Why were there no European style hereditary lords in the Americas?

by marinedream1

i know that when European colonization started, all of the colonies were part of the monarchy of their mother nation, but why aren't there any lords on the continent? Why is there no Duchy of New York? No Earldom of Louisiana? No Barony of Brazil?

Vladith

There were. Mexico and Brazil both existed as hereditary monarchies for periods of their existence, albeit in very different ways.

Brazil was ruled by kings or emperors for the vast majority of its recorded history, beginning with the first conquest of Brazilian territory by Portuguese colonizers in 1495 and lasting nearly 400 years until the overthrow of Emperor Pedro II. In the early 19th century, when Napoleon Bonaparte and his French revolutionary army invaded Spain and Portugal, essentially the entire Portuguese nobility chose to flee to the Brazilian colonies rather than stay and fight and risk being executed like the king and queen of France. Rio di Janeiro became the new capitol of the entire Portuguese Empire (which included territories not just in the Americas, but also parts of Africa, India, and maritime Southeast Asia) and Portuguese nobility became the new upper class, imposing themselves over native-born Brazilians. Similar to the situation in the English and Spanish colonies, wealthy white settlers born in the colonies chafed against the rule of European-born elites. These social tensions slowly boiled across the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars. Soon after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, the Portuguese King João VI ascended to the throne in Rio. Portugal itself was returned to the Portuguese monarchy, and after failed revolts by liberal rebels in both Brazil and Portugal, João planned to move the Portuguese court back to Europe to secure his power. He left Brazil in 1821, leaving his son Pedro to serve as colonial viceroy. Almost immediately after, a coalition of Brazilian liberals and disaffected colonial officers led by Jorge Avilez led a coup that effectively rendered Pedro into a figurehead while maintaining his position as viceroy of Portugal. After his father's government in Europe announced that it would not respect increased calls for Brazilian autonomy, Pedro and Avilez declared independence from the Portuguese Empire and Pedro was crowned Emperor of the newly independent Brazilian Empire. Avilez was named a count and many of Pedro's close supported were given noble titles as well, creating the kinds of "European style hereditary lords" you asked about.

Perdo's declaration of independence led immediately to war against his father's Empire of Portugal. After several years of mostly naval fighting and low casualties, Pedro led the Brazilians to victory and signed a peace treaty that guaranteed Brazilian independence at the cost of a huge reparations payment. Because Brazil lacked the funding to pay this debt, they became heavily reliant on loans from Britain. Meanwhile, due to a lack of technical expertise among the Brazilian army and navy, large numbers of British and German advisors, mercenaries, and merchants had been invited to settle in the country. These factors meant that many Brazilians resented the lingering supremacy of Portuguese nobility and European-born elites in Brazil, causing multiple failed rebellions all across Brazil. Eventually, Pedro I abdicated the throne in favor of his 5-year-old son Pedro II.

Unlike his father, Pedro II was a popular figure who remains celebrated by Brazilians today. Traditionally seen as a modernizer who sympathized with some liberal causes such as the abolition of slavery, he ruled for about 60 years and oversaw the transition to a constitutional monarchy. He reduced the powers of the Portuguese-born nobility which pleased many native-born Brazilians, while also encouraging immigration from Europe as part of the racist branqueamento policy of "whitening" the nation. Pedro also diluted the power of the aristocracy by creating more aristocrats, selling noble titles to wealthy Brazilians who were largely powerful white slaveowners. He maintained a careful balance between Brazilian-born elites, Portuguese aristocracy, as well as other factions such as liberal abolitionists and the military. Near the end of his career, an ailing Pedro sailed to Europe for medical treatment and left the country in the hands of his daughter Isabel, who abolished slavery in 1888, making Brazil the last western nation to do so. A year after Pedro's return to Brazil, a group of aristocrats and army officers, many of whom former slaveowners, seized power in a coup that permanently dissolved the monarchy. Pedro and his family were exiled from Brazil until the 1920s, and all noble titles were destroyed. Many Brazilian aristocrats resented this, and monarchist sentiment existed among right-wing circles across the 20th century. During the military dictatorship of the 1960s-1980s, right-wingers hoped for a transition to monarchy rather than democracy. These lobbying efforts eventually led to the 1993 plebiscite to determine whether or not monarchism should return to Brazil. The Brazilian public was overwhelming in their opposition to this aristocratic proposal, crushing any real shot of the re-entrenchment of monarchism.

Meanwhile in Mexico in 1821, Spanish colonial officer Agustín de Iturbide was elected emperor of the newly independent Mexican nation and his relatives were named princes and noblemen. Just like earlier in Brazil, many Mexicans resented that despite their independence they still had a Spanish-born monarch. A rebellion by another Spanish colonial officer, the Mexican-born Antonio López de Santa Anna, led to the overthrow of Iturbide and dissolution of the Mexican monarchy after just two years. Santa Anna would rule as a strongman in Mexico for much of the next 40 years, overseeing many important modernizations of the economy and legal system as well as the disastrous loss of California, Texas, and the American Southwest to US invaders.

Liberal opposition ousted Santa Anna after the Mexican-American war, leading to the election of their first indigenous president Benito Juarez, who is also often considered the last indigenous president in Latin America before the election of Bolivia's Evo Morales in 2006. Resentment of Juarez by conservatives, the church, racist elites, as well as some traditionalist indigenous leaders led to another civil war and an ensuing economic crisis as Mexico defaulted on its French loans. The French, at this point led by Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew Napoleon III, led a punitive expedition to invade Mexico and replace Juarez with a French puppet. The young Austrian nobleman Maximilian von Habsburg was installed as the second emperor of Mexico, ousting Juarez and returning large swaths of country to monarchial rule. Juarez and many other liberals fled to Paso del Norte along the US border (today know Ciudad Juárez), leading a military campaign to slowly retake the country with tacit US support. Due to new threats from Prussia on the European continent, France would eventually pull its troops out of Mexico, allowing Juarez' forces to retake the country. Maximilian was overthrown, sentenced to death for overthrowing the Mexican republic, and unceremoniously executed by a firing squad. His death marked the final end of monarchism in Mexico.

Other American monarchies survived until their 19th century, such as the indigenous kingdoms of Hawaii and the Miskito region of Nicaragua. Haiti has had three separate brief periods of monarchy. In Argentina and Peru, there were brief attempts to proclaim a descendant of the Incas as king of their new nations.

Trojan_Horse_of_Fate

The short answer was there was titled nobility in the Americas just not in the United States of America since its constitution and ideology opposed them see my answer here (at least post revolution see u/lord_mayor_of_reddit's answer here on colonial USA which is more complicated).

I can't speak with confidence on the rest of the Americans but I know titled nobility did exist in New Spain such as the Marquessate of the Valley of Oaxaca and in Brazil such as José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco.

Brazil wasn't a barony though, it was a Kingdom or Empire and it had baronies within it.

MaxAugust

I suggest looking into the "proprietary colonies" of what is now the United States. The idea was that various English lords would be granted stretches of America to colonize.

Maryland was an example, as discussed in this answer to a different question by /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit that touches on some of how they operated.