Cassiques (junior) and Landgraves (senior) were intended to be a fresh new system of titles of specifically American lesser nobility, created for hereditary representatives in a proposed upper house of a bicameral Carolina assembly. They were proposed in the late 17th century and set out in the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The Fundamental Constitutions were never ratified by the assembly, and were largely abandoned by 1700.
The upper house, consisting of the Landgraves and Casiques..are..a middle state between Lords and Commons. (1702) [1]
They are there by Patent, under the Great Seal of the Provinces, call'd Landgraves and Cassocks, in lieu of Earls and Lords. (1707)[1]
Cacique, a native chief or ‘prince’ of the aborigines in the West Indies and adjacent parts of America. (1555)[1]
The University of South Carolina, University Libraries [1]