106 THE GREEN RISING 



prietary interests than when collected as a tax by 

 the British government. "The American farmer," 

 says Lyman Carrier, "could see no good reason for 

 paying a continual tax to a non-resident overlord 

 who in numerous instances had contributed nothing 

 toward making the settlement and had been granted 

 land as a personal favor by the Crown." 6 



The attitude of the farmers toward the payment 

 of quit-rents varied greatly in the different colonies. 

 One of the reasons for many of the settlers' coming 

 to America was to escape the abuses of this system, 

 and it was natural for them to oppose violently the 

 payment of this assessment. On the other hand, 

 others were far more tolerant toward the system. 

 Proprietors like William Penn and Lord Baltimore 

 or Lord Fairfax, who came to America to live, seem 

 to have had very little trouble collecting quit-rents, 

 but their non-resident heirs were not so successful in 

 this undertaking. In the four New England 

 Colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connec- 

 ticut, and Rhode Island no quit- rents ever were 

 assessed. 



North Carolina was one of the colonies in which 

 the protest against the payment of this rent was 

 most serious. The five royal governors who ruled in 

 this colony were in almost constant conflict with 

 the settlers over this problem. Bassett says: "The 

 most continual quarrel was in regard to the payment 



8 Beginnings of Agriculture in America (1923), Chap. XXV, 

 p. 298. 



