In 1880, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott managed the County Mayo estates of the absentee landlord Lord Erne, demanding harsh rents from the tenant farmers. Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Land League, urged the tenants to use "social ostracism" rather than violence. The townspeople refused to deal with Boycott in any way — the postman, the shopkeepers, even his own servants turned their backs on him. In the end, he could only bring in the harvest under the protection of fifty Orangemen volunteers, at a cost that far exceeded the value of the crop. As newspapers around the world reported the affair, "boycott" became a common noun and verb meaning a collective refusal to engage.