Proprietary Colonies

The constitution of early modern western European polities determined that “public” activities were customarily undertaken by “private” persons or entities pursuant to governmental charters that set out their powers, rights, and responsibilities in exchange for a cut of the revenue that their endeavors generated. This arrangement was necessitated by the habitual fiscal woes and limited bureaucratic capacity of governments along with their fitful interest in overseas affairs, especially colonization. Thus, any investigation into the history of European overseas interests must consider the activities of these recipients. Those interested in the history of European polities (“state formation”) may also be interested in this system and how it governed overseas imperial history even to the dawn of the twentieth century. The concept of “proprietary colonies” derives directly from feudal devices by which medieval monarchies dealt with the problems of distance and government by creating ligaments that connected remote localities to the governmental center via the delegation of the administration and defense of remote parts of their realms to prominent persons on the ground, such as the bishops of Durham in England or the encomenderos in Castile. The adaptation of this scenario to govern overseas ventures was natural, given the even greater distances entailed in overseas colonization and trade. Sometimes, the recipients of chartered rights and responsibilities delegated those rights and responsibilities, in turn, to others, usually resident in the particular colony concerned. The term “proprietary colonies” as used in this article includes “proprietorships,” colonies founded by individuals or partners, which constituted one form of this vehicle, as well as the operations of the colonial agents who oversaw substantial tracts of territory, and by joint-stock corporations that founded and governed colonies in Asia and Africa as well as America. This article contains references to work on proprietary colonies in general and to histories of particular colonies in the Americas. Although these latter titles tend to omit discussion of proprietorships as such, they do offer treatments of the formation of these colonies, the intent and plans of proprietors, and their relationships with their colonists as well as with competing interests. Recent focus on the involvement of women in the history of these endeavors has been an especially welcome addition to the historiography. The enduring popularity of these devices for contemporaries is apparent from their appearance in the history of an array of colonies set forth under Particular Proprietary Colonies.