charter colonies

Examples of charter colonies in the following topics:

• English Administration of the Colonies

  • Britain's 13 North American colonies reflected different structures of government: provincial, proprietary, and charter.
  • By 1776, Britain had evolved three different forms of government for its North American colonies: provincial, proprietary, and charter.
  • Charter colonies, also known as corporate colonies or joint stock companies, included Rhode Island, Providence Plantation, and Connecticut.
  • Massachusetts began as a charter colony in 1684 but became a provincial colony in 1691.
  • In a charter colony, Britain granted a charter to the colonial government establishing the rules under which the colony was to be governed.

• The Rise of the Assemblies

  • Prior to 1776 there were three forms of colonial government: provincial, proprietary, and charter.
  • The charter colonies included Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
  • The Massachusetts charter was revoked in 1684 and replaced by a provincial charter in 1691.
  • Charter governments were political corporations created by letters patent which gave the grantees control of the land and the powers of legislative government.
  • The essential difference between the charter colonies and the proprietory and provincal colonies was that property-owning men in the charter colonies could elect their own governors.

• Georgia

  • The Province of Georgia was chartered as a proprietary colony in 1733 and was the last of the 13 original British colonies.
  • George II, for whom the colony was named, granted the colony's corporate charter to General James Oglethorpe in 1732.
  • The original charter specified the colony as the area between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, up to their headwaters on the Ocmulgee River, and then extending westward "sea to sea."
  • The area within the charter had previously been part of the original grant of the Province of Carolina, which was closely linked to Georgia.
  • Oglethorpe imagined a province populated by "sturdy farmers" that could guard the border and because of this, the colony's charter prohibited slavery.

• The Consumer Revolution

  • Other colonies, such as Virginia, were primarily founded as business ventures.
  • Charter companies played an important role in England's success at colonizing what would become the United States.
  • While the private sector financed the companies, the King provided each project with a charter or grant conferring economic rights and political and judicial authority.
  • Most of the colonies were slow to make profits, however, and the English investors often turned over their colonial charters to the settlers.
  • Small local industries emerged as the colonies grew, such as sawmills and gristmills.

• Settling the Southern Colonies

  • The colonies were originally chartered to compete in the race for colonies in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.
  • George Calvert received a charter from King Charles I to found the colony of Maryland in 1634.
  • The next major development in the history of the Southern Colonies was the Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629.
  • Charles I eventually granted proprietary charters to the Plymouth Company and the London Company.
  • The 1732 charter created Georgia as a buffer state to protect the prosperous South Carolina from Spanish Florida, and required that debtors be shipped to free space in English jails.

• An Emerging Colonial System

  • Maine was officially merged into Massachusetts Bay Colony with the issuance of the Massachusetts Bay charter of 1691.
  • Plymouth was absorbed by Massachusetts Bay Colony with the issuance of the Massachusetts Bay charter of 1691.
  • Saybrook Colony was founded in 1635 and merged with Connecticut Colony in 1644.
  • New Haven was absorbed by Connecticut Colony with the issuance of the Connecticut Charter in 1662, partly as royal punishment by King Charles II for harboring the regicide judges who sentenced King Charles I to death.
  • Both colonies became royal colonies in 1729.

• The Conquest of New York

  • The Dutch colony of New Netherland was captured by the British and chartered by the Duke of York, who later became James II of England.
  • In March, 1665, the Duke of York was granted a Royal colony which included New Netherland and present-day Maine.
  • The New Netherland claim included western parts of present-day Massachusetts, putting the new province in conflict with the Massachusetts charter.
  • The Duke of York never visited his colony, named New York in his honor, and exercised little direct control over it.
  • This map shows the changing boundaries of the colony of New York from the 17th to 18th centuries.

• Colonization

  • England's success at colonizing what would become the United States was due in large part to its use of charter companies.
  • While the private sector financed the companies, the King provided each project with a charter or grant conferring economic rights as well as political and judicial authority.
  • The colonies generally did not show quick profits, however, and the English investors often turned over their colonial charters to the settlers.
  • Supportive industries developed as the colonies grew.
  • British soldiers, intending to capture a colonial arms depot at Concord, Massachusetts, clashed with colonial militiamen.

• Quaker Liberty

  • The Quaker colony of Pennsylvania emphasized freedom of religion through its Charter of Privileges.
  • The Charter of Privileges extended religious freedom to all monotheists, and government was initially open to all Christians.
  • The Charter of Privileges also mandated fair dealings with Native Americans.
  • In 1737, the Colony exchanged a great deal of its political goodwill with the native Lenape for more land.
  • Provincial Secretary James Logan set in motion a plan that would grab as much land as they could possibly get and hired the three fastest runners in the colony to run out the purchase on a trail which had been cleared by other members of the colony beforehand.

• The Coming of the English

  • In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonization of an area of North America which was to be called Virginia.
  • Proprietors were appointed to found and govern settlements under mercantile charters granted to joint stock companies.
  • In 1606, James I sold a charter containing lands between present-day South Carolina and the U.S.
  • The colony survived and flourished by developing tobacco as a cash crop for the colony; it served as a beginning for the colonial state of Virginia.
  • The colonial South included the plantation colonies of the Chesapeake region—Virginia and Maryland—and the lower South colonies of Carolina and Georgia.