<P> Companies set up for privacy or asset protection often incorporate in Nevada, which does not require disclosure of share ownership . Many states, particularly smaller ones, have modeled their corporate statutes after the Model Business Corporation Act, one of many model sets of law prepared and published by the American Bar Association . </P> <P> As juristic persons, corporations have certain rights that attach to natural persons . The vast majority of them attach to corporations under state law, especially the law of the state in which the company is incorporated--since the corporations very existence is predicated on the laws of that state . A few rights also attach by federal constitutional and statutory law, but they are few and far between compared to the rights of natural persons . For example, a corporation has the personal right to bring a lawsuit (as well as the capacity to be sued) and, like a natural person, a corporation can be libeled . </P> <P> Harvard College, an undergraduate school of Harvard University, formally the President and Fellows of Harvard College (also known as the Harvard Corporation), is the oldest corporation in the western hemisphere . Founded in 1636, the second of Harvard's two governing boards was incorporated by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts in 1650 . Significantly, Massachusetts itself was a corporate colony at that time--owned and operated by the Massachusetts Bay Company (until it lost its charter in 1684) - so Harvard College is a corporation created by a corporation . </P> <P> Many nations have modeled their own corporate laws on American business law . Corporate law in Saudi Arabia, for example, follows the model of New York State corporate law . In addition to typical corporations in the United States, the federal government, in 1971 passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which authorized the creation of 12 regional native corporations for Alaska Natives and over 200 village corporations that were entitled to a settlement of land and cash . In addition to the 12 regional corporations, the legislation permitted a 13th regional corporation without a land settlement for those Alaska Natives living out of the State of Alaska at the time of passage of ANCSA . </P>

What was the joint stock company in the colonies