Land and Freedom

During the early 19th century, a quarter of a million tenants farmed the great estates of New York. Beginning in 1839, at least twenty five thousand of those tenants joined the "anti-rent" movement and began a decade-long fight to destroy the great estates and distribute the land among those who farmed it. One of the most powerful popular movements of the antebellum era and the largest American farmers' movement before the Civil War, the Anti-Rent Wars changed the face of society and politics in New York and the nation, influencing the ideas and careers of such national leaders as Martin Van Buren, William Seward, and Horace Greeley. This book tells this story, providing a lively narrative with nuanced and highly current historiographic insight.