If Blacks Want Land, They Have To Get Their Head Right

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan could not be any clearer about Black people’s absolute need for land. He said, “We need land. We could never become economically independent, do for ourselves, and encourage the development of the country along better lines if we don’t have the freedom to own the land.” Little did we know that 300 years earlier this same demand emanated from the poor and dispossessed European seeking a way out of the oppressive feudal systems that kept him in a cycle of debt and poverty.

Once the European “discovered” the “New World” and the Indians were violently subdued, forcibly removed, or outright murdered, a system had to be set up to induce white individuals to populate and work on the “new” land. First the Dutch and then the English established the “headright system,” which gave large tracts of land—headrights—to anyone willing to cross the Atlantic Ocean and help settle the colonies. The headright system was used in several colonies exploiting the tobacco economy, including Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

A headright was, in effect, a title to new land and averaged about 50 to 100 acres. This land giveaway to whites drew thousands of takers—along with many schemes to game the system to maximize land holdings. Landowners who paid for the transport of whites required that the new arrivals work the land as indentured servants for a number of years before they could receive the headrights. Others simply brought in the Europeans and took the headrights for themselves. To encourage family immigration each person—man, woman, or child—could receive a headright. And even if they died on the ship on the way over the headright for that dead person would transfer to a family member, to the ship captain, or to the man who financed the voyage.

White landowners started bringing in Africans as slaves, receiving 50 acres for each enslaved man, woman and child. This led to massive importation of Black slaves, whilst enriching whites with free land and forced labor. For example, merchant planter George Menefie transported sixty individuals to Virginia, among them 23 enslaved Blacks, and received a total of 3,000 acres in 1638.

These headrights were at first given away free to white people, but they could then sell, lease, sub-divide, and bequeath the land to generations hence. Thus, Blacks in 2017 have a perfect right—even a responsibility—to claim this land and its current value. For instance, the value of land in Virginia today is worth $21,921 per acre; the current value of 50 acres is $1,096,050. If the (lowest) estimated 12.5 million forcibly imported Africans were to receive their headrights—as did the white Europeans—the value of their 625,000,000 acres of land today would be $13.7 trillion. A recent study estimates that the combined value of all land in the contiguous United States is worth nearly $23 trillion. Blacks would now own more than half of America, using the EXACT same headright system whites used.

Moreover, in addition to the land, the descendants of those Black Africans are owed the fair market value of all the commodities—the tobacco, sugar, cotton, lumber, corn, etc.—their labor produced but enriched whites solely. A study by sociologist Joseph Feagin estimates that value to be between $5 to $24 trillion. A proportion of the business infrastructure, formed to market the slave-produced products—the roads, bridges, railroads, barges, horses, wagons, tool manufacturers, ports, etc.—should have come with the promised 40 acres and a mule. The value of those Black-generated assets is inestimable and accrued to white Americans only—and formed the economic foundation for their current world dominance.

The return of the reclaimed land to the Native population and the sharing of the reclaimed assets to help restore the Native population would serve as a form of justice.

This and many more valuable facts about Black history and White Supremacy are contained in the pocket-sized bestseller HOW WHITE FOLKS GOT SO RICH: The Untold Story of American White Supremacy.

Read About ALL the Tricks of the White Supremacy Trade: