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CHAPTER VI

IMPERIAL NOMENCLATURE, 1625-1750

S the system of administration of the Colonies be

came more and more fixed along certain lines, the nomenclature became fixed accordingly. The name "colony" was the generic name for any distinct region and community in America, controlled by the English inhabitants and independent of all external power except the power of the State of England or Great Britain. It was a name which, from its origin, conveyed no necessary implication that the community called by that name had any political status whatever. Settlements were called "colonies" equally when they were little more than farms or factories, and when they had arrived at an organization so complete that they resembled half-sovereign States.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in his Essay on the Government of Dependencies, published in 1841, says of the word 'colony":

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The colonia were settlements of Roman citizens in Italy, who occupied a conquered town, divided the whole or a large part of the lands belonging to its citizens among themselves, and became the coloni or cultivators of the lands thus appropriated.

Colonia was formed from colonus; and colonus was formed from colo, and signified a cultivator. Colonia had also the sense of a farm. Compare the modern word "plantation," which means both a farm and a settlement. The idea of cultivation, and not of military occupation, was therefore contained in the word colonia.

The word colonia was, however, used in the Latin language, and the word "colony" in the English, to signify not only a community located in a region for the purpose of developing and cultivating it and its inhabitants, but also to signify a community which had been detached from the body of a State, and was, by reason of this fact, related to the State not only by ties of race and kindred, but also politically or semi-politically. The Oxford Dictionary says of this use of the word "colony":

The Roman writers used the word colonia to translate the Greek anonía,-literally "people from home,"—that is, a body of emigrants who settled abroad as an independent selfgoverned óλs or State, unconnected with the unτpónoλ15 (metropolis) or mother-city, save by religious ties.

The word "plantation" had this same double meaning of a settlement of planters and a settlement planted by a State. Thus Lord Bacon, in his Essay on Plantations, said:

Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive and heroical works. When the world was young, it begat more children; but now it is old, it begets fewer: For I may justly account new Plantations to be the children of Kingdoms . . . Planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose about twenty years' profit, and expect your recompense in the end . . . The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, laborers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers.

The use of the word "colony" to describe every form of political community external to a State and constitutionally related to it probably arose from the practice of regarding the natives of the State who emigrated, and their associates and descendants, as alone constituting the political community. This conception still prevails to

some extent, especially in France, the native and foreign populations of dependent regions being regarded as so many individuals without status as members of a political community. Thus, M. Arthur Girault, in his Principes de Colonisation et Législation Coloniale, says:

One perceives, upon examination, a double civilizing action on the part of those who emigrate for colonizing purposes, exercised at the same time towards the material resources and towards the people of the region.

First, towards the material resources. The emigrants improve the harbors, build roads, clear and cultivate the soil, exploit the mineral wealth-in a word, utilize all the resources which the native inhabitants have drawn on only to a partial

extent.

Secondly, towards the people of the region. Efforts are made to raise the natives to our civilization, to put an end to barbarous customs. Missionaries try to convert them to the religious beliefs prevailing among civilized peoples. Commercial agents, in quest of new markets for their products, engender new wants among them.

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It is this civilizing action, this double culture of the soil and its inhabitants, which constitutes the work of colonization properly so-called. Moreover this sense corresponds to the original etymology of the word, "colonize" being from the same root as colere, to cultivate.

There is thus implied in the name "colony," as applied to inhabited regions acquired by cession, conquest, or occupation, a social and economic superiority, on the part of the dominant State, over the related and dependent communities. Political superiority, however,

means necessarily implies social and economic superiority. A community which, in the beginning of the relationship, is socially and economically inferior to the dominant State, may, with the passage of time, come to equal or surpass the dominant State in civilization,

without changing its relationship of political subordination. It is even conceivable that a political community of higher civilization than that of the State to which it is external and related might, from the very beginning of the relationship, be in a condition of political subordination to this State and might remain in such a condition indefinitely. The name "colony" applied to such a community would be a palpable misnomer.

Giving the word "colony" its widest meaning, it seems to be the proper word only when the connection between the dominant State and the external related community is viewed from the social and economic standpoint, and when the external related community is on a lower scale of civilization than the dominant State, and so loosely organized that the power of the dominant State may be systematically applied, through an organized body of its own citizens who emigrate for the purpose, toward the civilization of the natives and toward the proper exploitation of the natural resources of the region. It seems, therefore, that the word "colony" can never properly be adopted as the generic word to describe the communities external to a State and under its political control or superintendence.

The word "mother-country" to denote the Imperial State, and the word "colonies" to denote its dependencies, that is, to describe the political relationship,were, however, in 1750, in almost universal use in Great Britain and America. The political relationship had not been carefully distinguished from the social and economic relationship.

The first American Charter in which an American Colony was recognized as having a political status was that of Maryland of 1632, granted to Lord Baltimore. In that Charter, Maryland was declared to be a " Province," and its relations to the State of England were declared to be exactly those which the County Palatine of Durham held

to that State. A county palatine differed from an ordinary county in that the count palatine exercised some royal functions and was regarded as the representative of the person of the King. The County Palatine of Durham was a border county between England and Scotland and on that account had, under the Bishops of Durham as Counts Palatine, enjoyed a semi-independence, having almost complete statehood, though being subject to the superintendence of the King and Parliament of England. Lord Baltimore, as Count Palatine and Lord Proprietor of Maryland, was the representative of the person of the King, the King's Deputy, who exercised the same powers as the King might have exercised if he had been present, subject, however, to the King's ratification or disapproval by order in Council.

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The name "province," as applied to such a political community as the inhabitants of Maryland formed, seems to have been taken from the public law of Rome relating to the administration of dependencies. Perhaps the provinces of the Realm of France, as they then existed, may also have suggested its use.

Mr. C. P. Lucas, in an appendix to the 1891 edition of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Essay on the Government of Dependencies, has this to say concerning the meaning of the word "province":

Provincia is derived by Festus from pro and vincere, according to which etymology it would mean "a country formerly conquered." This etymology has been adopted by the moderns, with no other modification than that suggested by Vossius, viz., that pro should be taken not for ante, but for procul. Provincia would thus signify "a country conquered at a distance." This etymology, however, seems objectionable on two grounds: 1. Provincia is not formed by a proper analogy from vinco; it ought rather to be formed from a past tense or participle, like victor, victoria. 2. The derivation from vinco does not satisfactorily explain the other meaning of provincia,

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