Companies, in the early centuries, existed simply as organizations. The traditional corporate form, however, was remodeled during the 15th century, by means of a specific document called statutes. This article will initially provide a concise description of how charters have provided several companies with quite convenient privileges that have led to business development innovation. This essay will also shed light on the first company to establish itself in the New World with paper backing: the Virginia Company. Furthermore, the paper will place greater emphasis on the significant influences of this company towards three main aspects: its effect on business development, which began through the tobacco trade throughout the New World and Europe; the impact on colonisation, which was essentially represented by the headright system that took shape during the 17th century, and its influence on politics, fundamentally due to the creation of the House of Burgesses which provided some measures of self-government. During the 15th century in Europe, the emergence of chartered societies gave rise to a new era for crafts, as well as a strong influence that altered commercial developments. Charters were initially granted to municipalities and corporations of all types, whose operations were necessarily limited to particular locations within the state. When communities extended their operations beyond the seas, when they developed commercial relationships between their own countries and foreign ones, these operations in semi-barbaric times became risky and required the protection of both their own rulers and foreign states. The charters allow municipalities, in other words, businesses with special...... half of the charter...... E. The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624. Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 1957.5. ushistory.org. Online textbook of US history: The House of Burgesses. 2011, http://www.ushistory.org/us/2f.asp.6. Neill, Edward Duffield. History of the Virginia Company of London. Albany, New York: J. Munsell, 1869.7. Croghan, Laura A. Negroes to Serve Forever: The Evolution of Black Life and Work in Seventeenth-Century Virginia. College of William and Mary, 19948. Morgan, Edmund S. “Headrights and Head Counts: A Review Article,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Bibliography (July 1972): 361-371. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42477369. Middleton, Arthur Pierce. The Tobacco Coast. Newport News, Virginia: Sailors Museum, 195310. Scharf, John Thomas. History of Maryland: from the earliest periods to the present day. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Tradition Press, 1967