Chartered Companies

Chartered Companies, companies created by a grant from a sovereign government to a portion of the people, securing to them the enjoyment of certain rights set forth in the charter or document of grant.

The word company was first used as a legal term in connection with the great companies chartered by European nations in the 17th and 18th centuries. These companies grew out of the voyages of discovery and the desire of these nations for monopolies over the newly opened trade routes. The companies were given royal charters authorizing them to acquire and administer territory as well as to direct trade. It was the Dutch West India Company, for example, that settled New Netherlands (now New York State). Late in the 19th century the British government chartered four such companies, the North Borneo (1881), the Royal Niger (1886), the British East Africa (1888), and the British South Africa (1888). As empires vanished with the rise of independent nations, this form of company vanished also. See East India Company.