The Dutch West India company authorized its members in New York to take up land upon the banks of the streams and rivers, on condition of introducing within a limited time 50 settlers for every mile of land. The proprietor was invested with the title and privileges of a lord patroon or protector, and his colony or manor was governed by the same customs and laws as were the feudal manors of the United Provinces. After the revolution a very large proportion of the land in the settled parts of New York was held by the patroons, and the cultivators occupied their farms on leases for one or more lives, or from year to year, stipulating for the payment of rents, dues, and services, copied from the feudal tenures of England and Holland. In 1779 and 1785 laws were enacted by the legislature of the state abolishing feudal tenures, but the proprietors of manor grants, unwilling to give up all their feudal claims, contrived a form of deed by which the grantees covenanted to perform services, and pay rents and dues, precisely similar to the feudal incidents thus abolished.

The counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Delaware, Schoharie, Montgomery, Herkimer, Otsego, and Oneida include within their limits most of these manors. In 1839 associations were formed to devise means for getting rid of these burdens, and soon became known as anti-rent associations. The anti-rent feeling manifested itself in open resistance to the service of legal process for the collection of manorial rents. The first conflict which awakened general attention happened in the town of Grafton, Rensselaer county, where a band of anti-renters in disguise killed a man named Smith during an altercation on the highway. A legal investigation, at which more than 200 persons were from time to time examined, failed to disclose the author of the deed. In his messages of 1841 and 1842, Gov. Seward discussed the grievances complained of by the tenants. He recommended a reference of the matters in dispute to arbitrators, and appointed three men to investigate and report to the legislature. This commission failed to accomplish anything. The disaffection and excitement increased, until, after a tragical affair at Andes in Delaware county in 1845, Gov. Wright issued a proclamation, declaring the county in a state of insurrection.

The trials and convictions at Delhi in that county, and the convictions of certain anti-renters at Hudson, Columbia county, for conspiracy and resistance to law, put an end to operations by the disguised bands. The anti-rent associations determined to form a political party, whose policy should be to elect all town and county officers from their own ranks, and to vote for no state, civil, judicial, or executive officers unfriendly to them, or unpledged to their cause. In the legislatures of 1842-'7 about one eighth of the members were elected in the interest of the anti-renters. In the constitutional convention of 1840 some of the ablest men were avowedly anti-renters, or advocates of their measures and principles. Their influence procured the insertion of a clause in the new constitution abolishing all feudal tenures and incidents, and forbidding the leasing of agricultural land for a term exceeding 12 years. The legislature at successive sessions passed laws which bore heavily upon the landlord interest, and tended gradually to ameliorate the condition of the tenants. In 184G Gov. Wright, who was a candidate for reelection, was defeated by 10,000 majority for John Young, whom the anti-renters had nominated.

Gov. Young pardoned from the state prison all the so-called anti-rent convicts, on the ground that their offences were rather political than criminal, and that it was the wise policy of all good governments to forgive and restore to citizenship political offenders, after the law had been vindicated and order and peace restored. After 1847 the excitement died out, the anti-rent influence ceased to be a disturbing force in politics, and the anti-rent organization contented itself with efforts to contest in the courts the validity of the titles of the landlords, and the legality of the conditions and covenants contained in the manor grants.