Anti-Rent Party,
a
party which gained some political influence in
New York, and which had its origin in the refusal of
tenants, who were dissatisfied with the
patroon system, to pay rent. The matter was settled by compromise in
1850. The patroons were early
Dutch settlers who received vast tracts of land in what is now New York, on conditions which made them virtually
feudal lords of the soil. The tenants rebelled against these conditions, and popular sympathy being with them, the heirs of the patroons were brought to terms by legislation inimical to the system under which they held their lands, while at the same time the rights of
property were sustained.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.