author
Walter Stitt Robinson
A respected historian of colonial Virginia, he spent decades exploring how land, law, and relations with Native peoples shaped early America. His work is known for careful research and a strong sense of how local history connects to larger national stories.
1 Audiobook
Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699
by Walter Stitt Robinson
About the author
Born in North Carolina in 1917, Walter Stitt Robinson Jr. became an American historian whose scholarship centered on the colonial South, especially Virginia. He served in World War II and later built a long academic career at the University of Kansas, where he taught history and earned a reputation as a serious and generous scholar.
His best-known work includes studies such as Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607–1699 and Indian Policy of Colonial Virginia. These books examined the legal, political, and social foundations of early Virginia, with particular attention to land ownership and the colony’s relationships with Native peoples.
Robinson also remained active in historical organizations in Kansas and beyond, reflecting a lifelong commitment to public history as well as university teaching. He died in 2014 at the age of 96, leaving behind a body of work valued by readers interested in early American and colonial history.