America's *Other* Declaration of Independence & the Anti-Rent War | HISTORY This Week

By HISTORY

Community Score: 50% | 841 views | 2w

0 community ratings: null thumbs up, null thumbs down

July 4, 1839. Sixty-three years after 1776—and centuries after the medieval period—feudalism is alive and well in the United States. High on a rocky plain in upstate New York, a crowd of tenant farmers gathers in the village of Berne to read aloud a declaration of independence… but not the one you're thinking of. These families are still bound to a landlord by perpetual leases their grandfathers signed, owing bushels of wheat and a share of every sale for as long as the land exists. Today they're done. They call their leases "voluntary slavery" and vow to "take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it." It's the opening shot of the Anti-Rent War, a revolt that will pit disguised farmers against sheriffs and posses across the Hudson Valley, and force New York to ask whether a feudal bargain has any place in a republic. How did manor lords survive the Revolution? And what would it finally take to break their grip? Special thanks Reeve Huston, emeritus associate p

Tags: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, the history channel, documentary history channel, history documentary, documentary, history channel full episodes, documentaries, history channel documentaries, history this week podcast, declaration of independence, american history, world history, american revolutionary war, History This Week Podcast, history this week podcast full episodes, history this week podcast full eps, History This Week