Proprietary colony

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore was the first Proprietor and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland.

A proprietary colony was a type of British colony mostly in North America and the Caribbean in the 17th century. In the British Empire, all land belonged to the king, and it was his prerogative to divide. Therefore all colonial properties were partitioned by royal charter into one of four types: proprietary, royal, joint stock, or covenant. King Charles II used the proprietary solution to reward allies and focus his own attention on Britain itself. He offered his friends colonial charters which facilitated private investment and colonial self-government. The charters made the proprietor the effective ruler, albeit one ultimately responsible to English law and the king. Charles II gave New Netherlands to his younger brother The Duke of York, who named it New York. He gave an area to William Penn who named it Pennsylvania.

This type of indirect rule eventually fell out of favour as the colonies became established and administrative difficulties eased. The English sovereigns sought to concentrate their power and authority and the colonies were converted to Crown colonies, i.e. governed by officials appointed by the King, replacing the people the King had previously appointed and under different terms.

Historical precedent

In medieval times, it was customary in Continental Europe for a sovereign to grant almost regal powers of government to the feudal lords of his border districts, so as to prevent foreign invasion. These districts or manors were often called palatinates or counties palatine, because the lord dwelled in a palace, or wielded the power of the king in his palace. His power was regal in kind, but inferior in degree to that of the king.

This type of arrangement had been made in Norman times for certain English border counties. These territories were known as counties palatine and they lasted at least in part to 1830 and for good reason: remoteness, poor communications, governance carried out under difficult circumstances. The monarch and his or her government, retained its usual right to separate head and body, figuratively or literally, at any time. (see also the hereditary title marquess.)

Proprietary colonies in America were governed by a lord proprietor, who, holding authority by virtue of a royal charter, usually exercised that authority almost as an independent sovereign. Eventually, these were converted to royal colonies.

The Caribbean

• Barbados under Lords Proprietary
  • 1625–1627 Sir William Courteen
  • 1627–1652 Lord Carlisle

British America colonies before the American Revolution

The British America colonies before the American Revolution consisted of thirteen colonies that became states of the United States of America.

• Virginia Colony
• Province of Georgia
• Province of Carolina (which was divided in 1712 into the Province of North Carolina and the Province of South Carolina

• Province of Pennsylvania (aka Pennsylvania Colony)-Granted to William Penn in 1681.
• Proprietors of Maine: John Mason, 1622 to 1635; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, incumbent
• Proprietor of New Somersetshire: Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 1635–1647
• Province of Maryland – Granted by Charles I of England to Cecil Calvert (Cecil), 2nd Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland, and continued of a dynasty of Barons of Baltimore (except the last incumbent) 20 June 1632 – 11 November 1776
• Province of New York (1664–1685)
• Province of New Jersey
• Delaware Colony - and see History of Delaware

Canada

• Proprietor of Nova Scotia, 10 September 1621 – 12 June 1632 Sir William Alexander, (from 1633) Earl of Stirling and Viscount of Canada (b. 1567–d. 1640)

French examples

In 1603, Henry IV, the King of France, granted Pierre Du Gua de Monts the exclusive right to colonize lands in North America between 40°–60° North latitude. The King also gave Dugua a monopoly in the fur trade for these territories and named him Lieutenant General for Acadia and New France. In return, Dugua promised to bring 60 new colonists each year to what would be called l'Acadie. In 1607 the monopoly was revoked and the colony failed, but in 1608 he sponsored Champlain to open a colony at Quebec.

The Iles Glorieuses, i.e. Glorioso Islands, were on 2 March 1880 settled and named by Frenchman Hippolyte Caltaux (b. 1847–d. after 1907), who was their proprietor from then till 1891. Only on 23 August 1892 they were claimed for the French Third Republic, as part of the Indian Ocean colony of French Madagascar.

However he was again their proprietor from 1901 till his death in 1907.

On 26 June 1960 they became a regular French possession, initially administered by the High Commissioner for Réunion, on 3 January 2005 transferred to the administrators of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.

See also

• English colonial empire
• Proprietary governor
• Proprietary House
• Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies
• Commonwealth
• Settler colonialism
• Donatorio
• Quia Emptores

Further reading

• Martinez, Albert J. "The Palatinate Clause of the Maryland Charter, 1632-1776: From Independent Jurisdiction to Independence." American Journal of Legal History (2008): 305-325. in JSTOR
• Mereness, Newton Dennison. Maryland as a proprietary province (1901) online
• Osgood, Herbert L. “The Proprietary Province as a Form of Colonial Government.” Part I. American Historical Review 2 (July 1896): 644-64; Part 495. vol 3 (October 1897): 31-55; Part III. vol 3 (January 1898): 244-65. part 1 online free at JSTOR, part 3 the standard survey
• Osgood, Herbert Levi. The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century: The Proprietary Province in Its Earliest Form, the Corporate Colonies of New England (1930)
• Osgood, Herbert Levi. The Proprietary Province in Its Later Forms (Columbia University Press, 1930)
• Roper, Louis H., and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, eds. Constructing Early Modern Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500-1750 (Brill, 2007)