Examining the lives of 460 of the wealthiest men who lived in colonial Maryland, Burnard traces the development of this elite from a hard-living, profit-driven merchant-planter class in the seventeenth century to a more genteel class of plantation owners in the eighteenth century. This study innovatively compares these men to their counterparts elsewhere in the British Empire, including absentee Caribbean landowners and East Indian nabobs, illustrating their place in the Atlantic economic network.

List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments 1. Problems and Perspectives : A Picture of the Maryland Elite 2. A Gentleman's Competence : The Economic Ambitions of the Maryland Elite 3. A Species of Capital Attached to Certain Mercantile Houses : Elite Debts and the Significance of Credit 4. Patriarchy and Affection : The Demography and Character of Elite Families 5. Arrows over Time : Elite Inheritance Practices 6. The Rule of Gentlemen : Elite Political Involvement 7. The Development of Provincial Consciousness : The Formation of Elite Identity 8. Conclusion : Toward a History of Elites in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire Appendix : The Creation of the Elite Sample of Wealthy Marylanders Index

Trevor Burnard is a Reader in Early American History at Brunel University in England.