Other than the most obvious one, what other titles or nobility exist or have existed in the Americas, especially North America?
I am excluding any indigenous rulers - the Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, etc. I am interested in any duchies or baronies or whatnots created by the European crowns. I cannot think of any in the present-day US except that I think Spain granted certain titles - Viceroy of Mexico or something, but my Google-fu is weak today.
Related question, why didnt they create more? Especially Britain. Why colonies instead of duchies? No one wanted any? The King didnt like anyone enough? It seems a shame sometimes that we missed out on the feudal era - they left behind some awesome castles and other ruins. (Though the actual era sucked for those not living in said castles, and it sucked even for some of them.)
There’s the old Canadian title of Baron de Longueuil dating from the French colonial era. And the Baronetage of Nova Scotia of course. The future Phillip II of Spain was created King of Chile before his marriage to Mary I of England in order to bring him to equal rank with his future wife.
In Spanish America, there was the Viceroy you mentioned and also the honorific Don or Dona, roughly equivalent to knighthood.
Brazil was briefly an imperial power, ruled by Pedro I of Brazil (Briefly King Pedro IV of Portugal, son of King John IV who declared Brazil independent).
Hey, whaddyaknow, I still remember this the day after the final.
Also - and I can only speak for Latin America, here - the Crown was a little leery of granting titles to Creoles or other colonists, or of even condoning the appearance of it. Encomienda, or grants of labor (NOT a land grant) were given to conquistadores, who essentially were self-styled nobility. They tried to make encomienda hereditary but the Crown put the kibosh on that. Also, nobility are exempt from taxes, so granting titles runs counter to royal interests, who want to keep the top as small as possible.
The casta system in L. America especially kept the top of the pyramid rarefied (that is, peninsular Spanish > Creoles > Castizos & Mestizos > other mixed races).
So:
Conquer rich colony
Send a bunch of non-titled schlubs over there to squeeze every penny out of it
I wonder if Emperor Norton’s edict against the Republican and Democratic parties is enforceable, or if it will have to wait until the dynasty is reestablished.
There was Emperor Maximillian of Mexico. He was a Hapsburg grand duke who was placed on the Mexican throne through the influence of Napoleon III of France. Nobody in Europe had bothered to ask the Mexican people if they actually wanted an emperor. They soon revolted and executed Max.
America was the destination of the huddled masses. Nobles generally stayed home in the old world. They already had it made. At least, they had more to potentially lose than gain. Exceptions were nobles in overseas military service. In North Carolina there was Lord Tryon as a colonial governor, I think. Maryland had Baron Baltimore , (the Calvert family I believe).
In Carolina (not yet North and South) the Lords Proprietors, while a British Crown creation, were resident in the colony, with hereditary title (until they became two crown colonies later).
A few Canadians got titles of nobility from the British Crown. Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, is perhaps the most famous – owner/publisher of the Daily Express and Cabinet Minister during both World Wars.
Haiti was twice briefly a monarchy.
And the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the only “country” which leases its sole “territory” from a private landowner (a suburban villa in greater Rome), was for a while during the early 18th century the owners of St. Croix, now a part of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Not strictly in reply to your op but I thought it deserved an honorable mention. Josiah Harlan was the first American to visit Afghanistan and after an amazing real life adventure was briefly crowned king of the Hazara tribe, later given the title “Prince of Ghor” in perpetuity.
I am ashamed that I completely forgot about our beloved Emperor, especially after Neil Gaiman wrote a wonderful tale about him in the Sandman chronicles.
Thank you and everyone else for the links. Those are exactly the type of thing that I was trying to find.
A good point, though they did create some minor titles. I wonder how much the existing lords also didnt want to share power also with a landed gentry that would have dwarfed the existing estates.
The contrast between the Spanish conquistadores and the English/Dutch trading companies is intriguing also from browsing some of the sites. I forgot how much gold mattered over glory for most explorers.
A follow-up question occurred to me also - what were Great Britain’s intentions for the colonies if they had won the War of Independence? I remember the scene from The Patriot (it was a Saturday, and I was lazy) discussing land grants and titles - was there any basis in fact for it?
Well, there was no shortage of counties. I live near several named for English peers, some of whom actually owned them at some point (Lord Fairfax, Lord Baltimore, Prince George, Prince William, etc.).