Talk:Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 7 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jamesn99.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment

While struggling with how to present and discuss early American history, the utility of this article has become aparent to me. Certain things don't need to be repeated for each colony, yet these features deserve more attention than is justified in any other article. While I intend to continue adding to this, as well as the American Revolution, any help is greatly apppreciated. Feel free to wade in, and thanks. Lou I 14:45, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This entire article suffers from vague language and mechanical issues. I understand its usefulness derives from its ability to make broad generalizations that characterized the thirteen colonies, but the sections need a little more detail. Moreover, the last sections are ambiguous because they point towards the American Revolution, but don't specify their chronology. Everything depends on context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.32.224.74 (talk) 17:09, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Neglect

Looks like this has been neglected for a while. I may have some thoughts about it as I have been working with articles on some of the colonies. But there's so much I don't know right now that I'm cautious about just jumping in with changes. This paragraph seems problematic:

There were originally three forms taken by ventures that created colonies. These are usually described as Proprietary colonies, Royal colonies, and Corporate colonies. The Proprietary Colonies were created when large grants of land and authority were made to one or a small group of men, known as the proprietors. The Royal Colonies were created by a grant of authority under the kings patent to a group. The Corporate Colonies were creatures of both Parliament and the king, and their authority came though a charter.

I don't see a clear distinction between the three, especially between Proprietary colonies and Corporate colonies. I had not heard of Corporate colonies before. As I understand things, there is two primary distinctions: Proprietary colonies, which are given by royal charter to individuals or corporations and the proprietors are responsible for government; and Royal colonies, which are controlled directly by the Crown. Proprietary colonies were common early on, but were for the most part unprofitable. By around the early 1700s, most or all of the formerly proprietary colonies had surrendered their charters and become royal colonies.

The proprietors might have a different view. The main difference was that proprietors looked to remain as such, collecting 'quitrents' from settlers, right through the revolution. It doesn't make much difference in the grand political struggle, nut does have an impact on local history and land actions, particularly in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Lou I

• Perhaps "unprofitable" was not quite the right word. Most of the works I've checked so far agree that the proprietary colonies were not very efficient, at least in terms of providing governance and adequate protection for the colonies. Individual proprietors may have profited handsomely, but on the whole the model did not seem to be successful. Bkonrad | Talk

Should there be separate articles about Proprietary and Royal colonies? Or simply redirects to this article? Some American colonies are described as Crown colonies, but I do not think the description in that article is applicable to the American colonies. I have not been able to definitively determine whether Crown colony is synonymous with Royal colony.

I don't think we need separate artiles on each type. The history of each colony should cover details, with a general reference here. I tried working on a short article for each type, but the result looked more like a dictionary entry, so I created the one common article. Lou I

• I tend to agree for now. Though there is an article about Proprietary Governor. Bkonrad | Talk

Crown Colony is a later expression. As the British Colonial Empire evolved in the 19th century, they had Commonwealth Members (independent, semi-aligned countries), British Colonies (Canadian provinces before the Confederation (183?), Australian states, and India into the 20th century), and Crown Colonies (directly ruled by the monarch with some varying autonomy). At the time of the American revolution this pattern had just started to evolve. The 13 fit somewhere between true colonies of the country and crown colonies. Lou I 06:25, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• I thought it might be something like that. I guess I'm still a little uncomfortable that many of the U.S. colonial articles describe them as crown colonies and link to an article that doesn't really seem that helpful to understanding the historical aspects. Probably best to update the Crown Colony article, but I'm not up to it at the moment. Bkonrad | Talk 12:35, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
• The trend in U.S Colonies articles is relatively new, and got introduced by a couple of authors who are also doing some very useful things, like link boxes at the bottom. My initial reaction was to reword them, but I thought I'd let it wait until they make a pass through the articles and they settle down. there are still many, many empty areas: biographies, battles, etc., that it just doesn't seem worthwhile to walk on each others work. The 13 colonies were NOT crown colonies. Thanks, Lou I 10:53, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Merge

This article definitely needs to be merged if anyone is going to find it. -- penubag  (talk) 06:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Invalid internal link

I took out an internal link that led to a disambiguation. The disambiguation had no reference to the term in the context in which it was used, and so I assume no such article exists upon that subject. The internal link was "General Assembly" which I took out, because there is no page about the General assembly of the colonies, the disambiguation only refers to the UN, churches, and modern day state legislatures.

Change name

It's controversial even today to use "America" to refer to the United States, but using it in that way in a pre-revolutionary context is absurd. When I clicked on the link to this article I was legitimately expecting to see an article on colonial government in America, from Newfoundland to Chile, not in thirteen random British colonies that only comprised a small part of America. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

While I do agree that the title needed to be more specific, the 13 COlonies is not a random reference - these 13 became the United States of America. It's common English-language usage to refer the the USA as "America", not just in the US, but in the entire Engliish-speaking world. In general English language usage, "the Americas" refers to both North and South America, from Canada to Chile. - BilCat (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This article needs fixing.

Members were elected by the propertied citizens of the towns or counties annually, which usually meant for a single, brief session, although the council or governor could and sometimes did call for a special session. Suffrage was restricted to free white men only, usually with property ownership restrictions, and sometimes church membership requirements.

This is redundant, the "propertied" part should be removed, or the part about "property ownership restrictions" should be removed. FfreeMman (talk) 14:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

ummmmm.... the gov. rocked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.105.84.59 (talk) 01:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Not perhaps "most".

I suppose things may have been different in the agrarian south, but in the north it was certainly not true that "most white men could vote". In Boston, the only specific example I know, less than 15% of the total population could vote. That is with a primarily white populace.

Dinkin {Voting in provincial America p 42, 44) says over 60% of all adult men in Boston could vote, and 69% in New York City.Rjensen (talk) 21:50, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Post US Independence

A "see also" or a brief paragraph should probably note that this system of organization is not uniquely American, as the British would continue using the Governor-Executive Council-Legislative Assembly structure in most of what would become the British Empire. 118.90.47.250 (talk) 10:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)