[Ads-l] "land loper"?

[Joel Berson]

In White Trash (Viking,2016), Nancy Isenberg writes about Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 Virginia that"Valuable acreage was hoarded by those whom one contemporary called the'Land Lopers,' who bought up (lopped off) large tracts without actuallysettling them.  The 'lopers' had inside connections to the governor." (p. 38.)  N66 (p. 336) says"On 'Land Lopers,' see [William] Sherwood, 'Virginias Deploured Condition'[1676], 164."  This is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4thser. vol. 9:  "Not-withstanding this every one endeavors to gettgreat tracts of Land, and many turne Land lopers, some take vp 2000 acres, ...nay many men have taken vp thirty thousand Acres of Land, and never cultivatedany part of itt, onely sett vp a hog howse to save the Laps ["lapse" of the claim, I assume], thereby preventingothers seaeteing ...".  Isenberg seems tobe suggesting that "loper" = "lopper".  In the OED,for "land loper" I find under "land-lubber" "1699   B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew   Land-lopers or Land-lubbers, Fresh-water Seamen so called by the true Tarrs."  And under "earth-planet" I find "1611   R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues   Villotier, a vagabond, land-loper, earth-planet, continuall gadder from towne to towne."  In this quotation I'm not sure whether "land-loper" is still a land-lubber or perhaps a vagabond.

What does Sherwood mean by "land loper"?  As Isenberg suggests, someone who "lops off" land from the purpose for which it is intended, settlement and cultivation?  Or akin to either "land-lubber" or "vagabond"?  Or something else?


Joel



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