<P> A charter is a document that gave colonies the legal rights to exist . A charter is a document, bestowing certain rights on a town, city, university or an institution . Colonial Charters were empowered when the king gave a grant of exclusive powers for the governance of land to proprietors or a settlement company . The charters defined the relationship of the colony to the mother country, free from involvement from the Crown . For the trading companies, charters vested the powers of government in the company in England . The officers would determine the administration, laws, and ordinances for the colony, but only as conforming to the laws of England . Proprietary charters gave governing authority to the proprietor, who determined the form of government, chose the officers, and made laws, subject to the advice and consent of the freemen . All colonial charters guaranteed to the colonists the vague rights and privileges of Englishmen, which would later cause trouble during the revolutionary era . In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Crown looked upon charters as obstacles to colonial control, substituting the royal province for corporations and proprietary governments . </P> <P> The Virginia and Massachusetts charters were given to business corporations . Regular meetings of company officers and stockholders were the only governmental institutions required . The Virginia charter, issued in 1606, and revised in 1609 and 1612, was revoked upon bankruptcy of the sponsoring and organizing Virginia Company of London in 1624 . The second Colonial Charter was granted to Massachusetts Bay in 1629, settling at Boston and Salem, a decade after the first "New Englanders" at Plymouth Colony further south towards Cape Cod . In 1684, the Chancery Court in England voided the charter and changed it to a royal colony . Charles II placed Massachusetts under the authority of the unified Dominion of New England in 1685 . After William III came to the throne, he issued Massachusetts Bay a new liberal charter in 1691 . </P> <P> Charles II granted Connecticut its charter in 1662 with the right of self - government . When James II ascended the throne in 1685, he tried to revoke the Connecticut charter and sent Sir Edmund Andros to receive it for the Crown . Captain Joseph Wadsworth spirited the precious document out a window and stole the charter and hid it in a hollow oak tree, the "Charter Oak," until James was overthrown . Connecticut temporarily lost the right of self - government under the unification of the several colonies into the Dominion of New England in 1687, but it was reinstated in 1689 . The last charter by Charles II was issued to Rhode Island in 1663 . Connecticut and Rhode Island attained colonial charters as already established colonies that allowed them to elect their own governors . </P>

The english model three types of colonial charters