For more than a half-century following the American Revolution, over 10% of the NYS population lived on leasehold property that they could not purchase from members of the landed aristocracy. These owners jealously guarded their rights to perpetual ownership, which traced from original Dutch or Royal land grants, and would allow only rental leases, often on onerous terms, to their farming tenants.

The Anti-Rent movement gained momentum upon the death of leading landlord Stephen Van Rensselaer in 1839. The initial lack of financial and political power led the resisters to adopt the Boston Tea Party tactic of “Indian” disguise in order to stymie law enforcement and eviction. Politicians and liberal thinkers adopted the cause, and it became one of the most important legal and social issues of the turbulent pre-Civil War period. Thirty years of armed resistance, terror, imprisonment and strife swept across 16 counties of upstate New York.
On a national level, the War indirectly led to the founding of the Republican Party and to the passage of the federal Homestead Act, which opened the West to settlement. Ironically, here in NY, neither the landlords nor the tenants could ever claim a true victory, as both sides were forced to eat bitter fruit in the eventual resolutions of the disputes.

Presenter Michael P. Barrett earned a B.S. in Criminal Science at Russell Sage College, while working as a police officer for the City of Troy, NY. He went on to earn a Juris Doctor degree from the Western New England University School of Law. He is presently employed as Executive Director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, and the Burden Iron Works Museum in Troy, NY. He is a member of many of the local historical societies, and has lectured at, or led historical tours for over one hundred and forty different organizations.