WEBVTT

NOTE 77. Tory Lands in New York

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000
Volume 4, Chapter 77, Tory Lands in New York

2
00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:18.000
These conflicting tendencies are highly important in assessing the results of large-scale land compensation in New York from which the state received $3 million in proceeds.

3
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:24.000
New York's land system was uniquely shot through with feudalistic land monopoly.

4
00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:37.000
Huge manorial estates derived from the land grants of the early 18th century were still largely intact and contained an oppressed and restive tenant peasantry.

5
00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:50.000
Confiscation of large Tory quasi-feudal estates was therefore particularly significant in the much-needing democratizing of land ownership in New York.

6
00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:56.800
in New York. A particularly vital question for justice in land was the extent to which

7
00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:03.800
land ownership reverted to the tenants in this process or instead went to land speculators

8
00:01:03.940 --> 00:01:09.960
privileged by the state. New York feudalism was greatly weakened by the very fact of the

9
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:16.520
breakup of the large Tory estates. This was the inevitable result of the confiscation

10
00:01:16.520 --> 00:01:23.760
and Breakup of the Huge Estates of the Johnsons, Phillipsburg Manor of Phillips in Westchester,

11
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:29.920
the Roger Morris and Beverly Robinson Estates in Dutchess County, now Putnam, and the Delancey

12
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:38.160
Estate in New York City. These last four accounted for nearly 90% of the tenetry of all Tory

13
00:01:38.160 --> 00:01:44.800
land holdings in New York. Thus, James Delancey's estate in southern New York was broken up

14
00:01:44.800 --> 00:02:01.800
New York's land confiscation policy came in two stages. The first policy was sequestration.

15
00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:08.940
In the spring of 1777, commissioners of sequestration were appointed for each county and were authorized

16
00:02:08.940 --> 00:02:15.940
was to seize all personal property of Tories in the county and to sell it immediately at public auction.

17
00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:22.940
Tory lands, on the other hand, were to be sequestered by the State and held in trust.

18
00:02:22.940 --> 00:02:28.940
The State, meanwhile, taking over the role of landlord, exacting rents from the tenetary.

19
00:02:28.940 --> 00:02:34.940
Some leases were granted by private application rather than by public auction,

20
00:02:34.940 --> 00:02:41.100
Preble refugees from southern New York were to be favored in granting leases, so favoritism

21
00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:42.540
was rife.

22
00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:47.860
Numerous tenants were evicted to make room for favored emigres from southern New York.

23
00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:55.300
The tenetries soon found to their dismay that government feudal landlords were just as oppressive

24
00:02:55.300 --> 00:03:01.620
as private landlords, just as tyrannical, just as cruel to squatters, and just as prone

25
00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:11.620
Firmament by the disgruntled tenetary quickly took the form of pressing for outright confiscation and sale of the Tory estates.

26
00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:15.620
The greatest pressure occurred in South Dutchess County.

27
00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:24.620
On the one hand, this area was the frontier nearest British control and filled with rebel refugees from Westchester.

28
00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:27.980
World with Rebel Refugees from Westchester.

29
00:03:27.980 --> 00:03:33.860
On the other hand, the landlords in the area were mainly Tory, and hence their tenants

30
00:03:33.860 --> 00:03:41.060
had a strong economic incentive to become ardent Whigs and press for outright confiscation

31
00:03:41.060 --> 00:03:43.900
and break-up of the estates.

32
00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:52.540
In October 1778, 448 citizens of Dutchess County petitioned the Assembly for a Confiscation

33
00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:53.540
Bill.

34
00:03:53.540 --> 00:04:00.460
It is not surprising that the right wing was bitterly hostile to confiscation, and Livingston,

35
00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:07.460
Gouverneur Morris and the Jays denounced the plan as a great compound of folly, avarice

36
00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:09.500
and injustice.

37
00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:15.700
The moderate centrist, Governor Clinton, strongly opposed the confiscation laws.

38
00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:22.360
The leader in the Assembly for Confiscation was the old anti-landlord champion of the tenant

39
00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:30.360
Struggles of the 1760s. The independent freeholder Dirk Brinkerhof of Dutchess County, the veteran

40
00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:36.640
John Moran Scott, was also leading advocate of confiscation. The great confiscation laws

41
00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:45.280
of 1779-80, in fact, were driven through solely by mass pressure from below, pressure against

42
00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:53.360
both Clinton and the ultra-right. Thus a confiscation bill passed in February 1779 but was vetoed

43
00:04:53.360 --> 00:05:01.840
by the Council of Revision as unjust and an attainder. The veto precipitated a great crisis

44
00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:08.880
in New York politics. Radical victories swept the spring elections in 1779. Elections which

45
00:05:08.880 --> 00:05:15.440
which took place in Orange and Ulster counties with pro-radical militia batteries ominously

46
00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:18.680
maneuvering near the polling booths.

47
00:05:18.680 --> 00:05:26.360
In the fall session of the 1779 Assembly, two-thirds of the delegates were new and radical.

48
00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:30.800
It was this session that drove through the radical legislation of New York during the

49
00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:32.680
Revolution.

50
00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:39.120
As the fall session opened in October, the New York Legislature passed a tax law authorizing

51
00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:44.040
discriminatory assessments against suspected Tories.

52
00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:50.280
More important, on October 22, the same month as the peak of Pennsylvania radical strength

53
00:05:50.280 --> 00:05:57.240
in the attack on Fort Wilson, it passed a law attaining for treason a long list of Tories

54
00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:00.080
and confiscating their estates.

55
00:06:00.080 --> 00:06:05.480
Fifty-nine Tories were thus attainted for treason and expropriated.

56
00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:11.280
Once the lands were confiscated, the crucial question became, would these lands be divided

57
00:06:11.280 --> 00:06:13.800
and sold into private hands?

58
00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:18.680
If so, then land monopoly would be dealt a tremendous blow.

59
00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:24.660
The lands would be divided and parceled out, and irretrievably democratized.

60
00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:30.140
But if not, if the lands were rather kept by the state, then the land monopoly system

61
00:06:30.140 --> 00:06:35.900
would be retained, the tenants kept in their place, and perhaps the lands would even be

62
00:06:35.900 --> 00:06:39.240
returned to the large Tory owners.

63
00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:46.140
As a result, the conservatives in the legislature, led by the wily lawyer and longtime representative

64
00:06:46.140 --> 00:06:52.340
of the feudal landlords, Egbert Benson of Dutchess County, devoted themselves to trying

65
00:06:52.340 --> 00:06:56.020
and to block the division and sale of the Tory lands.

66
00:06:56.020 --> 00:07:02.420
Staunton Lind has pointed out that this very question, the division and sale of confiscated

67
00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:09.420
feudal lands, proved to be a turning point in both the English and French revolutions.

68
00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:15.660
In England, a major factor in the Cromwellian counterrevolution was strong opposition by

69
00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:25.660
by Presbyterians and London Merchants to the sequestration and sale of royalist and bishop-owned lands.

70
00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:42.660
And in France, a crucial feature of the Reign of Terror was to be the Jacobin decision to sell off confiscated feudal lands in small lots at low bargain prices in order to get the land into the hands of the peasantry.

71
00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:49.660
In both revolutions, it was this decision to take the crucial step to smash feudalism

72
00:07:49.660 --> 00:07:56.060
and turn the lands over to the peasantry that alienated the middle-class land speculators

73
00:07:56.060 --> 00:07:58.820
and helped wreck the revolution.

74
00:07:58.820 --> 00:08:04.900
Fortunately, the United States did not suffer from that great weight of feudal land.

75
00:08:04.900 --> 00:08:10.660
Hence, the task of the revolution against feudalism was far easier, except in the case

76
00:08:10.660 --> 00:08:40.660
The Radicals kept up a drum-fire of pressure on the New York Assembly for sale of the lands throughout the 1779-80 sessions. Every county sent petitions for immediate sale. Finally, after a great deal of resistance by the Senate, the final step was taken in democratizing and liberalizing the land system, sale of land.

77
00:08:40.660 --> 00:08:42.940
of the Confiscated Lands.

78
00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:46.780
The bill became law on March 11, 1780.

79
00:08:46.780 --> 00:08:53.140
To make things easier for the tenetry, the patriotic tenants were excused from all arrears

80
00:08:53.140 --> 00:09:01.260
in rent, and the lands leased to the emigres were sold on the same terms as the rest.

81
00:09:01.260 --> 00:09:06.500
We come now to a critical problem in judging the social effects of the confiscation of

82
00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:14.500
In the French Revolution, moneyed speculators, instead of small peasants, acquired the feudal lands.

83
00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:21.500
In the English, most confiscated land found its way back to the original owners.

84
00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:23.500
What of the New York lands?

85
00:09:23.500 --> 00:09:30.500
Recent researchers have shown that the bulk of land sales did go to tenants rather than speculators,

86
00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:59.500
Stanton Lind has found that in Dutchess County, some cases occurred of Whig relatives returning land to the original Tory owners, with more cases of middle-class land speculators acquiring one or two tracts to lease to the existing tenants.

87
00:09:59.500 --> 00:10:09.500
Some tenants, unable to buy their farms in competition with the speculators, did demand that the government lease the land to them at low prices.

88
00:10:09.500 --> 00:10:27.500
But Lind concludes that the fact remains that the ledgers of the commissioners bear out the older view that most of the confiscated land went to small farmers and so contributed to the destruction of aristocracy in New York.

89
00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:48.500
This happy result was largely due to the sale law, which provided that confiscated land be sold in parcels of 500 acres or less, and the typical farm in Dutchess was 100 to 200 acres, and especially that existing tenants be given first option in acquiring their land.

90
00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:55.500
The tenants were allowed preemption for eight months to purchase the land at an appraised price.

91
00:10:55.500 --> 00:11:10.500
The appraisal was to be made by three men, one of them the tenant himself, another a commissioner, and the third selected jointly by the other two, so that the tenant had a large share in deciding how much he might have to pay.

92
00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:16.580
During the 1780s, it is true, the law was altered by a more conservative assembly to

93
00:11:16.580 --> 00:11:22.380
the disadvantage of the tenants, including the weakening of tenant preemption rights.

94
00:11:22.380 --> 00:11:27.420
But time was sufficient for the tenants to reap the benefits of this liberal measure.

95
00:11:27.420 --> 00:11:37.220
Thus, in Dutchess County, 496 confiscated lots were sold, of which 471 belonged to four

96
00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:44.620
prominent Tories, Beverly Robinson, Roger Morris, Henry Clinton, and Charles Inglis.

97
00:11:44.620 --> 00:11:49.980
And 414 lots belonged to Robinson and Morris alone.

98
00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:58.180
These 414 lots in South Dutchess were sold to no fewer than 401 persons and in very few

99
00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:02.920
cases did one person buy more than one lot.

100
00:12:02.920 --> 00:12:08.840
Almost all the lots were farms under the 500-acre limit, and the average price per lot was

101
00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:15.480
inexpensive, less than 100 pounds. A large proportion of these small, cheap and widely

102
00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:22.240
shared lots, perhaps a majority, were bought by the actual pre-existing tenants.

103
00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:28.240
For Westchester, democratizing took place where it was most needed, in the large, heavily

104
00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:34.240
Tory tenanted estates. The land speculators made their main acquisitions in the scattered

105
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:41.300
urban or unoccupied land holdings. Lind points out that in Bergen County, New Jersey, where

106
00:12:41.300 --> 00:12:47.220
Tory land holdings were small farms rather than large estates, the confiscation policy

107
00:12:47.220 --> 00:12:53.940
led to no decrease in concentration of land, nor did it have to, since the real need for

108
00:12:53.940 --> 00:12:59.740
for Social Change was precisely in the tenanted estates.

109
00:12:59.740 --> 00:13:04.000
The majority of the purchasers were residents on their lands.

110
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:10.060
The disposition of Westchester's largest Tory estate, Phillipsburg Manor, has recently been

111
00:13:10.060 --> 00:13:12.660
studied by Beatrice Rubens.

112
00:13:12.660 --> 00:13:21.240
This huge estate composed one-fifth of present-day Westchester County, or 50,000 acres, centering

113
00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:22.900
on Yonkers.

114
00:13:22.900 --> 00:13:28.820
At the outbreak of the revolution, Philipsburg, the domain of the Philipses, contained over

115
00:13:28.820 --> 00:13:34.760
270 tenants on farms of about 200 acres each.

116
00:13:34.760 --> 00:13:41.140
The manor, moreover, contained no freeholds and the tenetree was theoretically on a highly

117
00:13:41.140 --> 00:13:48.500
insecure at-will contract, which also prevented them from voting in colonial elections and

118
00:13:48.500 --> 00:13:53.300
and from holding major offices in later state elections.

119
00:13:53.300 --> 00:13:58.620
Since Westchester was occupied by the British throughout the war, the Confiscation Law could

120
00:13:58.620 --> 00:14:02.500
not be applied to it until the war was over.

121
00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:07.020
The same was true of New York City and other occupied areas.

122
00:14:07.020 --> 00:14:13.700
Phillipsburg Manor was therefore disposed of under the 1784 Confiscation Law, which

123
00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:41.700
It was not as liberal in granting preemption rights as the law of 1779, yet the result of the disposition of Phillipsburg, first and foremost, was to replace one powerful landlord with more than 50,000 acres and 270 tenants by 287 independent farmers, owning an average of 174 acres each.

124
00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:50.700
Moreover, more than two-thirds of the purchasers bought farms which they themselves had worked as tenants of the estate.

125
00:14:50.700 --> 00:15:03.700
Various heirs of tenants are not included in these figures, and many purchasers were really stand-ins who resold the land to tenants who had not been ready to preempt at the designated time.

126
00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:09.700
Furthermore, the commissioners were very lenient and helpful to the preempting tenants,

127
00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:13.700
extending their credit for payment beyond the letter of the law.

128
00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:20.700
The extent of liberalization of land tenure in Phillipsburg was therefore obviously enormous.

129
00:15:20.700 --> 00:15:28.700
It is true that throughout the confiscated lands of New York, the tenants, not being granted their tracts outright,

130
00:15:28.700 --> 00:15:35.700
were often forced to buy the lands on mortgage and sometimes lost their lands to the mortgageor.

131
00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:43.700
But this was only a fly in the ointment of their newly found prosperity and status as owners of their land.