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.

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

List of AbbreviationsAcknowledgments1. Problems and Perspectives: A Picture of the Maryland Elite2. A Gentleman's Competence: The Economic Ambitions of the Maryland Elite3. A Species of Capital Attached to Certain Mercantile Houses: Elite Debts and the Significance of Credit4. Patriarchy and Affection: The Demography and Character of Elite Families5. Arrows over Time: Elite Inheritance Practices6. The Rule of Gentlemen: Elite Political Involvement7. The Development of Provincial Consciousness: The Formation of Elite Identity8. Conclusion: Toward a History of Elites in the Eighteenth-Century British EmpireAppendix: The Creation of the Elite Sample of Wealthy MarylandersIndex