Rensselaerswyck

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See also: New Netherland Settlements

Not to be confused with the New Netherland immigration ship of the same name: Rensselaerswyck, sailed September 1636.

Rensselaerswyck

Rensselaerswyck (also spelled Rensselaerswijck and Rensselaerwyck) was the large land holding in what is now upstate New York that was for many decades the domain of "patroon" Killiaen van Rensselaer and his descendants. Van Rensselaer was a director of the West India Company that controlled the New Netherland colony. After receiving authorization from Dutch authorities in 1629, through agents, he acquired several hundred thousand acres of land from Mahicans to create what has been called a "colony within a colony." The "Colonie of Rensselaerswyck" or "Manor of Rensselaerswyck" surrounded the West India Company's Fort Orange on all sides, encompassing modern Albany County (all but the original city of Albany) and Rensselaer County, as well as parts of Columbia and Greene Counties.^[1]

After the English took control of New Netherland, the unusual land tenure arrangements of Van Rensselaer's patroonship were confirmed by the English colonial governors. Settlers who farmed in Rensselaerswyck held life leases or perpetual leases, with feudal-type obligations that typically included a requirement to provide one day of labor service each year, pay "four fat fowls" on rent day, and pay an annual rent fixed in bushels of wheat. The landlord was entitled to reenter the property if these obligations were not fulfilled. Most tenants held perpetual leases, which could be passed to succeeding generations or sold, but if property was sold one-quarter of the sale price was required to be paid to the landlord. This was a form of land tenure that had been prohibited in England since the passage of Quia Emptores in 1290. ^[2]

The "Anti-Rent War" of the 1800s was a protest movement by Rensselaerswyck tenant farmers resentful of the lease arrangements. According to Christman, Henry, Tin Horns and Calico, Hope Farm Press, 1978, pp. 128-130, as cited by Albany Hilltowns on [https://web.archive.org/web/20110910124530/http://www.albanyhilltowns.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Anti-rent_War now-archived "Anti-rent War" page), the first mass meeting of tenant farmers leading to the Anti-Rent War was held in Berne, New York, on July 4th, 1839. In January, 1845 one hundred and fifty delegates from eleven New York counties assembled in St. Paul's Lutheran Church to call for political action to redress their grievances.

Resources

See also Category: New Netherland Genealogy Resources

General Information

• Introduction to Rensselaerswijck, New Netherland Institute website
• Stefan Bielinski, Rensselaerswyck, New York State Museum website.
• Wikipedia, Manor of Rensselaerswyck
• Tina Ordone, "Anti-Rent Wars" (including a short History of Rensselaerswyck), Stephentown Genealogy website.

Maps

• Detailed Map of Rensselaerswyck in 1767, by John R. Bleecker

Detail from the 1767 map, with links to biographies and other information about some residents of Rensselaerswyck at that time.

• 1776 map of New York by Claude Joseph Sauthier shows the "Mannor of Renslaer"

Data

• List of Manor of Rensselaerwyck Settlers east of the Hudson River, 1767

Historical Research

• Privatizing Colonization: The Patroonship of Rensselaerswijck. by Dr. Charles T. Gehring, Director New Netherland Project
• van Rensselaer, Kiliaen and A. J. F. Van Laer. Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts: Being the Letters of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, 1630-1643, and Other Documents Relating to the Colony of Rensselaerswyck. Albany, N.Y.: University of the State of New York, 1908.
• The Memorandum Book of Anthony de Hooges, c. 1646-1656, translation published by the New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2012.
• The Anti-rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865, by Charles W. McCurdy. University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Google Books preview.
• Anti-Rent Movement, The Encyclopedia of New York State.
• Saddlemire, Mrs. Freida. Sesquicentennial Anti-Rent Article, from the booklet, Knox, New York Sesquicentennial, 1822-1972. Archived from Albany Hilltowns website.
• Henry Esmond Christman (1906-1980). Tin Horns and Calico: A Decisive Episode in the Emergence of Democracy. United States: Holt, 1945., https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tin_Horns_and_Calico/5NZxAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
• Old Hellebergh; Historical sketches of the West Manor of Rensselaerswyck; including an account of the anti-rent wars, the Glass House and Henry R. Schoolcraft, by Arthur B. Gregg. With a foreword by Dr. Alexander C. Flick., Altamont, N.Y., The Altamont enterprise, 1936, https://archive.org/details/oldhelleberghhis00greg , accessed 20 Nov 2022.

Historic and Archaeological Sites

• Crailo State Historic Site (home in Rensselaar, New York, built in the early 18th century by Hendrick Van Rensselaer)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The epic story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten colony that shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
2. ↑ Wallis, John Joseph; published by EH.NET (September 2002). Review of The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865, by Charles W. McCurdy. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

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