English

Noun

patroonship ‎(countable and uncountable, plural patroonships)

1. (US, historical) The position or office of a patroon; an estate run by a patroon, or under a similar system. [from 19th c.]
   • Washington Irving

     His patroonship of Rensellaerwick lay immediately below Fort Aurania, and extended for several miles on each side of the Hudson, beside embracing the mountainous region of the Helderberg.

   • 2003 (revised), Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, HarperCollins 2005, p. 211:

     It was a protest against the patroonship system, which went back to the 1600s when the Dutch ruled New York, a system where […] ‘a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the destinies of three hundred thousand people and ruled in almost kingly splendor near two million acres of land.’