proprietary colony

American  

noun

American History.

1. any of certain colonies, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, that were granted to an individual or group by the British crown and that were granted full rights of self-government.

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proprietary colony British  

noun

1. history any of various colonies, granted by the Crown in the 17th century to a person or group of people with full governing rights

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Example Sentences

Maryland was a proprietary colony whose owner held full rights to govern as he saw fit, so long as his laws did not conflict with England’s.

From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018

In 1681 Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn as a proprietary colony.

From A Brief History of the United States by McMaster, John Bach

New York was now a proprietary colony like Maryland, its overlord being the Duke of York, and when in 1685 he became King of England New York became a Crown Colony.

From This Country of Ours by Marshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)

A golden dream of empire, with its promise of an independent republic in the form of a proprietary colony, casts him under the spell of its alluring glamour.

From The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790 by Henderson, Archibald

In the proprietary colony of Maryland the Calverts also attempted to establish a landed aristocracy, and give to the manorial lords certain rights of jurisdiction over their tenants drawn from the feudal system of Europe.

From Lord Elgin by Bourinot, John George, Sir