Colonial Governments and the Thirteen Original Colonies

American colonies claimed by European nations were for the most part initially run by the private sector through investors in joint corporations. Later, once the colonies proved profitable; two other types of colonial governments would emerge. It required a large sum of money to extract the natural resources and establish trade for each new territory. The risk of recouping this initial investment was further compounded as to when and if the colony would prove profitable. Governments were not willing to secure funds to get the colony rolling by dipping into treasuries already strapped for cash (war tended to run up the bills), nor were they willing to sit back hoping for an eventual payback. The solution was to issue charters.

Charters were grants of huge segments of land issued by the king to either corporations or wealthy individuals; sometimes in return for political support. The responsibility of organizing and actually managing the colony was turned over to a private firm.  These joint-stock companies issued stock in England to investors to raise the money to establish the colony and foot the cost of developing trade and exports. As in most stock invested corporations, when the colony became profitable, the revenue was divided among the investors; in this case minus the government’s percentage. The corporation would run the risk of investment while all the king and the government had to do was wait to take their healthy cut of the profits. For governments, it was perfect; reap the benefits without all the worry. For the investors, it was a windfall if the colony proved worthy. And of the original thirteen colonies, it was indeed a bonanza. Both for wealthy investors, and those settling the new land, resulting, by the time of the American Revolution, a general lifestyle that was beyond that found in Europe.

Three Types of Colonial Governments.

By the time of the American Revolution, there were three types of British colonial governments; Royal, Proprietary, and Self-governed or charters.

• Eight Royal Colonies were owned by the King. They included Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
• Three Proprietary Colonies were basically land grants from the British government. They included Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.  Individuals were awarded huge tracts of land that they would then supervise and govern, usually in return for political or financial favors. These colonial governors reported directly to the king.
• Two Self-governing or Charter Colonies formed when the king granted a charter to a joint-stock company, and the company then set up its own government independent of the crown. They included Connecticut and Rhode Island. Most colonies began this way before the crown stepped in. The king could revoke the colonial charter at any time and convert a self-governing colony into a royal colony. Note: Massachusetts could be considered a Self-governing colony as it was technically a royal colony, however operated under a charter.

All Colonies Observed Basic Principles

• Each colony elected their own slate of legislatures or central governing body of assemblies.
• Each colony had a governor and court system that enforced the Common Law of England
• Colonies, as an extension of England, were democratic. From the very first British colonists who settled Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, English Common Law was brought to the shores of America. This common or Anglo-American law was a body of customary law based upon judicial decisions embodied in reports of decided cases; cases that been administered by the common-law courts of England since the Middle Ages.

Three Part Structure to Each Colonial Government

• Governor was the executor who represented the British Government.
  • Royal Colonies were appointed by the King and or British Government
  • Proprietary Colonies were appointed by the proprietors who were given land grants.
  • Self-governing Charters were fully elected
• The Governor’s Council was composed of influential and powerful men who advised and supported the Governor. They exercised administrative and judicial powers.
  • In Royal Colonies, the council, like governor, were appointed by the British government.
  • In Proprietary Colonies, councils were appointed by proprietors or large land grant holders.
  • In Self-governing Charters, councils were elected
• Legislative Assembly. In all three types of colonies, the local legislative assembly was elected by land owning citizens of the colony. The Administration varied between the three regions.
  • New England Assemblies ran Town Meetings. (To this day in Vermont, most town governments are decided by town meeting)
  • Middle Colonies had a mixture of town meetings and county levels.
  • Southern Colonies established governments at county levels.

Role of the Governor

• Represented the Crown and British Government
• Head of colonial administration.
• In charge of overseeing laws, taxes, and tasked with important decisions concerning the wellbeing of the colony
• Appointed various government officials
• Power to convene or dissolve the colonial legislature or assembly.
• Power of veto
• Commanded the militia to ensure the safety of residents and enforce colonial government policies
• Role of governor council was to support the governor

Role of Legislative Assemblies

• Elected by the colonial population.
• Only men who owned land, paid taxes or had an annual income and were members of a Christian Church could vote
• The legislature consisted of two branches
  • The upper house or council that was appointed by the governor
  • The lower house to which the people elected delegates
  • This was similar to the two houses of British Parliament; House of Lords and House of Commons
• Must adhere to the laws of England
• Laws enacted by the legislature could be vetoed by the governor
• Laws enacted and approved by the governor had to sent to England to be approved by the British Government and King who could veto the legislation any time within three years. Exception applied to colonies who were self-governed charters.
• An endgame that legislators used to avoid a royal veto was to pass legislation for just two years. At the time it was to expire, the legislation would be re-enacted for two more years

Colonies Established

Prior to 1664, the British had claimed New England and Virginia and further south to Florida. The Dutch laid claim to what is now New York; New Netherlands, established in 1624 by the Dutch West India Company. Sweden ruled the middle colonies; New Sweden, established in 1638 and run by the South Sweden Corporation, took in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. North to Canada and west were claimed by the French and still further west and south, Spain. After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England took over New Netherland (and New Amsterdam) and labeled it New York. Sweden (which included Finland) did not have the naval power to protect their colony from incursion. In 1655, the Dutch annexed the colony which in turn was given to the British when they consumed the Dutch colonies in America.

• Connecticut.  In 1637, colonials left the Massachusetts Bay Colony for better land. To defend themselves against the Pequot Indians, Thomas Hooker organized the colony. A legislature was called together and in 1639, they adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. It became a royal colony in 1662.
• Delaware.  In 1682, what became Delaware, was given to William Penn of Pennsylvania by King James II. At first, the two colonies were enjoined and shared the same legislative assembly. After 1701, Delaware was granted the right to its own legislative assembly, however both Pennsylvania and Delaware shared the same governor. It wasn’t until the American Revolution in 1776 that the two colonies formerly became separated.
• Georgia.  In 1731, King George II granted Georgia’s charter to a group of twenty-one trustees as a buffer colony between Spanish Florida and the rest of the British colonies. It became a royal colony in 1753.
• Maryland.  The first proprietary government, it was founded in 1634 by the second Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert. The first Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, a Roman Catholic of Ireland, had been granted a charter for Maryland by King Charles the I, however the first Lord Baltimore died just five weeks before the new charter was sealed in 1632. His son Cecil was later granted the charter and George’s second son Leonard became the colony’s first governor. Maryland’s governor drafted the laws consented by freemen landowners elected to the legislative assembly. The colony had two houses, one, the governor and his council, and the other of the freemen assembly.
• Massachusetts.  The Massachusetts Colony was formed in 1691 after the joining of the Plymouth Colony and Maine, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Plymouth government was created through the Mayflower Compact, signed by forty-one English colonists on the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620. This compact was in effect the first written framework of established government in what is now the United States. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was created by a company charter from King Charles I in 1629.Though a royal charter, the colony was allowed to set up their own self-governing body.Because of estranged relationships with the king, the Bay Company’s charter was annulled in 1684. Shortly after that, the Plymouth Colony was incorporated into the short-lived Dominion of New England in 1686. When the two were combined in 1691, William III and Mary II allowed self-governance, however the governor was appointed by the king as a royal colony.
• New Hampshire.  The colony was founded in 1629 on a division of land grants given by the Council of New England in 1622 to Captain John Mason, governor of Newfoundland, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who founded Maine. It was created as a proprietary colony but later became a royal colony. Mason was to die in 1635 before ever having laid eyes on his colony. By 1639, Massachusetts laid claim to New Hampshire and in 1641, New Hampshire fell under the Bay Colony’s jurisdiction.  The relationship between Massachusetts and independent New Hampshire was tenuous, complicated by land claims. In 1769, King Charles II separated New Hampshire from Massachusetts, issuing a charter for a royal New Hampshire. In 1691, a new charter granted the governor of Massachusetts jurisdiction over New Hampshire. This remained in effect from 1699-1741, when New Hampshire was granted its own governor.
• New Jersey.  In 1664, the Duke of York and future King James II granted the land which became the colony of New Jersey to two loyal followers, Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley. The proprietary colony was divided between the two; East and West Jersey, named for the island Jersey in the England Channel. In 1702, Queen Ann combined the two Jersey’s into one royal colony of New Jersey.

• New York.  In 1664, King Charles II granted New York as a proprietary colony to the Duke of York, future King James II. James was quick to oust the Dutch from New Amsterdam. He renamed the colony New York after, well, himself of course. James picked the governor. Edmund Andros, and sent him to rule over what became a royal colony in 1665.
• North Carolina.  North and South Carolina began as one colony. Carolina colony was chartered by King Charles II in 1663. He granted eight Lords Proprietors who had remained loyal to him while England was in a state of civil war. The lands included all the region between latitudes of 31 degrees and 36 degrees north. In 1719, the Carolina Colony became a royal colony. However, by 1719, the two colonies had become basically separated and were being referred to as North and South Carolina. In 1729, the proprietors of North Carolina sold their shares to the Crown and North Carolina became a royal colony.
• Pennsylvania.  In 1681, the colony was founded by William Penn who was awarded a proprietary colony by King Charles II. Penn formed his colony as one of religious freedom, populated by Quakers and German immigrants.

• Rhode Island.  Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were outspoken Puritans who joined other Puritans who left Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish their own settlement. Rogers abdicated the separation of church and state and later established the first Baptist church in America. In 1635, he was banished from Massachusetts for his teachings and when soldiers came to arrest and transport him back to England, a death sentence, he escaped to live with the Narragansett Indians where he founded Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. Two years later, Anne Hutchinson was a courageous woman who spoke her mind and subsequently was excommunicated and banished to Rhode Island. He received a charter for the colony in 1743 and twenty years later, in 1663, it became a royal colony.
• South Carolina.  As already mentioned, South and North Carolina were initially one colony of Carolina. By 1719, residents of Carolina saw themselves as either from North or South Carolina, the later having a higher population. In 1729, Carolina was officially separated into two colonies. South Carolina prospered as a royal colony which favored large land ownership that led to the plantation system.
• Virginia.  In 1607, the Virginia Company was given the charter to establish a colony in Virginia. Jamestown was founded in 1607, becoming the earliest British settlement in America. The first legislature and general assembly in the English colonies was the House of Burgesses, meeting on July 30, 1619 in a church in Jamestown.  In 1624, the colony became a royal colony when the Virginia Company’s charter was revoked. The General Assembly remained in place which modeled other royal colonies to retain their elected legislatures.

Salutary Neglect

Not long after England gained total control of the American coast and established the thirteen major colonies, from 1690’s to the 1760’s with the conclusion of the Seven Year’s War between England and France, there was a markedly reduced level of involvement of Britain regarding colonial affairs. Trade laws were not enforced which boosted colonial profits and subsequent the American lifestyle; becoming far greater than in Europe. As long as the colonies remained loyal to the British government and contributed to the economic profitability of England, enforcement of trade and imperial supervision on internal colonial affairs were lax. This salutary neglect contributed involuntarily to the increasing autonomy of colonial legal and legislative institutions. By 1760, England’s costly Seven Years War with France diminished the government’s coffers. Ministers in London felt strongly that Americans should do more to help replenish the British treasury, especially since the war had begun in America. A crack down on trade and other such long standing acts that had not been enforced as part of the ‘salutary neglect’ only aided in America’s desire to cast off the shrouds of colonialism in their march to independence.

Colonial Governments Evolved into American Self-governments

• The House of Burgesses was established in 1619 setting an example for self-governance even among royal colonies
• New England Confederation was founded in 1643 and dissolved in 1684
• TheAlbany Congress was established in 1754 and disbanded in 1754
• The first Committee of Correspondence was established in 1764 to rally support against the Currency Act
• The Stamp Act Congress met from October 7, 1765 to October 25^th of the same year
• Long-standing Committees of Correspondence that were self-governed assemblies totally apart from England sprang up first in Boston in 1772.  Shadow governments, they siphoned power from the royal governments. The following year, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire followed suit, establishing committees throughout the colonies. By 1774, eleven colonies had similar committees.
• Committees of Safety were the military arm of Committees of Correspondence that gained in popularity as hostilities with England seemed imminent.
• First Continental Congress met on September 5, 1774 and disbanded on October 26, 1774
• Second Continental Congress was convened on May 10, 1775 to March 1, 1781
• Congress of the Confederation was established on March 1, 1781 to March 4, 1789
• United States Congress began on March 4, 1789

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RESOURCES

Ahearn, Robert. American Heritage History of Early America: 1492-1776. 2016: New World City, Inc.

Alchin, Linda. “Colonial Governments” Land of the Brave.  2017: https://www.landofthebrave.info/colonial-government.htm

“British United States History” Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/topic/salutary-neglect

Kelly, Martin. “Colonial Governments of the Thirteen Colonies”. www.thoughtco.com

Taylor, Alan.  American Colonies: The Settling of North America. 2002: Penguin Books, New York, NY.