Boycott retired from the British Army in 1873 as a captain, He became an estate agent for the 3rd Earl of Erne in his estates in County Mayo in Ireland. In 1879 he opposed the land reform of the Irish Land League.
Previously, Boycott could have easily expelled any uncooperative tenants because there were always others to take their place. He used this fact to continually increase the land rent to unreasonable levels. Now Irish Land League convinced people, especially his tenants, not to work for him. His tenants and servants refused to work and even merchants and a mailman refused to serve him.
Boycott hires 50 protestant Orangemen for the autumn harvest of 1880. However, government had to spent £10.000 for 100 soldiers to protect him and he had to export his supplies through sea with large expense. Locals did nothing violent, just isolated Boycott.
A boycott is a refusal to buy, sell, or otherwise trade with an individual or business who is generally believed by the participants in the boycott to be doing something morally wrong.
The word boycott is derived from Captain CharlesCunninghamBoycott, an English evicting land agent in Ireland who was subject to a boycott organized by the Irish Land League in 1880.
Boycott, an agent of Lord Erne in County Mayo, was unable to hire anyone to harvest his crops (until royalist Protestants in Ulster volunteered) and at one point needed 7,000 men to protect him.
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