A proprietary colony was a colony in which one or more individuals, usually land owners, remaining subject to their parent state's sanctions, retained rights that are today regarded as the privilege of the state, and in all cases eventually became so.[1]
This type of colonial government based on the County Palatine and resembling feudal grants of fiefs in exchange for service more than the modern concept of state sovereignty, was used by England's colonization along the Atlantic coasts of North America and the Caribbean.
Most were run under a colonial charter agreement, which was reviewed by the ruling Monarch. A good example is the Province of Pennsylvania, granted to William Penn (the state still bears the name meaning "woodlands of Penn") by King Charles II of England.
This type of indirect rule eventually fell out of favor as the colonies became established and administrative difficulties eased. The English Sovereigns sought to concentrate their power and authority and the colonies were converted to crown colonies, i.e. governed by officials appointed by the King replacing the people the King had previously appointed and under different terms.
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The Monarch repeatedly granted transatlantic territory to an individual or a small group, rather than to a chartered company — which would of course then be no more than an individual or a group of people using a group name in place of their own names. The men who received these grants, called Proprietary Governors, or sometimes "Lords Proprietors", were invested with property and with gubernatorial authority to administer it with extraordinary control.
A similar mode had been the arrangement made in Norman times for certain English border counties. These territories were known as Counties Palatine and they lasted at least in part to 1830 and for the same good reasons: remoteness, poor communications, governance carried out under difficult circumstances. The State, i.e. the monarch and his or her government, retained its usual right to separate head and body, figuratively or literally, at any time.
The British America Colonies before the American Revolution consisted of Thirteen colonies that became states of the United States of America.
In 1603, Henry IV, the King of France, granted Pierre Du Gua de Monts the exclusive right to colonize lands in North America between 40°–60° North latitude. The King also gave Dugua a monopoly in the fur trade for these territories and named him Lieutenant General for Acadia and New France. In return, Dugua promised to bring 60 new colonists each year to what would be called l'Acadie. In 1607 the monopoly was revoked and the colony failed, but in 1608 he sponsored [The sentence is not finished.]
The Iles Glorieuses, i.e. Glorioso Islands, were on 2 March 1880 settled and named by Frenchman Hippolyte Caltaux (b. 1847–d. after 1907), who was their proprietor from then till 1891. Only on 23 August 1892 they were claimed for the French Third Republic, as part of the Indian Ocean colony of French Madagascar.
However he was again their proprietor from 1901 till his death in 1907.
On 26 June 1960 they became a regular French possession, initially administered by the High Commissioner for Réunion, on 3 January 2005 transferred to the administrators of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.