Lords Proprietors

Examples of Lords Proprietors in the following topics:

• The Founding of Carolina

  • The Province of Carolina was created when Charles II rewarded the Lords Proprietor lands that include the modern day Carolinas and Georgia.
  • They named their colony Carolina, and they themselves were called the Lords Proprietors.
  • The Province of Carolina was controlled from 1663 to 1729 by these lords and their heirs.
  • The actual government consisted of a governor, a powerful council, on which half of the councilors were appointed by the Lords Proprietors themselves, and a relatively weak, popularly elected assembly.
  • The Earl of Clarendon was one of eight Lords Proprietor given title to the Province of Carolina.

• The Carolinas

  • The 1663 charter granted the Lords Proprietor title to all of the land from the southern border of the Virginia Colony to the coast of present-day Georgia.
  • Another region, near present-day Charleston, South Carolina, was settled under the Lords Proprietors in 1670.
  • The Lords Proprietors, operating under their royal charter, were able to exercise their authority with nearly the autonomy of the king himself.
  • This period culminated in Cary's Rebellion when the Lords Proprietors finally commissioned a new governor.
  • After nearly a decade in which the British government sought to locate and buy out the proprietors, both North and South Carolina became royal colonies in 1729 when seven of the Lords Proprietors sold their interests in Carolina to the Crown.

• English Administration of the Colonies

  • This person or family was given the title of Lords Proprietor.
  • Proprietary colonies were governed much as provincial colonies except that Lords Proprietors, rather than the king, appointed the governor.

• The Rise of the Assemblies

  • They were governed like the provincial colonies, except that lord proprietors, rather than the king, appointed the governor.

• English Colonies

  • It was a private venture, financed by a group of English Lords Proprietors who hoped that a new colony in the south would become profitable like Jamestown.
  • Eventually, however, the Lords combined their remaining capital and financed a settlement mission to the area.

• Settling the Colonial South and the Chesapeake

  • Similarly in Carolina a number of counties are named, most of which refer to the Lords Proprietors, including Albemarle, Clarenden, and Craven.

• Maryland

  • The province began as a proprietary colony of the English Lord Baltimore and as a haven for English Roman Catholics in the New World.
  • Maryland's foundational charter created a state ruled by Lord Baltimore, who directly owned all of the land granted in the charter.
  • The charter created an aristocracy of lords of the manor who bought land from Baltimore and held greater legal and social privileges than the common settlers.
  • Like other aristocratic proprietors, he also hoped to turn a profit in the new colony.

• The First Emancipation

  • Lord Dunmore's Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in United States history.
  • In November 1775 Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a controversial proclamation, later known as Lord Dunmore's Proclamation.
  • The governor formed them into the Ethiopian Regiment, also known as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.
  • Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment was probably the first black regiment in the service of the Crown during the revolution.

• New Jersey

  • The two proprietors of New Jersey attempted to augment their colony's population by granting sections of lands to settlers and by passing a document granting religious freedom to all inhabitants of New Jersey.
  • After one of the proprietors sold part of the area to the Quakers, New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey, two distinct provinces of the proprietary colony.
  • While the majority of residents lived in towns with individual landholdings of 100 acres, a few rich proprietors owned vast estates.

• Settling the Middle Colonies

  • The colony's land was periodically granted to various proprietors and split into the Province of New York and the Province of Pennsylvania.
  • This document provided for religious freedom, no taxes without assembly approval, and a governor appointed by the proprietors.
  • When one of the proprietors sold his share to the Quakers, this sale divided New Jersey into East Jersey and West Jersey; however, the border between the two remained disputed.