It is a true and rather stark account of resistance and the mechanisms of power in mid-19th century America that our next topic brings to the forefront: the 1845 defeat of the antirent bill and the subsequent guerrilla war in the Hudson Valley. This episode lays bare the enduring struggle between entrenched wealth and the demands of the common people for justice, revealing how even widespread and organized discontent can be met with the full force of the state, only to find some measure of change through alternative means.
To understand the intensity of the “guerrilla war” that erupted, one must first appreciate the deeply rooted injustices that fueled the Anti-Renter movement. The conflict stemmed from the oppressive “patroonship system” in New York, a relic from the 1600s when the Dutch governed the region. This system essentially granted a few intermarried families near-regal control over vast tracts of land—some two million acres—and the lives of hundreds of thousands of tenants. The Rensselaer family, for instance, held an immense manor, wielding influence over approximately eighty thousand tenants and amassing a fortune of $41 million. These landowners, as one contemporary observed, could “swill his wine, loll on his cushions, fill his life with society, food, and culture,” all while their tenants toiled under burdensome rents and taxes.
The economic crisis of 1837 exacerbated these already severe conditions, with unemployment swelling the ranks of those seeking land, and the completion of the Erie Canal adding to the pool of laid-off workers. It was in this environment that the tenants began to organize, declaring their intent to “take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it and roll it to the final consummation of freedom and independence of the masses”. Their methods were both symbolic and confrontational. They adopted calico Indian costumes, a nod to the Boston Tea Party and a reminder of the land’s original ownership, and used tin horns as a call to arms. Sheriffs attempting to serve eviction writs were met by calico-clad riders, summoned by the blare of tin horns, and were often subjected to public humiliation, including tarring and feathering. Figures like Smith Boughton, a country doctor, and Ainge Devyr, an Irish revolutionary who had witnessed similar land monopolies and misery in Europe, emerged as key organizers, mobilizing thousands into Anti-Rent associations.
It was against this backdrop of escalating grievances and organized resistance that the tenants put their hopes into legislative action. In 1845, petitions for an antirent bill, bearing the signatures of 25,000 tenants, were presented to the New York legislature. However, this plea for redress through official channels was ultimately defeated. The rejection was a clear signal that the system, as constituted, was unwilling to yield to the tenants’ demands peacefully.
The consequence of this legislative defeat was a sharp escalation in the “guerrilla war”. The refusal of legal avenues pushed the conflict back into the countryside, characterized by continued skirmishes between bands of “Indians” (the disguised tenants) and sheriffs’ posses. The tension reached a violent peak when a man sent to collect wood for the landlord was killed, and a farm boy was mysteriously murdered, leading to the jailing of Dr. Boughton. The authorities responded with force, deploying artillerymen and cavalry.
The state’s resolve to crush the rebellion became starkly evident when a deputy sheriff, attempting to sell the livestock of a farmer named Moses Earle for a paltry $60 in back rent, was killed in a confrontation. This act precipitated a wave of arrests, with nearly a hundred Anti-Renters jailed. The trials that followed were severe, designed to send a chilling message. Smith Boughton, the doctor and organizer, was not merely charged with taking papers from a sheriff; he was accused by the judge of “high treason, rebellion against your government, and armed insurrection” and sentenced to life imprisonment. Similarly, others involved in the Moses Earle incident were found guilty of murder, with two initially sentenced to hang and four to life imprisonment, though the death sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment by the governor.
This brutal application of the law, however, had an unintended effect. While it momentarily crushed the direct, armed resistance, it also channeled the movement’s energy into electoral politics, a more “acceptable method of reform”. In a significant shift, the Anti-Renters successfully elected fourteen members to the state legislature in 1845. The subsequent governor, elected in 1846 with Anti-Rent support, pardoned the imprisoned Anti-Renters, and legislative measures began to dismantle some of the most egregious aspects of the feudal system, such as outlawing new feudal leases and prohibiting the sale of tenant property for nonpayment of rent.
While the immediate “guerrilla war” waned, sporadic resistance against rent collection persisted into the 1860s, with “Indians” occasionally thwarting sheriffs, and even a deputy sheriff being killed in the early 1880s while attempting to dispossess a farmer. Ultimately, many leases passed into the hands of the farmers, significantly reducing the number of tenants under the manorial system.
This sequence—of fighting, suppression by law, and the diversion of struggle into political channels—was a “common sequence in American history”. It demonstrated that while direct, armed rebellion might be crushed, it could, through sustained pressure and adaptation, force concessions from the ruling elite and gradually alter the existing power structures, even if the fundamental divide between rich and poor remained.