AN'TI-RENT'ISM. A movement, partly po litical, extending over the years 1839-47, among the leaseholders in Albany, Columbia, Delaware, Montgomery, Rensselaer, and other counties in New York State. These leaseholders held their land under a sort of feudal tenure, in spite of the virtual abolition in 1775 of many of the old manorial and patroonship rights (see PA TROONS ) , the various farms being leased, for the most part, either in perpetuity or for a period of two or three lives, while. the ground-rents were generally paid in kind and certain feudal services were not infrequently exacted. As the popula tion increased, such an arrangement grew exceed ingly irksome to the tenants, who were nominal but not real owners, and who could not, as a rule, transfer their titles without paying to the landlords a portion (usually a quarter) of the amonnt received. The crisis came in 1839, when Stephen Van Rensselaer (q.v.), one of the largest landholders, died. He had been remiss in col lecting his rents, and his heirs served writs of ejectment on tenants in Albany County. The tenants thereupon resisted, and on several occa sions the resulting disturbances were so serious that the militia bad to be called out. By 1842 the trouble had spread to other manors. Anti-rent associations were formed over most of the lease hold districts, rents were withheld, and evictions resisted, while the grievances of the tenants were aired in newspapers devoted to their interests and in memorials to the Legislature.
The question hemline political and was fo mented by agitators for their own special pur poses, the anti-rent party ultimately controlling the legislative delegations of eleven counties.
Lawlessness became prevalent, and bands of men, absurdly disguised as "Indians," assaulted, tarred and feathered, and, in several instances, murdered, deputy sheriffs and their assistants. A law passed by the Legislature against men appearing in public in disguise proved ineffec tual, and on August 7, 1845, 0. N. Steele, a dep uty sheriff of Delaware County, was surrounded and shot down by disguised men while serving a process. Governor Wright forthwith put the county under martial law, and arrested over one hundred men. of whom fifty were convicted, twenty being sent to the State prison and two sentenced to death. The death penalty was commuted by Governor Wright for life im prisonment, and eventually, in January, 1847, all of the prisoners were pardoned by Governor Young. The repressive measures broke up the unlawful resistance, though they caused the de feat. of Governor Wright by .John Young, the anti rent candidate, at the next election. in 1846, moreover, an article was inserted in the new State Constitution definitely abolishing all feudal tenures and forbidding future leases of agricul tural land for a period longer than twelve years. Consult: Cheyney, The Anti-Rent Agitation (Philadelphia, 1887), and Murray, The Anti. Rent Episode in .\eu' York, in the "Report of the American Historical Association for 1890."