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Charter colony is one of three classes of colonial government established in the 17th century English colonies in North America, the other classes being proprietary colony and royal colony. These colonies were operated under a corporate charter given by the crown. [ 1 ]
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 ...
Proprietary governors had legal responsibilities over the colony as well as responsibilities to shareholders to ensure the security of their investments. The proprietary system was a mostly inefficient [definition needed] system, in that the proprietors were, for the most part, like absentee landlords.
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 ...
Significantly, Massachusetts itself was a corporate colony at that time – owned and operated by the Massachusetts Bay Company (until it lost its charter in 1684) – so Harvard College is a corporation created by a corporation. Many nations have modeled their own corporate laws on American business law.
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.
It was a private venture, financed by a group of English Lords Proprietors who obtained a Royal Charter to the Carolinas in 1663, hoping that a new colony in the south would become profitable like Jamestown. Carolina was not settled until 1670, and even then the first attempt failed because there was no incentive for emigration to that area.