Tenant Farmers at Philipsburgh Manor
By Terre Thomas
This is a paper produced by the Historic Hudson Valley 1996.

In 1685 the erstwhile Duke of York for whom the colony of New York was named, succeeded to the English throne as James II. As Duke of York he was the official owner of any unclaimed land in the New York province, but after the Duke's succession the New York Governor Thomas Dongan began a generous policy of royal land grants. In fact, so much land was distributed between 1685 and 1708 by Dongan and his successors that the thirty odd estates took up two million acres² of New York province, six of which accounted for roughly half of Westchester County. As one New York chronicler described it, "groups of men who possessed capital bought enormous areas in the river counties and sold farms... vigorously ...there were scandals, occasioned by political graft, fraudulent grants and overlapping boundaries, but the situation gradually cleared…" ³

It is interesting to note here that landlords such as Frederick Philipse did buy their land, often from the Native Americans, but that they were required to pay a "quitrent" to the crown. Quitrent as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is "rent paid by a freeholder or copyholder in lieu of services". The words "lease" and "sold" seem to have been used interchangeably in the 17th and 18th centuries, and indeed the tenants also "bought" a lease but continued to pay rent.

These grants of land coincided with a depression in the fur trade, new demand from Europe for both lumber and wheat, and a need for wheat in the West Indies. ⁴ Dongan’s main aim seems to have been to promote settlement in the New York province, and therefore to extend territorial rights and economic diversification. ⁵ It has also been suggested that by giving certain privileges to the provincial elite, Dongan was also forging important allies both. Financially and politically, especially since many of these landowners were then appointed to top political positions. ⁶

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