A
chartered company is an association formed by investors or shareholders for the purpose of trade,
explorationExploration is the act of searching or traveling a terrain for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown people, including space , for oil, gas, coal, ores, caves, water, , or information.Although exploration has existed as long as human beings, its peak is seen as being during the Age of Discovery...
and colonization.
Companies enabled merchants to band together to undertake ventures requiring more capital than was available to any one merchant or family. Typically, these companies were formed from the sixteenth century onwards by groups of
EuropeanThe European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
investors to underwrite and profit from the exploration of
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, usually under the patronage of one state, which issued the company's charter.
A
chartered company is an association formed by investors or shareholders for the purpose of trade,
explorationExploration is the act of searching or traveling a terrain for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown people, including space , for oil, gas, coal, ores, caves, water, , or information.Although exploration has existed as long as human beings, its peak is seen as being during the Age of Discovery...
and colonization.
History
Companies enabled merchants to band together to undertake ventures requiring more capital than was available to any one merchant or family. Typically, these companies were formed from the sixteenth century onwards by groups of
EuropeanThe European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
investors to underwrite and profit from the exploration of
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, usually under the patronage of one state, which issued the company's charter. But chartered companies go back into the medieval period. One claimed to be the oldest is the
Stora EnsoStora Enso Oyj is a Finnish–Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer, formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. It is headquartered in Helsinki, and it has approximately 29,000 employees...
with a charter of 1347 for a copper mine. Chartered companies enabled states to use private resources for exploration and trade beyond the means of the limited resources of the treasury, which is a liberal form of indirect rule; some companies did themselves employ a form of
indirect ruleIndirect rule is a type of European colonial policy in which the traditional local power structure, or at least part of it, is incorporated into the colonial administrative structure. It was practiced in large parts of the British Empire, especially British India and elsewhere in Asia and...
of territories through traditional leaders, such as
princely stateThere were as many as 568 states in India before independence. A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-The British...
s with whom they (not the European state) made treaties.
Chartered companies were usually formed, incorporated and legitimised under a
royalIn medieval Europe, royal charters were used to create cities . The date that such a charter was granted is considered to be when a city was "founded", regardless of when the locality originally began to be settled.At one time a royal charter was the only way in which an incorporated body could be...
or, in republics, an equivalent government
charterA charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
. This document set out the terms under which the company could trade; defined its boundaries of influence, and described its rights and responsibilities.
For example, the charter of the
British South Africa CompanyThe British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
, given by
Queen VictoriaVictoria was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death...
, allowed the company to:
- Treat with African rulers such as King Lobengula
Lobengula Khumalo was the second and last king of the Ndebele people, usually pronounced Matabele in English. Both names, in the Sindebele language, mean "The men of the long shields", a reference to the Matabele warriors' use of the Zulu shield and spear.- Background :The Matabele were related to...
- Form banks
- Own, manage and grant or distribute land
- Raise its own police force (the British South Africa Police
The British South Africa Police was the police force of the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes which became the national police force of Southern Rhodesia and its successor after 1965, Rhodesia...
).
In return, the British South Africa Company agreed to develop the territory it controlled; to respect existing African laws; to allow free trade within its territory and to respect all religions.
Chartered companies in many cases benefited from the trade monopolies (such as the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Royal African CompanyThe Royal African Company was a slaving company set up by the Stuart family and London merchants once the former retook the English throne in the English Restoration of 1660...
, which held a monopoly on
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
n
slavingSlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
from 1672 to 1698).
In order to carry out their many tasks, which in many cases included functions - such as security and defence - usually reserved for a sovereign state, some companies achieved relative autonomy. A few chartered companies such as the
British Honourable East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
(HEIC) and Dutch
Verenigde Oostindische CompagnieThe Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock...
(VOC) had military and naval forces of their own that dwarfed even the average European state's armed forces, and adequate funds to buy the best men and equipment, in effect making them a state within a state.
More chartered companies were formed during the late nineteenth century's "
Scramble for AfricaThe Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa, was the result of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period, between the 1880s and the First World War in 1914....
" with the purpose of seizing, colonising and administering the last 'virgin' African territories, but these proved generally less profitable than earlier trading companies. In time, most of their colonies were either lost (often to other European powers) or transformed into crown colonies. The last chartered company to administer territory directly in Africa was the Companhia de Moçambique in
Portuguese East AfricaPortuguese East Africa is the common name by which the Portuguese Empire's territorial expansion in East Africa was known across different periods of time...
(now
MozambiqueMozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest. It was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498...
), which handed over rule of the colonies of
ManicaManica may mean:* Manica Province, a province of Mozambique.* Manica, Mozambique, a town* Manica , a genus of ant.* lorica manica, armguards used by the Roman legionaries and gladiators.* The Manica tribe of eastern Zimbabwe....
and
SofalaSofala, at present known as Nova Sofala, used to be the chief seaport of the Monomotapa Kingdom, whose capital was at Mount Fura. It is located on the Sofala Bank in ean]] nearby. Vasco da Gama's companion Tomé Lopes left a narrative which identifies Sofala with the Biblical Ophir and its ancient...
to the Portuguese crown's colonial government in 1942.
Notable chartered companies and their abbreviations/ years of formation
British crown charters
- 1407 Company of Merchant Adventurers of London
The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London brought together London's leading overseas merchants in a regulated company, in the nature of a guild. Its members' main business was the export of cloth, especially white broadcloth...
- 1553 Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands
The Company of Merchant Adventurers was founded in London, possibly in 1551 by Richard Chancellor, Sebastian Cabot and Sir Hugh Willoughby...
- 1555 Muscovy Company
The Muscovy Company , was a trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major English joint-stock trading company, the precursor of the type of business that would soon flourish in England, and became closely associated with such famous names as Henry Hudson and William Baffin...
- 1577 Spanish Company
- 1579 Eastland Company
The Eastland Company, or North Sea Company, was an English crown-chartered company, founded in 1579 to foster trade with Scandinavia and Baltic Sea states. Like the better-known Russia Company, this was an attempt by the English to challenge the Hanseatic League's dominance in the commerce of...
- 1581 Turkey Company
- 1588 Morocco Company
- 1600 East India Company (HEIC)
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
- 1605 Levant Company
In English trading history, the Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was a chartered company formed in 1581, after London merchants petitioned Queen Elizabeth I in 1580 for a charter to begin trading in the Levant, a trade that had fallen away to near nothing in the previous decades, with...
- 1606 Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on April 101606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
- 1609 French Company
- 1610 London and Bristol Company
The London and Bristol Company came about in the early 1600’s when English merchants had begun to express an interest in the Newfoundland fishery. Financed by a syndicate of investors John Guy, himself a Bristol merchant, visited Newfoundland in 1608 to locate a favourable site for a colony...
- 1616 Somers Isles Company
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a Royal Charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of the Colony.-Bermuda...
- 1629 Massachusetts Bay Company
- 1629 Providence Island Company
The Providence Company or Providence Island Company was an English chartered company founded in 1629 by a group of Puritans including Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick in order to settle Providence Island, off the Spanish Mosquito Coast of what became Nicaragua.Besides Lord Warwick, among the twenty...
- 1664–1674 Royal West Indian Company
- 1670 Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and is one of the oldest in the world...
- 1672 Royal African Company
The Royal African Company was a slaving company set up by the Stuart family and London merchants once the former retook the English throne in the English Restoration of 1660...
- 1693 Greenland Company
- 1711 South Sea Company
- 1792 Sierra Leone Company
The Sierra Leone Company was the corporate body involved in founding the second Black British colony in Africa in 1792 through the resettlement of Nova Scotian ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War...
- 1752 African Company of Merchants
The African Company of Merchants was a Chartered Company in the Gold Coast area of modern Ghana, in the coastal area where the Fante people lived...
(abolished 1821)
- 1824 Van Diemen's Land Company
The Van Diemen's Land Company was created in 1824 , received a Royal Charter in 1825 and was granted 250,000 acres in northwest Tasmania in 1826 . The company was a group of London merchants who planned a wool growing venture to supply the needs of the British textile industry. The company...
- 1835 South Australian Company
- 1839 New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company originated in 1839 in London with the aim of promoting the "systematic" colonisation of New Zealand. The Company intended to follow the colonising principles of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere...
- 1881 British North Borneo Company
The North Borneo Chartered Company or British North Borneo Company was a chartered company assigned to administer North Borneo in August 1881. North Borneo became a protectorate of the British Empire with internal affairs administered by the company until 1946 when it became the colony of British...
- 1886 Royal Niger Company
The Royal Niger Company was a mercantile company chartered by the British government in the nineteenth century. It formed a basis of the modern state of Nigeria....
- 1889 British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
French
- 1613 Company of One Hundred Associates
The Company of One Hundred Associates was a French trading and colonization company chartered in 1627 to capitalize on the North American fur trade and to expand French colonies there...
- 1664 Compagnie de l'Occident
The Compagnie de l'Occident was a French Crown corporation that existed from 1664 to 1667. Its purpose was to exploit the resources of the French colonies and compete with the powerful Dutch and English companies....
- 1717 Compagnie du Mississippi
- 1635 Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique
The Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique, French for Company of the American Islands, was a French chartered company that colonized the following Caribbean islands:*Guadeloupe *Martinique...
- 1660 Compagnie de Chine
The Compagnie de Chine was a French trading company established in 1660 by the Catholic society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia...
- 1664 Compagnie des Indes Orientales
The French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies....
- 1664 Compagnie des Indes occidentales
In the history of French trade, the French West India Company was a chartered company established in 1664. Their charter gave them the property and seignory of Canada, Acadia, the Antilles, Cayenne, and the terra firma of South America, from the Amazon to the Orinoco...
German
- 1682 Brandenburg African Company
- 1882 German West African Company
The German West African Company, in German Deutsch-Westafrikanische Gesellschaft / Compagnie, was a German chartered company, founded in 1885...
- 1884 German New Guinea Company
The German New Guinea Company was a German Chartered Company which exploited insular territory in and near present Papua New Guinea.- History :...
- 1884 German East Africa Company
The German East Africa Company was an organisation founded by Karl Peters on April 2, 1885, to govern German East Africa...
Portuguese
- 1482 Companhia da Guiné
The Company of Guinea was a Portuguese governative institution whose task was to deal with the spices and to fix the prices of the goods. It was called Casa da Guiné, Casa da Guiné e Mina from 1482 to 1483 and Casa da Índia e da Guiné in 1499....
- 1628 Portuguese East India Company
The Portuguese East India Company was founded in 1628 by Philip III of Portugal . It was granted a monopoly on the spice trade with India. The intention was to attract private capital into this trade, but was unsuccessful in this regard and ceased operating in 1633....
- 1888 Companhia de Moçambique
The Mozambique Company, in Portuguese the Companhia de Moçambique, was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Manica and Sofala....
- 1891 Companhia do Niassa
The Niassa Company, in Portuguese the Companhia do Niassa, was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, then known as Portuguese East Africa, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa between 1891 and 1929.- Origins :In the...
Low Countries
- 1602 Dutch East India Company (VOC)
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock...
- 1614–1642 Nordic Company
- 1614 New Netherland Company
New Netherland Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants.Following Henry Hudson's exploration of the east coast of North America on behalf of the Dutch East India Company in 1609, several Dutch merchants sent ships to trade with the Native Americans and to search for the Northwest Passage...
- 1621 Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx . On June 3, 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over the African slave...
- 1717 Ostend Company
The Ostend Company was an Austrian private trading company established in 1717 to trade with the East and West Indies. For a few years it provided strong competition to the traditional colonial trading companies...
Scandinavian
- 1347 or earlier Stora Enso
Stora Enso Oyj is a Finnish–Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer, formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. It is headquartered in Helsinki, and it has approximately 29,000 employees...
- 1616 Danish East India Company
The Danish East India Company was a Danish chartered company.-History:It was founded in 1616, following a privilege of Danish King Christian IV....
- 1671 Danish West India Company
The Danish West India Company or Danish West India-Guinea Company was a Danish chartered company that exploited colonies in the Danish West Indies. It was founded as the Danish Africa Company in 1659 in Glückstadt by two Dutchmen Isaac Coymans and Nicolaes Pancras. Included were the Caribbean...
(1671) Royal Greenland
- 1638–1655 New Sweden Company
- 1649–1667 Swedish Africa Company
- 1731–1813 Swedish East India Company
The Swedish East India Company was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with the far east...
- 1786–1805 Swedish West India Company
- 1738 Swedish Levant Company
It was illegal to speak French there.
Sources and references
- Chartered companies
- Colonial flags of Mozambique
- Ferguson, Niall, 2003. Empire—How Britain Made the Modern World, Allan Lane, London, United Kingdom.
- Hudson's Bay Company
- Ross, R., 1999. A Concise History of South Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
- WorldStatesmen
- Micklethwait, John, and Adrian Wooldridge. 2003. The company: A short history of a revolutionary idea. New York: Modern Library.
See also
- British colonization of the Americas
British colonization of the Americas began in the late 16th century and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas and a protectorate had been established over the Kingdom of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean...
- Hongs