One of the biggest problems with trying to set up a feudal-esque system in the Americas is the availability of land.
If you start treating your farmers as peasants, they'll just pick up and head west.
There was also a perennial shortage of labour, so anyone who didn't like the terms of his employment could find another employer very willing to hire him.
Québec was the closest you're likely to come to this sort of scenario. Minor nobles given seigneurial land grants, and the Church pushing hard to keep the habitants within civilization (i.e. so they could keep attending a church).
But even so, habitants were very independently minded, compared to their equivalents in Europe, and Québec didn't have the vast expanses of settlable land adjacent to their towns the way the 13 colonies had. That would have changed if they had significantly settled Upper Canada (modern southern Ontario), and the Ohio country, but they didn't.
Could the Proprietors of the proprietary colonies end up being Dukes or Earls of their colonies? Yes, that's certainly possible, but it would likely mean they'd have to live there, which most didn't.
Are you likely to get a King? No, at least not organically. Britain (or whoever settled those 13 colonies) was unlikely to want those colonies to unite. Divide and conquer, in some ways. The motherland is going to want to keep control over their colonies.
Now, if you have a tradition of the colonies being run by landed aristocracy (Dukes, Earls) in a semi Palatine (semiautonomous) fashion, then if those colonies ever unite and break free of the mother land, they may, indeed, choose a monarch of their own at that time. Whether that be a junior royal from the motherland's ruling house, or an elected monarch from some other ruling family in Europe (compare how Greece and Belgium got their monarchies), or possibly some local family. The problem THERE is intercolonial jealousies. They're NOT going to choose the Duke of New York (or equivalent), the Virginians wouldn't stand for it; and vice versa. The most likely local possibility is either pick someone well respected from one of the minor colonies (choose the Earl of *Rhode Island, giving *Rhode Island to his brother), or some compromise marriage (e.g. Duke of *New York's second son weds the Duke of Virginia's eldest daughter).
And, in any case, the Royals and Aristocracy will be - not powerless - but strongly constrained by the social constructs and limits imposed by the existence of a nearby frontier. Most assuredly not anything remotely resembling an an Absolute Monarchy.
If you start treating your farmers as peasants, they'll just pick up and head west.
There was also a perennial shortage of labour, so anyone who didn't like the terms of his employment could find another employer very willing to hire him.
Québec was the closest you're likely to come to this sort of scenario. Minor nobles given seigneurial land grants, and the Church pushing hard to keep the habitants within civilization (i.e. so they could keep attending a church).
But even so, habitants were very independently minded, compared to their equivalents in Europe, and Québec didn't have the vast expanses of settlable land adjacent to their towns the way the 13 colonies had. That would have changed if they had significantly settled Upper Canada (modern southern Ontario), and the Ohio country, but they didn't.
Could the Proprietors of the proprietary colonies end up being Dukes or Earls of their colonies? Yes, that's certainly possible, but it would likely mean they'd have to live there, which most didn't.
Are you likely to get a King? No, at least not organically. Britain (or whoever settled those 13 colonies) was unlikely to want those colonies to unite. Divide and conquer, in some ways. The motherland is going to want to keep control over their colonies.
Now, if you have a tradition of the colonies being run by landed aristocracy (Dukes, Earls) in a semi Palatine (semiautonomous) fashion, then if those colonies ever unite and break free of the mother land, they may, indeed, choose a monarch of their own at that time. Whether that be a junior royal from the motherland's ruling house, or an elected monarch from some other ruling family in Europe (compare how Greece and Belgium got their monarchies), or possibly some local family. The problem THERE is intercolonial jealousies. They're NOT going to choose the Duke of New York (or equivalent), the Virginians wouldn't stand for it; and vice versa. The most likely local possibility is either pick someone well respected from one of the minor colonies (choose the Earl of *Rhode Island, giving *Rhode Island to his brother), or some compromise marriage (e.g. Duke of *New York's second son weds the Duke of Virginia's eldest daughter).
And, in any case, the Royals and Aristocracy will be - not powerless - but strongly constrained by the social constructs and limits imposed by the existence of a nearby frontier. Most assuredly not anything remotely resembling an an Absolute Monarchy.