Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
All English colonies were divided by the Crown via royal charters into one of three types of colony; proprietary colonies, charter colonies and Crown colonies. Under the proprietary system, individuals or companies (often joint-stock companies ), known as proprietors, were granted commercial charters by the Crown to establish overseas colonies.
Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were founded as corporate colonies. New England's corporate colonies were virtually independent of royal authority and operated as republics where property owners elected the governor and legislators. [19] Proprietary colonies were owned and governed by individuals known as proprietors.
Finished goods were manufactured in Britain and sold in the colonies, or imported by Britain for retail to the colonies, profiting the mother country. Like other New World colonial empires, the British empire's commodity production was dependent on slave labor; as observed in 1720s Britain, "all this great increase in our treasure proceeds ...
The colonies of Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay were at one time or another charter colonies. The crown might revoke a charter and convert the colony into a crown colony. In a charter colony, Britain granted a charter to the colonial government establishing the rules under which the colony was to be governed.
They were governed much as royal colonies except that lord proprietors, rather than the king, appointed the governor. They were set up after the Restoration of 1660 and typically enjoyed greater civil and religious liberty. [96] Massachusetts, Providence Plantation, Rhode Island, Warwick, and Connecticut were charter colonies. The Massachusetts ...
On 13 August 1607, the Plymouth Company established the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in Maine. However, it was abandoned after about a year and the Plymouth Company became inactive. A successor company eventually established a permanent settlement in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, aboard the Mayflower.
The company leaders sought a royal charter for the colony because they were concerned about the legality of conflicting land claims given to several companies (including the New England Company) for the little-known territories of the New World, and because of the increasing number of Puritans who wanted to join them.
Each company was made up of investors, known as "adventurers", who purchased shares of company stock. The Crown granted a charter to each company with a monopoly to explore, settle, or trade with a particular region of the world. Profits were shared among the investors according to the amount of stock that each owned.