proprietary colony

proprietary colony, in British American colonial history, a type of settlement dominating the period 1660–90, in which favourites of the British crown were awarded huge tracts of land in the New World to supervise and develop. Before that time, most of the colonies had been financed and settled under the jurisdiction of joint-stock companies operating under charters granted by the crown. After the Restoration (1660), Charles II used proprietaries as a device to meet pent-up demands for territorial expansion as well as to repay political and economic debts incurred in the struggle for the throne. Vast tracts of land in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina and South Carolina were distributed in this way.

The first permanent European settlement in what became New Jersey was established by the Dutch at Bergen (now Jersey City) in 1660. The colony was brought under English rule in 1664 (although for the next nine years the Dutch disputed that claim), when Charles II granted the territory that later became New York and New Jersey to his brother James (later King James II), who conveyed New Jersey to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. In 1674 Berkeley sold western New Jersey to the Quakers John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge.

The earliest European settlements within the present limits of the state of Pennsylvania were some small trading posts established by the Swedes and the Dutch in the lower valley of the Delaware River in 1623–81. Between 1650 and 1660 George Fox and a few other prominent members of the Society of Friends had begun to urge the establishment of a colony in America to serve as a refuge for Quakers who were suffering persecution under the Clarendon Code. William Penn became interested in the plan at least as early as 1666, and in 1681 Charles II signed a charter giving any unoccupied regions to Penn in payment of a debt owed by the king to Penn’s father, Adm. Sir William Penn.

In 1663 Charles II granted Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon, and seven other members of the British nobility a charter to establish the colony of Carolina in a vast territory lying between the 31st and the 36th parallels and extending from theAtlantic to the Pacific Ocean. A second charter in 1665 extended the limits to latitudes 29° and 36°30’ N. The eight grantees were known as the lords proprietor of Carolina, and they were free to dispose of the land as they pleased.

Although proprietorships were feudal in origin, American proprietors were forced to yield power and privileges to their colonists. By the turn of the century most British officials, fearing the proprietaries’ independence from parliamentary authority, favoured an end to the granting of new proprietary colonies despite their success. One important result of the proprietary movement was the diversification of settlers, who were attracted from several different countries rather than from England alone, thus helping to bring a more cosmopolitan character to the new country.