A lord proprietor is a person granted a royal charter for the establishment and government of an English colony in the 17th century.
[2] Each proprietary colony had a unique system of governance reflecting the geographic challenges of the area as well as the personality of the lord proprietor.
Sir Robert's attempts at settlement failed and in 1645, during the English Civil War, he was stripped of all of his possessions as a Royalist supporter of the King.
In 1663, eight members of the English nobility received a charter from King Charles II to establish the colony of Carolina.
The Lords Proprietors offered English settlers inducements consisting of religious toleration, political representation in an assembly that had power over public taxes, exemption from quitrents, and large grants of land.
An indentured male servant who served his term received his freedom dues from his master and a grant of one hundred acres from the Lords Proprietors.
To attract planters with capital to invest, the Lords Proprietors also gave the owner and master the 150-acre headright for every slave imported to the Colony.
Carolina attracted English settlers, French Protestants (Huguenots) and other colonists from Barbados and the West Indies.
The elite group of settlers in Carolina, former West Indians known as the Goose Creek Men, grew increasingly frustrated with the Lords Proprietors because they meddled in politics but failed to defend the colony against Spanish and Native American attacks.
The eighth proprietor, John Carteret, Lord Granville, refused to sell and retained title to the lands and quitrents in the northern third of North Carolina.
In the 1690s, the Lords Proprietors were keen to implement their plan for a colonial aristocracy (an attempt to stabilize Carolina politics).
It was issued to an Englishman named John Wyche, a relative of the chief Proprietor, giving him the status of Landgrave with the right to claim 48,000 acres (190 km2) of land in a certain region.
This change in power was formalized by an Act of the English parliament in 1729 called "An Agreement with Seven of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, for the Surrender of their Title and Interest in that Province".
The documents include information about Wyche's land-claims and the petition of the Cyril family for an endorsement of their rights under the 1699 grant (a claim that the Privy Council in London disallowed).
[18] Quitrents- a fixed rent payable to a feudal superior in commutation of services[19] In 1664, the English gained control of New Jersey from the Dutch.
The Governor was appointed by the Lords Proprietors and was allowed to select his own Council, which constituted the upper branch of the Legislature.
The new colony attracted many settlers because Berkeley and Sir George Carteret sold the land to the colonists at low prices and allowed them political and religious freedoms.
In 1702, East and West Jersey surrendered the right to government to the English Crown under Queen Anne following the Glorious Revolution.