英国的国王特许状
1606年，英国国王正式批准一些贵族、绅士和商人的申请，决定向北美殖民。首批英国移民l607年和1620年先后在弗吉尼亚的詹姆斯敦和马萨诸塞的普利茅斯登陆后，受到了好客的印第安人的友好接待。他们向远道而来的客人们提供食品，并耐心细致地教给他们种植玉米、南瓜、西红柿以及狩猎的技术。
A charter colony（特许殖民地）was founded based on a charter, or written grant of authority, from the king of England. Because the two charter colonies (at the time of the American Revolution) of Connecticut（康涅狄格）and Rhode Island（罗德岛）were established based on charters granted to the colonists themselves, they were self-governing. These colonists drew up their own charters and presented them to the king, an act that set a precedent in America for written contracts that defined governmental power. According to these charters, the governors were elected by the male property-holders in each colony. The legislatures of the charter colonies were bicameral, or of two parts, but not subject to the governor’s veto or the Crown’s approval. Colonial judges were appointed by the legislature, but appeals could be taken to the king. The charters that established these two colonies were the most liberal of all charters.
Charter colony is one of the three classes of colonial government established in British colonies in North America, the other classes being proprietary colony and royal colony. The colonies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay were charter colonies. In a charter colony, the King granted a charter to the colonial government establishing the rules under which the colony was to be governed. The charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut granted the colonists significantly more political liberty than other colonies. Rhode Island and Connecticut continued to use their colonial charters as their State constitutions after the American Revolution.
The Monarch repeatedly granted transatlantic territory to an inpidual or a small group, rather than to a chartered company — which would of course then be no more than an inpidual 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.
A proprietary colony（业主殖民地）was a colony in which one or more inpiduals, 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.
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 early 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.
A Crown colony was a type of colonial administration of the British Empire.
Crown colonies were ruled by a governor appointed by the Monarch (and, later, the Secretary of State for the Colonies). Though the term was not used at the time, the first of what would later become known as Crown colonies was the Colony of Virginia in the present-day United States, after The Crown took control from the Virginia Company in 1624.
The British America Colonies before the American Revolution consisted of thirteen colonies that became states of the United States of America.
哥伦布发现新大陆后，开辟了数条通往美洲的海上航道，很快引发起一阵又一阵的探险与殖民热潮。在这一时期，欧洲的西班牙、葡萄牙、法国、荷兰与英国纷纷组织航海探险队伍，以寻找商业路线、海外财富并最终进行殖民开发。西班牙与葡萄牙凭借其海上强国、船坚炮利的优势，很快占领了先机。在科尔缔斯、皮萨罗这些冒险家作为开路先锋的推动下，很快就征服了大部分中美洲与南美洲，掠夺了大量的金银财宝。这时，作为欧洲强国的英国显然在殖民步伐上慢了一拍。一直到16世纪下半叶，英国统治者才对这片新大陆产生兴趣。
Vocabulary 生词全知道
charter 特许状
legislature 立法机构
bicameral 两院制的
grant 授予
constitution 宪法
Monarch 最高统治者
transatlantic 横渡大西洋的；美国的
proprietary 私人拥有的
privilege 特权
fief 封地
sovereignty 主权
administrative 行政的，管理的
Key Words in History 历史关键词
1．The Plymouth Company 普利茅斯公司
The Plymouth Company was permitted to establish settlement(s) between the 38th parallel and the 45th parallel (roughly between the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay and the current U.S.-Canada border)
On 13 August 1607, the Plymouth Company established the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in present day Maine. However, it was abandoned after about 1 year, and the Plymouth Company became inactive.
With the religious pilgrims who arrived aboard the Mayflower, a successor company to the Plymouth Company eventually established a permanent settlement in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 in what is now New England.
2．London Company 伦敦公司
By the terms of the charter, the London Company was permitted to establish a colony of 100 miles square between the 34th parallel and the 41st parallel (approximately between Cape Fear and Long Island Sound), and also owned a large portion of Atlantic Ocean and inland Canada.
On 14 May 1607, the London Company established the Jamestown Settlement about 40 miles inland along the James River, a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in present-day Virginia. The future of the settlement at Jamestown was precarious for its first 5 years. The president of the third Jamestown Council, Captain John Smith, was both a strong leader and a good diplomat who was able to form a positive relationship with the Native Americans.
3．Virginia Company 弗吉尼亚公司
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April 1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. The two companies, called the“Virginia Company of London”(or the London Company) and the“Virginia Company of Plymouth”(or Plymouth Company) operated with identical charters but with differing territories. An area of overlapping territory was created. Within the area of overlap, the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other. The Plymouth Company never fulfilled its charter, and its territory that later became New England was then also claimed by France.
The charters of the companies called for a local council for each, but with ultimate authority residing with the King through the Council of Virginia in England.
4．James I of England 英国詹姆士一世
James VI & I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567. On 24 March 1603, he also became King of England and Ireland as James I when he inherited the English and Irish crown and thereby united the Crown of the Kingdom of Scotland with the crown of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland (each country remained legally separate, with their own Parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though each was ruled by James). James VI & I continued to reign in all three kingdoms until his death in 1625, but based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603. At 57 years and 246 days, his reign in Scotland was longer than any of his predecessors.
Background Knowledge 背景知识补充
英国是个版图狭小的农业国，人口在四五百万左右，低下的农业劳动生产率很难养活这么多的人，很多人过着食不果腹、衣不蔽体的生活。从1620年到1635年，英国出现了经济危机，很多工人失业，甚至一些有手艺的工匠也找不到工作，农业歉收更加剧了下层民众的生活窘境，英国统治者迫切希望通过开拓海外殖民地，缓解严重的人口压力与社会贫困问题。
此时，两伙商人粉墨登场。这两伙商人召集了一些投资人向国王詹姆士一世请愿，
要求国王给予他们特许状，允许他们在罗利爵士发现的土地上建立殖民地，开展开发活动。其中一伙自称伦敦弗吉尼亚公司（简称弗吉尼亚公司），另一伙自称普利茅斯公司——这个团体是以普利茅斯为中心的西部商人，他们想通过开发新英格兰西部与纽芬兰渔利。
两个商业集团虽然彼此猜忌，竞争激烈，但最终还是联合起来向国王申请特许状，并获得成功。1606年4月10日，詹姆士一世给他们颁发了特许状，在特许状中他把北弗吉尼亚的殖民开发权授予弗吉尼亚公司，把南弗吉尼亚授权给普利茅斯公司。按其规定，在美洲发现的殖民地或其他领地归英国国王所有，但殖民地政府对其内部一切事务有全部的“治理权”。各殖民地政府由13人组成的参事会负责，其成员可以随时被调换。在各殖民地定居的所有移民及后裔，将和他们在英王统治下的英格兰及其任何领地出生的人一样享有同等的自由权、豁免权和免税权，并可拥有对殖民地土地实际的所有权、占有权和使用权。移民从英国和其他英属领地进口的货物，在十年内不必交进口税、津贴和其他关税，但在殖民地开采的金银，要将其中的1/5或1/15上交给国王。
此特许状不仅确定了英国殖民政策的基本方针，指明了英属北美殖民地的基本性质与发展方向，其内容以后虽根据情况的变化时有修正、补充和改变，但基本政策并未发生变化，它是即将兴起的美利坚文明的历史起点。