Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World

Early modern societies were organized in ranks or degrees, one of the highest being the nobility. The meaning of this word was different in the European countries but the superiority of a group of persons singled out by a title (prince, duke, marquis, earl, baron) or a quality (chevalier, écuyer, hidalgo, knight, esquire, gentleman, fidalgo…) and by privileges, especially legal and fiscal, was recognized in all Europe. They could generally boast a pedigree and an education, accompanied in many cases by a fortune, characteristics that qualified them to occupy the higher places in ancien régime societies. Sometimes neglected by historians in favor of the notions of elite, oligarchy, or aristocracy, the concept of nobility remains fundamental for understanding social identities and social dynamics during the early modern period. It is nevertheless accepted that nobility had little meaning in the overseas territories of the European states of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Even if the American societies of the colonial period remained ancien régime societies, the weak transposition of the feudal system would make the nobility less meaningful there. Moreover, in a context of high social mobility and proximity to Indigenous or enslaved populations, a form of ‘white’ egalitarianism would have prevailed over the social hierarchies inherited from Europe. Focusing on the states that participated in the global European expansion—France, Great Britain, Portugal, the Republic of the United Provinces, and Spain—this article shows that nobility and gentry have been a reality, both as a social group and as a social force, in most American societies in the early modern period. To understand this, we need to look beyond two common assumptions about European nobilities in the early modern period. The first is that the different forms of nobility that exist in European states were, if not identical, at least very similar. Beyond a common matrix, derived from the Latin nobilitas, the variety of terms that designate ‘the nobility’ in each of these states (nobility, gentry, nobleza, hidalguia, noblesse, gentilhommerie, nobreza, fidalguia, among many others) suggests however a greater complexity. The second assumption is that the nobility is naturally placed under the sign of stability and duration. Prince Tancredi’s famous aphorism in the celebrated novel (and film) Il Gattopardo, “everything must change for everything to remain the same,” is often quoted for suggesting that beyond the transformation of the sociopolitical systems, there was a continuity of families and of their modes of social domination. Social history shows that, on the contrary, the permanence of signs and values often conceals a constant renewal of the ways of being noble, of the rights and duties that this status entails and, above all, of the men and women who belong to this group. While Iberian societies remained anchored in a traditional definition of nobility, French and especially British societies were much more open and changes in the legal and political status of their nobilities had major repercussions in the overseas territories. The reverse is also true, with the return to Europe of enriched planters aspiring to genteel status. This is why it is necessary to understand the dynamics of nobility on both sides of the Atlantic.