Complex sentence: To effectuate this legal and political scheme, manor lords were granted large tracts of "claimed" land along the Hudson and tasked with occupying and forcibly holding--i.e., "settling"--its banks.
Split into simpler sentences: To effectuate this legal and political scheme, manor lords were granted large tracts of "claimed" land along the Hudson. The manor lords were tasked with occupying and forcibly holding--or in other words, "settle"--its banks.