In both colonies the communistic experiments were failures.Angry at the lazy men in Jamestown who idled their time away and yet expected regularmeals,Captain John Smith issued a manifesto:"Everyone that gathereth not every day a s m u c h a s I d o ,t h e n e x t day shall be set beyond the river and forever banished from the fort and live there or starve."Even this terrible threat did not bring a change in production.Not until each man was given a plot of his own to till,not until each gathered the fruits of his ownA Massachusetts Mansion Built in 1718labor,did the colony prosper.In Plymouth,where the communal experiment lasted for five years,the results were similar to those in Virginia,and the system was given up for one of separate fields in which every person could "set corn for his own particular."Some other New England towns,refusing to profit by the experience of their Plymouth neighbor,also made excursions into common ownership and labor,only to abandon the idea and go in for individual ownership of the land."By degrees it was seen that even the Lord's people could not carry the complicated communist legislation into perfect and wholesome practice."
Feudal Elements in the Colonies-Quit Rents,Manors,and Plantations.-At the other end of the scale were the feudal elements of land tenure found in the proprietary colonies,in the seaboard regions of the South,and to some extent in New York.The proprietor was in fact a powerful feudal lord,owning land granted to him by royal charter.He could retain any part of it for his per-sonal use or dispose of it all in large or small lots.While he generally kept for himself an estate of baronial proportions,it was impossible for him to manage directly any considerable part of the land in his dominion.Consequently he either sold it in parcels for lump sums or granted it to individuals on condition that they make to him an annual payment in money,known as "quit rent."In Maryland,the proprietor sometimes collected as high as ?9000（equal to about$500,000to-day）in a single year from this source.In Pennsylvania,the quit rents brought a handsome annual tribute into the exchequer of the Penn family.In the royal provinces,the king of England claimed all revenues collected in this form from the land,a sum amounting to ?19,000at the time of the Revolution.The quit rent,-"really a feudal payment from freeholders,"-was thus a ma-terial source of income for the crown as well as for the proprietors.Whereverit was laid,however,it proved to be a burden,a source of constant irritation;and it became a formidable item in the long list of grievances which led to the American Revolution.
Something still more like the feudal system of the Old World appeared in the numerous manors or the huge landed estates granted by the crown,the companies,or the proprietors.In the colony of Maryland alone there were sixty manors of three thousand acres each,owned by wealthy men and tilled by tenants holding small plots under certain restrictions of tenure.In New York also there were many manors of wide extent,most of which originated in the days of the Dutch West India Company,when extensive concessions were made to patrons to induce them to bring over settlers.The Van Rensselaer,the Van Cortlandt,and the Livingston manors were so large and populous that each was entitled to send a representative to the provincial legislature.The tenants on the New York manors were in somewhat the same position as serfs on old European estates.They were bound to pay the owner a rent in money and kind;they ground their grain at his mill;and they were subject to his judicial power because he held court and meted out justice,in some instances extending to capital punishment.
The manors of New York or Maryland were,however,of slight consequence as compared with the vast plantations of the Southern seaboard-huge estates,far wider in expanse than many a European barony and tilled by slaves more servile than any feudal tenants.It must not be forgotten that this system of land tenure became the dominant feature of a large section and gave a decided bent to the economic and political life of America.
The Small Freehold.-In the upland regions of the South,however,and throughout most of the North,the drift was against all forms of servitude and tenantry and in the direction of the freehold;that is,the small farm owned outright and tilled by the possessor and his family.This was favored by natural circumstances and the spirit of the immigrants.For one thing,the abundance of land and the scarcity of labor made it impossible for the companies,the pro-prietors,or the crown to develop over the whole continent a network of vast es-tates.In many sections,particularly in New England,the climate,the stony soil,the hills,and the narrow valleys conspired to keep the farms within a moderate compass.For another thing,the English,Scotch-Irish,and German peasants,even if they had been tenants in the Old World,did not propose to accept per-manent dependency of any kind in the New.If they could not get freeholds,they would not settle at all;thus they forced proprietors and companies to bid for their enterprise by selling land in small lots.So it happened that the freehold of modest proportions became the cherished unit of American farmers.The"Westover,"the Home of the Byrds,Built in Colonial Timespeople who tilled the farms w e red rawn from every quarter of western Europe;but the freehold system gave a uniform cast to their economic and social life in America.
Social Effects of Land
Tenure.-Land tenure and the process of western set-tlement thus developed two distinct types of people en-gaged in the same pursuit-agriculture.They had acommon tie in that they both cultivated the soil and possessed the local interest and independence which arise from that occupation.Their methods and their culture,however,differed widely.