Short Answer: Simply put, the British territories of the Thirteen Colonies, and of British North America in general, was never a feudal society to begin with.

Longer Answer: Feudalism as a form of socio-political organization is based on the relationship of different classes to one another and the obligations of each level in society to the class above it. While the exact form of feudalism varies from location to location (the difference between the United Kingdom and Russia is a good example of this), the most basic form of this is the peasant who gives a large portion of their crops/other goods produced or taxes to the local lord in exchange for protection. This relationship of service in exchange for something with the class is then reproduced several times as you work up the social hierarchy. This relationship between the ruler and the ruled is the basis of feudalism. This system, and the rigid social structure it is based on, was never present in British North America. French controlled areas of North America were closer to this mode, but were still not feudalism.

Despite the use of the term counties in the United States, it has no relationship to feudalism in North America. It is an imported term from the United Kingdom, used by settlers because it is the terminology they were familiar with when organizing new administrative and governing structures in the “New World.” This same logic is behind why many places along the Eastern Seaboard are named after locations in Great Britain or Ireland, settlers from those locations named their new home after their old. It was simply what was familiar.

It is important to also note that by the late eighteenth century, while there was still a gentry or noble class in England, feudalism was long gone and had been dead for centuries already as it had collapsed under the weight of proto-capitalism and by the time period you are talking about, capitalism was already well entrenched in the Great Britain.

There are some interesting chapters in the edited volume “American Capitalism” by Sven Beckert and Christine Desan about early American capitalism. The one of most interest to you would be The Capitalist Constitution by Woody Holton. He essentially argues that the real motive behind the constitution, is that the Founders (who were instrumental in the Revolution of course), were trying to make “America safe for capitalist investment.” (36) This was primarily a result of the debt accumulated by states during the American Revolution and their fondness of giving tax relief to citizens instead of tackling that debt.

As a twentieth century American historian myself, I should also include the very idea that America is “the land of opportunity” where social mobility for all, “the American Dream” is thought to be possible for anyone, is exactly because of the lack of social structures one would associate with feudalism in the first place.