The Anti-Rent Riots in New York State -- 1839

Stanley Rubenstein

[From a series of essays on history published by the Henry George School
of Social Science, New York, NY - 1967]

One who lives by the soil is in a better position to comprehend the importance of land than one who earns a livelihood commercially or industrially. The farmer's rent (in the economic sense, not common usage) can be readily ascertained because the total produce is apparent and easily computable. Why then, in eastern New York. alone, did acts of violence occur between landlords and tenants during the years from 1839 to 1845?

New York was settled originally by the Dutch, and their influence caused the land history to develop differently from that in other colonies. As the patroonship evolved over several decades, parts of the manors in New York were being sold to small farmers. It was these manors, encompassing thousands of acres, mainly along the Hudson River, that contained the remnants of feudal Europe.

A system of leasing which had existed since the middle of the 17th century allowed a freeholder to buy land from the lord of the manor with a small down payment. The rental consisted of ten to twenty bushels of wheat per hundred acres, or approximately ten percent of the yearly produce. In addition the farmer contributed annually four fat hens (a feudal custom) and one day's service. At the time of sale of the property one-third to one-quarter of the proceeds went to the landlord.

After the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer in 1839 a significant change occurred on the Rensselaerswyck manor, the largest of its kind in the state. The sons, unlike their benevolent and charitable father, demanded of the freeholders, all back rent and other obligations not previously adhered to.

Armed conflicts ensued throughout Albany County and the Mohawk and Delaware valleys, when the farmers ignored writs of ejection issued as a result of their refusal to pay the rent. Local authorities attempted to enforce the writs but were resisted and harrassed by farmers, sometimes disguised as Indians. Governor Seward also felt compelled to back up the law enforcement agencies although he favored the freeholders.

Associations and societies were formed by the tenant farmers, and conventions were held in Berne, which became the unofficial capital of the antirent movement. Thomas A. Devyr, Alvan Bouvay, Henry Evans and others known as national land reformers, actively participated in the movement even though philosophic differences emerged between them and the anti-renters. The fierce unrest lost momentum only after several murders had aroused public indignation against the riots.

Because the antirent agitation influenced both major political parties a constitutional convention was called in Berne, New York in 1845. Wearied by years of bickering the convention acted to correct some of the abuses. The feudal tenures were abolished, also the inviolate ownership of property and the twelve-year limit on leases of agricultural land. Many farmers were not satisfied with these reforms because they applied only to the future and not to the past. Limited as the laws were in rectifying the powerful land system indigenous to New York, they nevertheless helped to dramatize domination by the aristocratic clique and brought into the open the iniquitous land monopoly in the Empire State.