Definition of "headright" [headright]

• A legal grant of land to settlers in colonial America (noun)

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• "A headright was a tract of land, usually fifty acres, given to anyone over age fifteen—male or female—who settled in Virginia."
• "This was known as the headright system of granting land."
• "Georgia continued its headright system until past 1800.27 Raucous squabbles, arising under state and federal pre-emption laws, and the law and practice of local land offices, were meat and bread to Western lawyers."