In colonial New York, grants of extensive estates in the 17th and 18th centuries gave the Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, and other owners considerable power over land and tenants, and many of their manorial privileges lasted into the 19th century. Hardworking farmers who could not purchase land on the manors but could only obtain perpetual leases objected to the powers exerted by these aristocratic landlords. Periodic outbursts of unrest in the 1830's and 1840's culminated in the Anti-Rent Wars. Down-rent sentiments inflamed Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia, Schoharie, Ulster, and Columbia Counties, and hostility became particularly vehement in Delaware County. Men disguised themselves with masks and calico cloaks, and blasts on tin horns rallied these "calico Indians" to block by force attempts by sheriffs to collect rents or evict defaulters. After a deputy was killed in 1845, Governor Silas Wright sent the militia to restore order in Delaware County. Following that peak of excitement, anti-rent disputes became immersed in politics, and in 1846 the Legislature and the State Constitutional Convention, acting on the anti-rent complaints, abolished the landowners' privileges and limited the terms of future leases, while other manorial rules gradually disappeared.