Fire and you die

What happened

New Jersey's land war began because dozens of owners claimed the same ground. The East Jersey proprietors, led by Lewis Morris, who became governor in 1738, tried to collect quitrents and to throw settlers off land they had bought from the Indians. In 1745 they filed a Chancery suit against the Elizabethtown settlers, with Morris's own court to hear it. Then Samuel Baldwin was arrested for cutting timber on land he held as his own, and a crowd broke open the Newark jail and freed him. The next winter Nehemiah Baldwin was taken, and again a club-carrying crowd took him back. Then three hundred settlers appeared at the Newark jail, where thirty armed militia stood in their way. They told the militia they would kill every man if fired on, and the militia did not fire. The crowd broke in and freed the prisoners. Amos Roberts, who headed the January break-in, went on to lead the rebellion. Rothbard calls it a popular revolution, and says a government relying on its own resources cannot put one down. In 1752 the proprietors dropped the suit, and the feudal overlordship they had tried to impose in New Jersey collapsed.