Antirent War
For more information on Antirent War, visit Britannica.com.
|
Results for Antirent War
|
On this page:
|
For more information on Antirent War, visit Britannica.com.
Centered in the Catskill counties of New York state, the Anti-Rent War of 1839–1846 was a rebellion against the old patroon system of estate landownership. Protest took the form of harassment of rent collectors by farmers disguised as "Indians," who shot seized livestock and broke up rent sales. In 1845, however, protesters killed a deputy sheriff, prompting a sheriff's posse, reinforced by state militia, to begin wreaking havoc in Delaware County while searching for the killers. Ninety-four anti-rent men were arrested and indicted for murder, while 148 were charged with other crimes, including arson, theft, and rioting.
However, this heavy-handed reaction against a system largely obsolete outside New York drew great sympathy for the anti-renters, and in the 1845 New York elections, a governor gained office on the promise of pardoning all the anti-renters, reforming the land system, and beginning the practice of electing the New York attorney general, all of which were done by 1846.
Bibliography
Christman, Henry. Tin Horns and Calico: A Decisive Episode in the Emergence of Democracy. Cornwallville, N.Y.: Hope Farm Press, 1975.
Huston, Reeve. Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
—Margaret D. Sankey
Bibliography
See E. P. Cheyney, The Anti-Rent Agitation in the State of New York, 1839–46 (1887); H. Christman, Tin Horns and Calico (1945, repr. 1961); D. M. Ellis, Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850 (1946, repr. 1967).
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.
Stephen, 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. 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. Christman, Henry. Tin Horns and Calico, a Decisive Episode in the Emergence of Democracy. ISBN 0-685-61130-2.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Antirent War" at WikiAnswers.
Copyrights:
![]() | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anti-Rent War". Read more |