In 1705, the House of Burgesses set aside two tracts of land known as the Circle and Square, containing over 40,000 acres, as Nottoway Reservation land. From 1735 to the late 1800s, sections of this land were gradually sold off or otherwise transferred. The first act, passed in 1735, authorized the Nottoway to sell land in what was then Isle of Wight County, north of the Nottoway River in the Circular Tract, and in the same act the Indian interpreters were discharged. In that context, it is not entirely clear that the Nottoway fully understood the true implications of the act that enabled the sale of their land. By 1756, the Nottoway Indians authorized the sale of land in the Square Tract on the south side of the Nottoway River, and the Nottoway trustees were empowered to settle accounts. The political and economic significance of Nottoway Indians living on communal reservation land was that their ancestors were not subject to taxes or to registration as were other free people of color, as long as they resided on the reservation.