LITMIR.BIZ

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to collect rent on the manor for nearly three years. All the while, Congress continued to unsuccessfully work toward land reform.

      Matters became more complicated when evidence surfaced to confirm old suspicions that Stephen Van Rensselaer IV may never have been the rightful heir to the manor at all. The trouble dated back to 1685 when, under a Dutch patent, the manorial title was conveyed by King James II to Kiliaen Van Rensselaer (son of Johannes) and Kiliaen Van Rensselaer (son of Jeremias) from their common grandfather, the first patroon. But Kiliaen (son of Johannes) and Kiliaen (son of Jeremias) had a third cousin, also named Kiliaen—this one the son of Jan Baptist. The lineage of this third Kiliaen (son of Jan Baptist), who was the oldest son of original patroon (confusingly also named Kiliaen), was now pointed to as the rightful heir of the manor, according to the common law rule of primogeniture. The other two Kiliaens were suspected of covering up the existence of the third Kiliaen, who had never emigrated from Holland.

      By the end of 1843, few residents at Rensselaerwyck believed that Stephen IV had the right of title. When one anti-renter was caught stealing timber from the manor, the government found it impossible to fill a jury with unbiased peers, as nearly every resident was suspected by the district attorney of belonging to the Anti-Rent Association.

      The “Indians” meanwhile organized a march around the whole Hudson Valley region, along the way instructing people on how to run a rent strike, how to resist sheriffs, and how to sing the movement’s own anthem, “The Ballad of Bill Snyder.”[17] Authorities responded by having a band of thirty-five men issue a new batch of distress warrants. A hundred of these “Indians,” armed with pistols and tomahawks, surrounded them, released their horses, and forced them to march a mile and a half, at which point they searched the deputies for distress warrants. The man in possession of the warrants was tarred and feathered. At midnight, the disguised anti-renters went to the deputy’s house, snatched all the warrants he had, and burned them at a “powwow in the center of the village.” When the deputy bragged that he would get even, the “Indians” struck first by kidnapping him from his bed that night to cover him too “with a thick coat of tar and feathers.”

      After this incident, the sheriff organized a formal meeting between the authorities and the anti-rent representatives, at which he offered to mediate between their association and the patroon. There was one more attempt to serve distress warrants on the manor, which ended in another tarring and feathering, after which the anti-renters were left in peace for several months. Meanwhile, the Indian costume came to be more than just a disguise—it was an identity that the anti-renters now wore with pride.

But everyone involved found that their war had reached an impasse; Congress could not sponsor land reform so long as the “Indian” resistance continued, and similarly, anti-renters could not renounce resistance without seeing the sort of change they demanded. Tipping the scales, citizen action soon turned to bloody insurrection when a stray bullet at a demonstration hit and killed a teenage spectator.[c] After that, the anti-rent movement was tainted by bloodshed, and government officials appeared less willing to work with the group, preferring instead to put down the revolt by capturing and jailing every one of the “Indians.” Authorities became fixated on this issue over land reform. By August 1845, “Indian” activity had resulted in the deaths of several authorities, including a deputy sheriff. After this, the “Indians” who weren’t yet in jail burned their disguises and went into hiding, collapsing the militant movement. A few of those who were unlucky enough to be caught were sentenced to death, while most received either prison time or fines. Other anti-renters continued the resistance by blaring a horn whenever a law enforcement official was in the vicinity so as to make his presence known. They also occasionally arranged for the disappearance of livestock and other chattels advertised for distress sale.

All the while, anti-renters were holding out for the “title-test” scheme, by which they hoped to disprove the patroon’s legitimacy of title and instantaneously be granted their land in accordance with the adverse possession law—which required that a person “openly and notoriously” occupy a property for (at that time) twenty years in New York state.[d] The patroon himself could not argue adverse possession, as he had not personally occupied the entire manor for twenty years. Only the residents could make the claim.

      In many other counties, landlords had already agreed to sell their interests to the rent-striking tenants, thus mollifying much of the broader regional movement. When manor lords wouldn’t sell, residents sometimes burned down their own houses and threw down their own fences rather than allow the landlords to benefit from their generations worth of property improvements. By 1850, only the Van Rensselaers still refused to sell, and the Rensselaerwyck residents found themselves alone in the struggle.

      In the title-test suit, the court surprisingly found that the plaintiff was not technically a landlord at all and that the defendant was not technically a tenant. Instead of a “lease in fee,” the parties had engaged in a “grant in fee” because none of the living residents had signed the original contracts. Instead, they had inherited the perpetual debt from their ancestors. It was the classic terms of an indenture—the sort that hadn’t existed in England since the year 1290 but somehow thrived in Upstate New York in the mid-nineteenth century. This shift in definitions altered the terms of the entire case. The suit was thrown out, and the only escape from manorial tenure now would be for the patroon to sell out, which he still refused.

      In 1853, after fourteen years without income from rent, Stephen Van Rensselaer IV finally sold the manor to a speculator named Walter Church for a lower price than he had ever offered manor families. He was so bitter over the rent strike that he purposefully sold the farms to Church rather than to the residents themselves. Once Church had the land, he offered to sell families their individual farms at an inflated rate, and about half the families took this option. The other choice he gave them was to pay their back-rents and continue their leases in perpetuity. Anyone who refused both options would forfeit their farm. Following this, Church issued 2,000 writs of ejectment. By 1859, only 580 of the 3,063 original leases still existed.

      In 1860, one Peter Ball was evicted from his farm for withholding back-rent. If Ball paid his rents in arrears he would be allowed to keep the farm—and though he indeed had the money, on principle, he refused to pay. The sheriff even offered him $50 out of his own pocket to avoid the unpleasantness of eviction. But Ball had been an anti-rent militant for twenty years, and he would not turn. Almost every inhabitant of the town was present as authorities emptied the house and placed all of Ball’s possessions on the snowy side of the road. No one objected to the eviction, but after all the authorities had returned to Albany, a resurgence of “Indians” moved Ball back in and occupied the property with him for several years afterward.

      During this same time, soldiers around the country were fighting the Civil War, and those who were not fighting were suppressing anti-draft riots in Manhattan. Short on military assistance, Church was poised to do little in the way of aggressive evictions—so he did not confront Peter Ball again until May 1865, after the Civil War ended, and with the help of the state militia.

      A mere month before, the New York legislature had ratified a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude. Yet the eviction of Peter Ball went ahead unhindered, and the same soldiers who had fought against slavery the year before, now ironically reinforced the feudal servitude at Rensselaerwyck. To prevent the anti-renters from reclaiming Ball’s farm the way they had in 1860, soldiers packed a thousand rounds of ammunition and several barrels of provisions, and they camped that night on Ball’s land. The next day, the troops marched up every road in the county’s western townships and began their forced ejections of all remaining tenants. Most had already left to avoid the indignity of eviction.

      That August, in one last attempt at justice, thirty “Indians” sneaked onto Ball’s former farm at first light to harvest his crop. But the militia had arrived before them and turned them away. The next day, Church hirelings harvested Ball’s crop and shipped it to market; a profit from nothing for Church.

After twenty-six years of litigation and uprisings, the Anti-Rent

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