English Charters, Compacts, and Grants

Source

Joint-Stock Companies. The authority of most of the early English colonies derived from legal devices that gave the colony standing in English law. Early colonies such as Virginia and Massachusetts Bay were issued charters by the king of England. These charters were initially given to a group of investors, usually no more than twenty in number, to form a joint-stock company, which enabled them to pool their money. In addition, a charter typically named the new corporation, specified its organization, granted specific economic advantages, and granted land and governing powers if the company was to run a colony.

Virginia and Massachusetts. Under such a charter, the Virginia Company of London owned and administered the colony at Jamestown for seventeen years. The charter was revoked in 1624, and Virginia became a royal colony, allowing the monarchy greater control over the province. The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629) was unusual in that it failed to specify where the company would hold its annual meetings. The early stockholders used the loophole to hold the meetings not in England but in Boston, thus distancing themselves from supervision by the English government. The officers of the company who actually moved to Massachusetts decided in 1631 to expand the membership of the company by 116; later expansions had the effect of turning the company charter into a constitution. Massachusetts existed under this charter until 1683. In 1691 it was replaced with a royal one.

Unclear Legality. Other early colonies had no charters at all. Their settlers had no clear legal authority from the king, so they bound themselves to one another through compacts. The Mayflower Compact governed Plymouth from 1620 until 1691, when the colony was merged with Massachusetts Bay. The colonies of Rhode Island, New Haven, and Connecticut followed with their own compacts in the 1630s. These compacts had their drawbacks, because the inhabitants could not count on the English government recognizing them as binding.

Proprietary Colonies. The proprietary grant was also used as a means to initiate colonization of North America. Such a grant was issued by the monarch to one or more individuals, conveying to the recipient(s) large tracts of land and the power to rule that land as if the individual(s) were its monarch. This practice dated back to the Middle Ages, and hence these were known as feudal proprietary grants. Maryland was founded upon such a grant in 1632, issued to Cecilius Calvert and conferring upon him and his heirs extensive powers. In the second wave of colonization between 1660 and 1685 such grants were the chief means by which the Carolinas, the Jerseys, New York, and Pennsylvania were founded. By this time the earlier colonies all had some form of representative assembly in place, and the newer colonies followed suit. On paper a proprietary colony looked like a throwback to the Middle Ages. In actual practice these colonies all were practicing a limited form of representative government by 1700.

Source

Alfred Hinsey Kelly, The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development, seventh edition (New York: Norton, 1991).