A proprietary colony is a colony in which one or more private land owners retain rights that are normally the privilege of the state, and in all cases eventually became so.

In the British Empire

The British kings repeatedly granted territory to an individual or a small group, rather than to a chartered company. These men, called proprietors, or sometimes "Lords Proprietors", were invested not only with property under private law but also with gubernatorial authority to administer it with extraordinary authority, somewhat recalling the earl palatine before the Glorious Revolution.

The method was most notably used during the early colonization along the Atlantic coasts of North America and the Caribbean by Great Britain.
Most were run under a colonial charter agreement, which is 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 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.

Proprietary colonies in the Caribbean

• Barbados under Lords Proprietary

• *1625–1627 Sir William Courteen

• *1627–1652 Lord Carlisle

Proprietary colonies in the present-day southern U.S.

• Virginia Colony

• Province of Georgia

• Province of Carolina

• Province of North Carolina

• Province of South Carolina

• Province of Rhode Island

Proprietary colonies in the present-day northeastern U.S.

• Province of Pennsylvania

• Proprietors of Maine: 1622–December 1635 John Mason (b. 1586–d. 1635) + Sir Ferdinando Gorges (b. c.1566–d. 1647; cfr. infra)

• *Proprietor of New Somersetshire, 1635–1647: Sir Ferdinando Gorges

• Province of Maryland – a dynasty of Barons of Baltimore (except the last incumbent) 20 June 1632–11 November 1776

• Province of New York (1664–1685)

• Province of New Jersey

counting

Proprietary colonies in present-day Canada

• Proprietor of Nova Scotia, 10 September 1621–12 June 1632 Sir William Alexander, (from 1633) Earl of Stirling and Viscount of Canada (b. 1567–d. 1640)

French counterpart

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.

See also

• Colonial government in America

• Commonwealth

• Settler colonialism

• Donatorio

• Quia Emptores