraw from ground occupied by them, and in doing so, to convey it to individual planters, no opposition was to be offered, especially if the grantees were men of prominence and influence. This was true of Governor Samuel Mathews, who, in 1659, became the owner of the soil which the Wicocomico Indians possessed in Northumberland County. In deserting their lands they expressed a wish to surrender them to him.

An attempt was now made to reduce the Indian holdings within a definite limit, it being provided that no outlying ground should be conveyed to any white person until the aborigines had been allowed a proportion of fifty