I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that it may have been part of Murray’s source for his material, although it’s not referenced in this article. Like MNR, I’ve had a lot of interest in early American history, although I’ve done more on the Am Rev.

Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/

If Penn had exercised his rights as proprietor to quitrent, he would simply have billeted his own officers on defaulting tenants’ land, agisting his livestock on it. That was what quitrent was – a payment compounding for the exercise of these retained rights over property.

The case of the Hudson Valley Patroons also shows that it wasn’t simply geography, but location. The tenants were at all times free to move to new land, yet preferred to stay with access to the river trade. They freed themselves from their freely accepted tenancies by rigging the political system, expropriating the descendants of those who had helped their ancestors settle there.

So in point of fact, although geography did indeed help liberty, much of this was in fact a gloss for theft.

Incidentally, the usual situation that emerges isn’t general liberty, but rather a free population that joins forces with the system to kick away the ladder after them. They end up with at least de facto secure liberty, at the price of stopping that way out against later comers – the ecological niche has been filled. Cases include the cossacks and the maroons.

- Josh

Incidentally, the first leather (cowhide, not bonded) edition of the History of Economic Thought just arrived in our offices. All I can say is wow! We will have only 200 sets, and since we just approved this one copy, they bindery will work on the remaining ones–by hand, one by one. It will become available in a few weeks.