The headright policy promised 50 acres of land to anyone who paid the passage of an English immigrant to Virginia.

What the policy offered

  • Under the headright policy (or headright system), a person who financed someone’s voyage to Virginia could claim a 50‑acre land grant in the colony.
  • This applied both to people paying for their own passage and to wealthier sponsors who paid for multiple migrants, often indentured servants.

Why it mattered

  • The policy was designed to attract settlers and capital by tying land directly to paying for transatlantic migration.
  • It helped fuel population growth, plantation development, and the spread of tobacco agriculture in seventeenth‑century Virginia.

TL;DR:
For the question “the headright policy promised which of the following?”, the correct choice is: 50 acres for anyone paying the passage of an English immigrant to Virginia.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.