Anti-Rent War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (May 2009)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

The Anti-Rent War (also known as the Helderberg War) was a tenants' revolt in upstate New York during the early 19th century, beginning with the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer III in 1839.

Van Rensselaer, who has been described as "[having] ... proved a lenient and benevolent landowner" was the patroon of the region at the time, and was a direct descendant of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the first patroon of Rensselaerwyck. The patroons owned all the land on which the tenants in the Hudson Valley lived, and used feudal leases to maintain control of the region.

Before the Revolutionary War, the patroons acted as feudal lords, with the right to make laws. The Anti-Rent War led to the creation of the Antirenter Party which had a strong influence on New York State politics from 1846 to 1851.

The first mass meeting of tenant farmers leading to the Anti-Rent War was held in Berne, New York on July 4th, 1839. In January, 1845 one hundred and fifty delegates from eleven counties assembled in St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Berne to call for political action to redress their grievances. ^[1]

Trials of leaders of the revolt for riot, conspiracy and robbery were held in 1845. Participants as counsel in the trials included Ambrose L. Jordan, as leading counsel for the defense and John Van Buren, the state attorney general, personally conducted the prosecution. At the first trial the jury came to no conclusion. During a re-trial in September 1845, the two leading counsels started a fist-fight in open court. Both sentenced by the presiding judge, Justice John W. Edmonds, to "solitary confinement in the county jail for 24 hours." At the conclusion of the trial, one defendant, Smith A. Boughton, was sentenced to life imprisonment, but after the election of John Young, who had the support of the Anti-Renters, Broughton was pardoned.

[edit] See also

• Dragonwyck

The Anti-Rent War started in 1750 on the border between the Boston Bay Colony and Colonial New York. The Boston Bay Colony claimed all the land west to the Hudson River while Colonial New York claimed all the land east to the Connecticut River. About 1750 settlement from the Boston Colony began to spread west of the Taconic Mountains where three townships were set up. The dispute started because Boston was giving 100 acres free to settlers on land under leas from Livingston Manor. New York granted land to Robert Livingston for his Livingston Manor under two King’s grants for “about” 400 acres plus 2,200 acres of wood land. His Manor was occupying over 160.000 acres however, and he had given feudal leases to farms in the townships set up by the Boston Bay Colony. When the farmers received title from Massachusetts they refused to pay rent to Livingston. Livingston took measures to force them to pay that resulted in several deaths. The border was eventually established about where it is today in 1757 by the Lord Commissioners of Trade in London. The farmers in New York continued to question Livingston’s title and were eventually joined by other tenant farmers after the death of Steven Van Rensselaer when the dispute over the feudal leases grew in importance. By this time the Livingston family owned over a million acres all under leas to tenants. Source; Rebels of the North, How Land Policy Caused the Civil War by Grant Langdon, 2009. His sources include The Documentary History of the State of New York , volume 3, Papers relating to the Manor of Livingston 1680 to 1795, pages 387 to 498 , by O’Callaghan, 1850 Weed, Parsons & Co. Albany

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• "New York's Anti-rent War 1845-1846," Contemporary Review, June 2002 by Eric Ford
• Henry Christman, Tin Horns and Calico, a Decisive Episode in the Emergence of Democracy (1978) ISBN 0-685-61130-2
• Dorothy Kubik, A Free Soil - A Free People: The Anti-Rent War in Delaware County, New York (1997) ISBN 0-935796-86-X
• Charles W. McCurdy, The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865 (2001) ISBN 0-8078-2590-5
• Candace Christiansen, Calico and Tin Horns (1992) ISBN 0-8037-1179-4