Proprietary Colonies

by

L. H. Roper

• LAST REVIEWED: 25 July 2023
• LAST MODIFIED: 25 July 2023
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0244

Introduction

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.

General Overviews

Notwithstanding its centrality to the early modern expansion of western European interests, the concept of proprietary colonies has received little direct consideration from English-language scholarship in either general or particular terms other than in dismissive or otherwise scornful terms, although Osgood 1897 is something of a deviation from this rule. Thus, examinations of governmental relations between a metropolis and its colonies, such as Daniels and Kennedy 2002, habitually concentrate on “negotiations” between colonial leaderships and imperial administrators. On the surface, such a view might be warranted because proprietorships usually proved unable to manage the political situations that often convulsed their colonies. Consequently, the government of these places accordingly reverted, sometimes quickly, to the control, albeit often reluctantly, of the central governments. In actuality, however, the traditional view fails to consider the enduring employment of proprietary forms, which stemmed from the endurance of the governmental limitations noted above, and its tone often, if not invariably, treats proprietorships as anachronistic and feeble. This remains largely the case even as the role of “private” parties, especially merchants and their commercial activities, in the history of overseas empire has recently received much more attention as part of the recent de-emphasis of the “nation-state” and a new focus on “networks” in the historiography of European overseas interests, as per Pettigrew and Veevers 2019. See the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles in Atlantic History Merchants’ Networks Empire and State Formation, and Gender and the Atlantic World. Roper and Van Ruymbeke 2007 constitutes an exception.

• Daniels, Christine, and Michael V. Kennedy, eds. Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500–1820. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.

  Using a lens of center and periphery, this comparative treatment of early modern imperial development places proprietorships in an uncomfortable position between “negotiations” in terms of culture and politics between colonists and their empires.

• Osgood, Herbert L. “The Proprietary Province as a Form of Colonial Government.” American Historical Review 2.4 (1897): 644–664.

  DOI: 10.2307/1833981

  Continued in American Historical Review 3.1 (1897): 31–55; 3.2 (1898): 244–265. Discusses the utilization of proprietary colonies in the English empire but from an old-fashioned perspective. Limited to individual or partnership proprietorships and to the English case.

• Pettigrew, William, and David Veevers, eds. The Corporation as a Protagonist in Global History, c. 1550–1750. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019.

  The editors and thirteen other contributors offer a comparative thematic and geographic treatment of western European corporations and their activities in the Early Modern period. Includes essays on Scandinavian, French, Iberian, Dutch, and, especially, English corporations, as the editors are scholars of English overseas interests. Contributors also consider corporate involvement in migration, construction, gender relations, and literature.

• Roper, L. H., and B. van Ruymbeke, eds. Constructing Early Modern Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500–1750. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.

  Offers an introduction to the subject of proprietorships, broadly defined. This comparative treatment of proprietary colonies from Brazil to New France considers the subject within the context of the history of early modern western European states and of colonization. Essays consider individual proprietary colonies and provide bibliographies of their own.