Summary
The Anti-Rent War started over the location of the border between the Boston Bay Colony and colonial New York around 1750. The Boston Bay Colony set up three new townships and gave title to 100 acres of free land to new settlers—on land claimed by Robert Livingston. The author’s boyhood home was in one of these townships. Rebels of the North discusses the struggle of the New York farmers who rebelled against the aristocrats and forged political power that influenced land policy not only in New York, but also for the western land. The book makes the case that Lincoln could not have been elected without the backing of the northern farmers, and that the Civil War was started to determine how the western land would be settled. Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862. Slavery was not the cause of the Civil War, but it ended because of the Civil War.
About the Author
Author Grant Langdon grew up in Copake, New York, and returned home after college to run a 380-acre dairy farm. His first book, Scandal in the Courtroom: Found Guilty without Trial, tells what happened when a serial arsonist terrified the community. He relocated to Cincinnati in 1997.
