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A charter is a document that gives colonies the legal rights to exist. Charters can bestow certain rights on a town , city , university , or other institution. Colonial charters were approved when the king gave a grant of exclusive powers for the governance of land to proprietors or a settlement company.
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.
A colony's precise relationship to the Crown depended on whether it was a corporate colony, proprietary colony or royal colony as defined in its colonial charter. Whereas royal colonies belonged to the Crown, proprietary and corporate colonies were granted by the Crown to private interests. [9]
The Massachusetts Bay Company, like other colonial joint-stock companies, was to be a corporate entity as well as a governmental one. The first settlers of the colony were Puritans who sought to create a society based on their religious beliefs unfettered from the Royal Anglican government of the Kingdom of England. The settlers were to be ...
The Massachusetts Charter of 1691 was a charter that formally established the Province of Massachusetts Bay.Issued by the government of William III and Mary II, the corulers of the Kingdom of England, the charter defined the government of the colony, whose lands were drawn from those previously belonging to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and portions of the Province of New York.
The Charter of Liberties and Privileges was an act passed by the New York General Assembly during its first session in 1683 that laid out the political organization of the colony, set up the procedures for election to the assembly, created 12 counties, and guaranteed certain individual rights for the colonists.
These three types were royal colonies, proprietary colonies, and corporate colonies. A charter colony by definition is a "colony chartered to an individual, trading company, etc., by the British crown." [5] Although charter colonies were not the most prevalent of the three types of colonies in the British Empire, they were by no means ...
In the 18th century, the British government operated under a policy of mercantilism, in which the central government administered its colonies for Britain's economic benefit. The 13 colonies had a degree of self-governance and active local elections , [ a ] and they resisted London's demands for more control over them.