Chartered Companies

CHARTERED COMPANIES

CHARTERED COMPANIES played an important part in the colonization of the New World, though they did not originate for that purpose. By the sixteenth century the joint-stock company already existed in many countries as an effective means of carrying on foreign trade, and when the New World attracted the interest of merchants, investors formed companies to engage in transatlantic trade. Since the manufacture or cultivation of many products required the transportation of laborers, colonization became a by-product of trade. The first English company to undertake successful colonization was the Virginia Company, first chartered in 1606 and authorized to operate on the Atlantic coast between thirty-four and forty-five degrees north latitude. Later charters to the London branch of the Virginia Company (1609 and 1612) and to the Council of New England (1620) enlarged and developed the original project. This method of sponsoring colonization predominated until the Puritan Revolution of the 1640s. The New foundland Company of 1610, the Bermuda Company of 1615 (an enlargement of an earlier project under the auspices of the Virginia Company), the Massachusetts Bay Company of 1629, and the Providence Island Company of 1630 represent the most important attempts at trade and colonization. After the Puritan Revolution, the lord proprietor superseded the trading company as preferred sponsor of colonization, and both king and colonists became increasingly distrustful of corporations. Massachusetts and Bermuda, the last of the charter companies in control of colonization, lost their charters in 1684, though the former had long since ceased to be commercial in character.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrews, K. R., et al., eds. The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America, 1480–1650. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1979.

Cook, Jacob Ernest, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies. New York: Scribners, 1993.

Viola F. Barnes / s. b.

See also Colonial Charters ; Colonial Settlements ; Plymouth, Virginia Company of ; Virginia Company of London .