Praise for Nine-Tenths of the Law
“Considering how many people all over the world have been involved in squatting vacant properties, it is amazing to me that there are so few good books on the subject. Hannah Dobbz’s book is a welcome addition. She deals with a wide range of approaches from the Native American Seizure of Alcatraz Island, to New York Squatters and Homesteaders of the 1980s, to the housing actions led by Occupy Wall Street today. She does not simply advocate but asks important philosophical questions about these tendencies. With America’s foreclosure crisis generating a landscape full of empty houses, one can see the rise of an even bigger squatters movement on the horizon. To those engaged in such activity, and those considering it, this book will be a valuable resource.”—Seth Tobocman, author of Understanding the Crash and Disaster and Resistance
“Millions of foreclosed homes and abandoned buildings on one hand; millions of Americans desperate for decent shelter on the other. Hannah Dobbz makes the necessary addition of resources and needs in a brilliant history of squatting in the USA.”—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
“This is the thinking person’s guidebook to urban and suburban squatting. Hannah Dobbz’s book is about property in America, this ‘history created all the time.’ This book lays it all out, from the days when George Washington was an illegal land speculator, property rights were entwined with genocide, and the Great Proprietors always won, to the resourceful new movements that have recently emerged to help people take empty houses during the ‘foreclosure age.’ Using her own life, recent news stories, and generations of scholarly work, Dobbz waltzes through the bizarreries of the U.S. property system, from the iron logic of property speculation to the madness of ‘arson for profit.’
Her book tells the hidden histories we badly need to know, from lone wolf opportunists to political activists acting selflessly to house others. We read about the big city stories—from New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco—and navigate the entanglements of the foreclosure crisis, how ‘people remain homeless as homes remain peopleless’ in the doomed suburbs of America. Rent-free living is no bed of roses, as squatters become the new villains for U.S. media, even as they face landlords setting fires and thugs doing evictions for hire. Learn why most of them don’t care to own.
Dobbz’ book does more than just tell the story of squatting in the USA—although that alone makes it a vital read. For those who aren’t quite ready for off-the-grid outlaw living, Dobbz explains land trusts and co-op ownership, along with the romance (and grime) of collective living. If you’re thinking of squatting—or just want to know more about legal theory of property and home ownership—this book is for you.”—Alan W. Moore, author of Art Gangs: Protest and Counterculture in New York City
Nine-Tenths of the Law
Property and Resistance in the United States
by Hannah Dobbz
Table of Contents
Timeline g
Introduction 1
Chapter One:
And Then There Were None: Indigenous Land Struggles and the
Problem of Ownership 13
Chapter Two:
“Scattering the Seeds of Discord, Misery, and Insurrection
with Both Hands”: Land Distribution and Resistance in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 33
Chapter Three:
Junkspace and Its Discontents: A Modern History of
Urban Housing 63
Chapter Four:
The Rendering Scarce: Squatters in the Foreclosure Age 113
Chapter Five
Surreal Estate: Adverse Possession and Other Tales of
Squatter’s “Rights” 141
Chapter Six:
Outrunning the White Elephant: A Thoughtful Approach
to Homeownership 163
Chapter Seven:
Equitable Living without Equity: Housing Cooperatives and
Land Trusts 177
Chapter Eight:
The Stories of Spaces: Urban Planning and the Wonder of
Used Places 197
Conclusion 211
Appendix A: Property Research 231
Appendix B: Property Laws for Defending an Occupation 238
Appendix C: Organizing for Occupation’s Tips 4 Squatting 245
Appendix D: Glossary 255
Appendix E: Adverse Possession Code, State by State 257
Notes 261
Index 285
Acknowledgments
Crucial assistance in the production of this work was provided by Bella Bravo, Jane Moisan, Steve DeCaprio, Frank Morales, Amy Starecheski, Matt Metzgar, Fly, Matt Bruce, Eduardo Moisés Peñalver, Bill Di Paola, Laurie Mittelmann, Richard Vallejo, Daniel Sheridan, Don Hughs, Brian Werner, Shaun Slifer, Lars Peterson, Andrew Kirtley, Nick Smith, Ashley Brickman, Morgan Ress, Adriana Camarena (for putting the damn idea in my head in the first place), Zoe Mizuho, Suzanne Shaffer, Kate Khatib, Zach Blue, and everyone who supported my Kickstarter campaign (you know who you are). Tangentially, I’d like to thank the old Magpie Squat in Dublin, as well as Kip Adam and the whole Power Machine crew—my life may well have been ho-hum without you.
Timeline of Significant Property-Related Developments in the United States Since European Settlement (as discussed in this book)
1773: King George III prohibits settling further west than Appalachia.
1785: Congress passes the Land Ordinance of 1785, establishing a method by which to divide and distribute land west of the Appalachian Mountains.
1787: New York legislature passes the Act Concerning Tenures of 1787, determining that all land be held in allodial title, rather than in feudal arrangements.
March 26, 1804: Congress passes the Land Act of 1804, according to which squatters north of the Ohio River (which was Indian territory) or in Louisiana were subject to a $1,000 fine or a year in prison.
1815: Congress passes the Preemption Act of 1815, which awards land to illegal settlers on a case-by-case basis according to certain conditions, including, but not limited to, the magnitude of improvements made on the land by those settlers.
1819:
