Patroon

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

pa-troon', in American history, a name applied by the Dutch government to certain landed proprietors in the valley of the Hudson and the Mohawk. The term is akin to the English patron. Beginning with 1629 the Dutch West India Company, by whom the New Netherlands, afterward known as New York , was colonized, offered tracts of land and certain privileges to any leaders who would found colonies of not less than fifty persons. Numerous tracts fronting on the Hudson and the Mohawk, comprising the finest lands in New York state, passed in this way into the possession of patroons. When the colony became a possession of England the patroons retained their rights. They formed a sort of colonial aristocracy and held high political and social stations in the colony. They allotted lands to settlers on condition of paying rent. Early in the nineteenth century the settlers began to protest against the payment of rent. Anti-rentism became a political issue. About 1839 the situation became critical. Angry disputes arose. Agents or sheriffs sent to collect rents were maltreated and even killed. The private grounds and possessions of the patroons were assaulted by mobs. The sum demanded by the patroons varied from $7 to $18 a year for each hundred acres, possibly less than is now paid as taxes. After several years of agitation the difficulty was settled by the plan of allowing the occupants of the farms, now become exceedingly valuable, to purchase a complete title at a nominal price. The patroon and the anti-rent disputes passed into history.