A common trope had it that English explorers “married” the land they discovered. Marriage implied custodial authority, a sovereign right to a corner of the earth. In dedicating a book to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587, Hakluyt the younger reminded his patron of the “sweet embraces” of Virginia, “that fairest of nymphs,” whom the queen had conferred upon him as his bride. The land patent was thus a marriage contract.
