Mexican Nobility - Overview

Overview

From the pre-Hispanic era, and stretching from the viceregal and colonial periods under the Habsburgs and Bourbons, to the First and Second Mexican Empires and beyond, these families played vital roles in the history of Mexico. There are several periods in Mexico's modern history in which families were granted noble status and given titles. While titles were granted in Mexico itself, other families brought with them their old titles from Europe.

Mexicans who by marriage to titled foreigners or through outright purchase, acquired titles of nobility from European countries excluding Vatican. These were primarily Italian and German titles, with some rare exceptions of the Spain.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Mexican nobility—both titled and untitled—consisted of approximately 1.5% of Mexico’s population, or approximately 200,000 individuals. Signers of the Mexican Declaration of Independence included: the Marqués de San Juan de Rayas, the Marqués de Salvatierra, the Marqués de Salinas del Río Pisuerga, the Conde de Santa María de Regla, the Marqués de la Cadena, the Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo, among others. Leading families active in 18th c. and 19th c. politics, the economy, the clergy, arts and culture included: Cervantes, Romero de Terreros, Rincón Gallardo, Pérez Gálvez, Rul, Vivanco, Canal, Cañedo, Fernández de Jáuregui, Obando, Fernández de Córdoba, Gómez de Parada, Pérez de Salazar, Valdivieso, Fagoaga, Echeverz, Dávalos de Bracamonte, Castañiza, Gómez de la Cortina, Moncada, Diez de Sollano, de Busto y Moya, Reynoso y Manso de Zúñiga, López de Zárate, Caserta, Trebuesto, García de Teruel, Vizcarra, Rábago, Sardaneta, Ozta, Fco. Azcárate y Ledesma, Samaniego del Castillo, Cosío, Rivadeneyra, de la Cotera, de Campa, Rodríguez Sáenz de Pedroso, Padilla, Rivascacho, Villar-Villamil, Rodríguez Rico, Sánchez de Tagle, Cabrero, Hurtado de Mendoza, López-Portillo, Meade, García Pimentel, Vasconcelos, Sainz Trápaga, Lascurain, Villaurrutia, Errazu, Escandón, Yturbe, Yermo, Béistegui, and Sánchez-Navarro, among others.

Historically, many of these Mexican families married into European nobility and some of these unions have produced figures such as Rainier III, Prince of Monaco and Elena Poniatowska, who was a descendent of a brother of Stanislaw August Poniatowski the last King of Poland. Other families who have married into European nobility include the Gutiérrez de Estradas, and the Iturbides—the Head of the Imperial House of Mexico in exile, Maximilian von Götzen-Itúrbide, is married to a member of the Venetian and Croatian nobility.