Godparenting is a rite associated with baptism, which constitutes the integration ceremony within the religious community in Christian societies. On this occasion, godparents are chosen, though the number of godparents can vary depending on the modalities that evolved in different countries and over different periods. The practice has occurred throughout Europe during the modern era, in the Catholic, Protestants, and Orthodox worlds, and in the Americas. Admittedly, there are forms of ritual kinship that developed in other societies (Greco-Roman world) and elsewhere in the modern world (West Africa), but these are not then godparenthood in a strict sense. Furthermore, Christian godparentage is only one form of ritual kinship. Other widespread rituals include marriage and adoption, with the latter more common among Amerindians. In the American colonial framework, Africans and Amerindians were sometimes able to maintain spiritual or mythical forms of fictive kinship, which could coexist with Christian godparentage, and could even have been reinvested through it. Indeed, the violence of conquest, forced or voluntary migrations, and high levels of mortality often led to the destruction of family and social ties. In this context, godparenthood is a way to reinforce or reconstitute social networks. The relationships built through godparentage, which is usually local, can sometimes exist for the social elites across the Atlantic world, and wide networks can be established through the practice. Through godparenthood, Christian baptism establishes a close relationship between the baptized and the godparents, as well as between the child’s parents and the godparents (known as the compater and comater). These ties, albeit less essential than the alliance by marriage, for a long time had the strength of a true kinship (the spiritual kinship among Catholics), creating strong prohibitions for the marriage between the godchild and the godparents or their children, and also between the parents of the godchild and the godparents. Thus, sexual relations are prohibited for persons bound to spiritual kin, and the Catholic Church therefore denies marriage because of consanguinity. Conversely, from the 16th century, the Protestant churches do not share the existence of a spiritual kinship. For all Christians, the bonds are not limited to a simple social contact, but instead reveal the relational strategies of individuals and families. As a result, they contribute to determining rules of sociability. In colonial societies characterized by disparities of status, race, and gender, do the relations built by godparenting contribute to a division or an opening up among groups and individuals? Are these relationships a means to strengthen the relations of domination or to overcome it? The subject of godparenthood in the Americas was first studied by North American anthropologists for Hispanic America, then by historians of the slave societies, in particular for Brazil. In the rest of the continent, the subject is significantly less discussed, except in short passages of general works. In fact, most historians seem to consider that godparenthood is a weak tie in North America, with limited impact and significance.