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Green Arrow
10-29-2017, 06:37 PM
Via Jacobin (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/10/anti-rent-war-movement-feudalism-new-york):


In 1839, the people of Berne, New York, a small farming community near Albany, celebrated Independence Day by issuing their own declaration of independence — not from the government but from their landlord.

Unique among Americans at the time, the region’s residents had lived under a feudal system of land tenancy since the 1600s, a product of the Netherlands’ brief flirtation with the so-called New World. The declaration in Berne kicked off a sequence of events that would culminate in the oft-forgotten Anti-Rent War of 1845.

The tenants’ uprising marked a turning point in the history of activism in the US. Before 1840, sporadic renters’ strikes conformed to a familiar pattern: tenants would riot, state militia would be sent in, perhaps the most outspoken rioter would be jailed, and all would soon be forgotten. In contrast, the tenants in Berne created a coherent movement with clear goals, and became a political force in New York. Within a decade, feudal land ownership in New York had faded away.

That literal feudalism persisted in the United States until the 1840s is a fact curiously absent from most history books. That it took the sustained effort of a large (and at times violent) movement to dislodge the oppressive arrangement is a testament to the power of the status quo.

But this forgotten chapter in US history underscores the extent to which elites will defend contractual arrangements that benefit the rich and powerful, no matter how unjust or antithetical they are to supposed American values. The same holds true today.
The victors write the histories, and the rich and powerful have been the victors for a long time. There has been a decades-long movement to purge from mainstream historical knowledge all of the fights and revolutions of the past against the exploitation of workers and other less fortunate Americans at the hands of the powerful. We must remember these fights and successes and keep them from fading from consciousness.

Anyone who thinks the fight for freedom and workers' rights is over is not paying attention. Yes, it's true, we've come a long way from where we were in the past, but the times now are beginning to mirror the events that led to the Progressive Era (1890-1945). There is still a wide gulf between rich and poor, the rich still have the ability to essentially buy out our government at all levels, pay is stagnating even as productivity skyrockets along with profits for the rich. Workers' rights have not kept up with the times.

IMPress Polly
10-29-2017, 06:57 PM
I agree with you, GA! We have re-entered that sort of era in many ways.

Crepitus
10-29-2017, 07:05 PM
Why the business owners are so dead set against raising the minimum wage and would a tally like to see it lowered or eliminated.

Green Arrow
10-29-2017, 07:33 PM
I agree with you, GA! We have re-entered that sort of era in many ways.
The popular conception of time is that it moves in a line, but I prefer to look at it as a wheel. The crisis that led to the Progressive Era has reared its ugly head again, but so too are progressives rising again.

Peter1469
10-29-2017, 07:49 PM
I would not be against the old Jewish concept of a Jubilee. Although it would encourage people to take advantage of it.

Peter1469
10-29-2017, 07:50 PM
Why the business owners are so dead set against raising the minimum wage and would a tally like to see it lowered or eliminated.

Nobody in Mobile, Alabama is going to pay anyone $15 bucks an hour to clean dishes. Get real.

Chris
10-29-2017, 07:59 PM
Another perspective…


The incident began with the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer III in 1839. Van Rensselaer, who was described as having "...proved a lenient and benevolent landowner" was the patroon of the region at the time, and was a descendant of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the first patroon of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck. During his life, he preferred to allow rents to accumulate or to accept partial payment when tenants were in financial constraints. The patroons owned all the land on which the tenants in the Hudson Valley lived, and used feudal leases to maintain control of the region. When he died, Van Rensselaer's will directed his heirs to collect outstanding rents to apply to the estate debts. When his heirs attempted to collect the rents which he had long deferred, tenant farmers resisted. The tenants could not pay the amounts demanded, could not secure favorable terms, and could not obtain relief in the courts, so they revolted.

The first mass meeting of tenant farmers leading to the Anti-Rent War was held in Berne, New York on July 4, 1839. In January 1845, one hundred and fifty delegates from eleven counties assembled in St. Paul's Lutheran Church,[1] Berne to call for political action to redress their grievances.[2]

@ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rent_War

Chris
10-29-2017, 08:04 PM
And another…


Centered in the Catskill counties of New York state, the Anti-Rent War of 1839–1846 was a rebellion against the old patroon system of estate landownership. Protest took the form of harassment of rent collectors by farmers disguised as "Indians," who shot seized livestock and broke up rent sales. In 1845, however, protesters killed a deputy sheriff, prompting a sheriff's posse, reinforced by state militia, to begin wreaking havoc in Delaware County while searching for the killers. Ninety-four anti-rent men were arrested and indicted for murder, while 148 were charged with other crimes, including arson, theft, and rioting.

However, this heavy-handed reaction against a system largely obsolete o

HHowever, this heavy-handed reaction against a system largely obsolete outside New York drew great sympathy for the anti-renters, and in the 1845 New York elections, a governor gained office on the promise of pardoning all the anti-renters, reforming the land system, and beginning the practice of electing the New York attorney general, all of which were done by 1846.

@ http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/anti-rent-war


That is interesting because the patroon system was already on it's way out.

Green Arrow
10-29-2017, 08:24 PM
Nobody in Mobile, Alabama is going to pay anyone $15 bucks an hour to clean dishes. Get real.

I don’t want to get too far off-topic but the minimum wage wouldn’t need to be $15 in Mobile, AL, I suspect.

Chris
11-01-2017, 03:39 PM
I read some more on this but lost the links. Generally, this case was one of the last surviving feudal estates in a world turning to individualism and free markets and pursuit of happiness. It was successful largely because the owner loaded money generously and never forced the collection of loans and rents if they couldn't be paid, iow, if doing so would have forced people into pauperism. When he died he stated in his will that in order to settle his own affairs, then tenants should be forced to pay old debts if need be. The tenants decided to revolt and their leaders arrested for refusing to pay off debts. It was the last of its kind and died a natural death, so to speak.


If you want a good view of how the revolutionary war was more than a political revolution, but more of a cultural and social revolution, replacing premodern fuedalism with modern individualism where titles and landed property where a thing of the past, I suggest Gordon S Wood's Radicalism of the American Revolution. Here's a decent review: https://fee.org/articles/the-radicalism-of-the-american-revolution/

Also, I just started watching "Poldark" now in its 3rd season about this very theme of social upheaval: Capt. Ross Poldark, a landed redcoat returning to Cornwall after the American Revolutionary War where his father has dies and his estate is falling apart and moneyless. His arch-enemy is a father-son pair who are traders trying to move up in society when the old hierarchies are crumpling around them. It's available on Amazon Prime. Produced in Britain (naturally).