I've had my eye on my dad's copy of this book for ages, so I'm glad you motivated me to finally borrow it. Nick Hayes has an incredible style of tackling this important subject.
I've had a bit of experience with trespass law when I was younger, as a squatter in London. The thing most landlords didn't realise (and most police, it seemed) was that trespass is just a civil offence. It only became the criminal offence of aggravated trespass if you are obstructing 'lawful activities', which is why squatters only occupy buildings that are unused. I believe this right only lasted as long as it did because so many fought to defend it. By the time I was squatting in the early 2010s, the movement had shrunk significantly. There was some resistance to the law change in 2012, making it easier to get rid of squatters from property, but public support seemed to lean towards landlords at that time.
The recent controversial decision to remove the historic right to camp on dartmoor has much greater public opposition and, I hope, has the potential to inspire a new trespass movement.
I'm going to dive in and read the rest of the book now. The pictures really are lovely. Are they woodcuts/lino cuts?
Good question! I think they're just ink drawings but they look like woodcuts, don't they? At least they look like the ones I've seen. I don't draw, so found them particularly fascinating and lovely.
That experience with trespass is so interesting. The only one similar that I've heard or read about is a movement in the U.S. to inhabit empty vacation homes, and the group that organizes the squats actually tries to reach out to the neighborhood? I'd have to look it up again. I think it was on the Frontiers of Commoning podcast but it might have been a different one. Their take made a lot of sense -- again, unused buildings, and sometimes they'd get support from the neighborhood because the people who lived there would rather have the house lived in than empty most of the time.
The thing about obstructing lawful activities would apply to protests and roads, too, wouldn't it? I think that's something Extinction Rebellion has run into? It shows the slippery tangle of all these issues -- in the U.S., many states have passed laws defining actions against things like oil pipelines, including protest, as a form of terrorism. Along the lines of "the law is just a story we tell ourselves about society's values," it says a lot that those are passed and enforced.
That camping case is so infuriating. I hope it inspires a new trespass movement, too. It's hard to see any real legal justification for the decision aside from "it's mine and I don't want to share".
I love that you’re questioning something that has been taken for granted as true. Thank you for tge writing and the research. This was illuminating. I agree with your points. It has been the tool for wealth-building by the powerful, colonization, and theft (though if there was no private property is theft even possible?). Greed is a wrecking ball. Do you think this history is the root of “the American dream”?
That is a fantastic question. As I understand "the American dream," (which might be different from others' understanding), homeownership is core to it, so it does seem relevant. *Why* homeownership is so central to this culture is a really good question that I'm not sure I've thought about deeply before.
I have thought about the Homestead Act and people who emigrated from Europe and how their sense of security in owning land had to be somehow connected to serfdom and loss of the commons throughout Europe. When you look at enclosure acts in England, the lack of security most people had to even survive once they lost access to land was enormous. And serfdom was abolished differently all over Europe, but its abolition still didn't provide security. The one place I really looked at was Prussia (since that's where my homesteading ancestors were from, Danish-ruled northern Prussia [Germany]), where formers serfs were promised the opportunity to own land, but almost always that land was marginal at best, even if they could afford it. So they often ended up working for the same people or estates they'd been basically owned by before. I think a lot, or try to, about what it would have felt like to know you could afford to leave that reality and actually have control over your own life somewhere else. Same for the Highland Clearances in Scotland and centuries of colonial history throughout Ireland. The fact that some people in Scotland are starting to talk about reckoning with Scottish people's own role in the theft and colonization in North America actually seems like a big deal!
So is homeownership a legacy of all of this? It might be. There are a lot of buried, subconscious or sometimes conscious fears that drive much of the promoted individualism and American dream-related ideas about what makes for a good life. Maybe it's intergenerational. When I hear "private property is bedrock," it's so often from people whose ancestors were Scots-Irish, and *that* specific history is just centuries of layers upon layers of forced insecurity about land, survival, and self-determination.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! My ancestry comes from Prussia as well and German farmers who lived in Odessa before the Bolshevik revolution. Relatives the left behind died in Siberia. When they got to eastern Montana they were disappointed to discover that the railroad companies propaganda wasn’t true and they missed the Mediterranean climate. I think you’re right that the level of insecurity our ancestors felt has a lot to do with buried and subconscious fears and trauma.
Jonathan Raban's "Bad Land" was not my favorite book about Montana and homesteaders but I did learn so much about all the misleading advertising that drew people out here. I think my ancestors were pretty lucky, considering my second cousin (third cousin? or something once-removed? his father and my grandfather were brothers) still owns that ranch. With the original Sears house.
I've heard from more and more people who emigrated from Ukraine region after the Russian Revolution. My Russian grandparents were originally from Belarus and Ukraine -- near Odessa! But they believed in communism (only to be disillusioned) and moved to Leningrad, which was where they met.
Fascinating! Yes, I read some of Jonathan Raban’s book too quite a while ago. I didn’t finish it but that part stayed with me as well as the tales passed down to my mom from her grandparents who were sad about the climate and missed fruit trees. Their cooking was a mix of Mediterranean, Russian, and German. Though my grandparents spoke fluent German only when they argued in front of me. My great grandfather fought in the Russian Japanese War for Russia. We have some lineage stories in common. :)
Sounds like we do! My mother has told me that her great-grandparents spoke fluent Danish and German in the home, too, though they didn't pass it on to their kids or grandkids.
The bleakness in the way Raban described homesteader life was ... bleak.
My other grandmother was Danish! She didn’t speak it in front of me but her parents immigrated from there. And yes ... bleak. It’s no coincidence that both of my grandparents came from big farming families in eastern Montana and then they each only had two children. My grandmothers could see the toll having 6-12 children had on their mothers. Anyway, thanks for going down this rabbit hole. I hope it somehow helps inform your work!
I've had my eye on my dad's copy of this book for ages, so I'm glad you motivated me to finally borrow it. Nick Hayes has an incredible style of tackling this important subject.
I've had a bit of experience with trespass law when I was younger, as a squatter in London. The thing most landlords didn't realise (and most police, it seemed) was that trespass is just a civil offence. It only became the criminal offence of aggravated trespass if you are obstructing 'lawful activities', which is why squatters only occupy buildings that are unused. I believe this right only lasted as long as it did because so many fought to defend it. By the time I was squatting in the early 2010s, the movement had shrunk significantly. There was some resistance to the law change in 2012, making it easier to get rid of squatters from property, but public support seemed to lean towards landlords at that time.
The recent controversial decision to remove the historic right to camp on dartmoor has much greater public opposition and, I hope, has the potential to inspire a new trespass movement.
I'm going to dive in and read the rest of the book now. The pictures really are lovely. Are they woodcuts/lino cuts?
Good question! I think they're just ink drawings but they look like woodcuts, don't they? At least they look like the ones I've seen. I don't draw, so found them particularly fascinating and lovely.
That experience with trespass is so interesting. The only one similar that I've heard or read about is a movement in the U.S. to inhabit empty vacation homes, and the group that organizes the squats actually tries to reach out to the neighborhood? I'd have to look it up again. I think it was on the Frontiers of Commoning podcast but it might have been a different one. Their take made a lot of sense -- again, unused buildings, and sometimes they'd get support from the neighborhood because the people who lived there would rather have the house lived in than empty most of the time.
The thing about obstructing lawful activities would apply to protests and roads, too, wouldn't it? I think that's something Extinction Rebellion has run into? It shows the slippery tangle of all these issues -- in the U.S., many states have passed laws defining actions against things like oil pipelines, including protest, as a form of terrorism. Along the lines of "the law is just a story we tell ourselves about society's values," it says a lot that those are passed and enforced.
That camping case is so infuriating. I hope it inspires a new trespass movement, too. It's hard to see any real legal justification for the decision aside from "it's mine and I don't want to share".
I love that you’re questioning something that has been taken for granted as true. Thank you for tge writing and the research. This was illuminating. I agree with your points. It has been the tool for wealth-building by the powerful, colonization, and theft (though if there was no private property is theft even possible?). Greed is a wrecking ball. Do you think this history is the root of “the American dream”?
That is a fantastic question. As I understand "the American dream," (which might be different from others' understanding), homeownership is core to it, so it does seem relevant. *Why* homeownership is so central to this culture is a really good question that I'm not sure I've thought about deeply before.
I have thought about the Homestead Act and people who emigrated from Europe and how their sense of security in owning land had to be somehow connected to serfdom and loss of the commons throughout Europe. When you look at enclosure acts in England, the lack of security most people had to even survive once they lost access to land was enormous. And serfdom was abolished differently all over Europe, but its abolition still didn't provide security. The one place I really looked at was Prussia (since that's where my homesteading ancestors were from, Danish-ruled northern Prussia [Germany]), where formers serfs were promised the opportunity to own land, but almost always that land was marginal at best, even if they could afford it. So they often ended up working for the same people or estates they'd been basically owned by before. I think a lot, or try to, about what it would have felt like to know you could afford to leave that reality and actually have control over your own life somewhere else. Same for the Highland Clearances in Scotland and centuries of colonial history throughout Ireland. The fact that some people in Scotland are starting to talk about reckoning with Scottish people's own role in the theft and colonization in North America actually seems like a big deal!
So is homeownership a legacy of all of this? It might be. There are a lot of buried, subconscious or sometimes conscious fears that drive much of the promoted individualism and American dream-related ideas about what makes for a good life. Maybe it's intergenerational. When I hear "private property is bedrock," it's so often from people whose ancestors were Scots-Irish, and *that* specific history is just centuries of layers upon layers of forced insecurity about land, survival, and self-determination.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! My ancestry comes from Prussia as well and German farmers who lived in Odessa before the Bolshevik revolution. Relatives the left behind died in Siberia. When they got to eastern Montana they were disappointed to discover that the railroad companies propaganda wasn’t true and they missed the Mediterranean climate. I think you’re right that the level of insecurity our ancestors felt has a lot to do with buried and subconscious fears and trauma.
Jonathan Raban's "Bad Land" was not my favorite book about Montana and homesteaders but I did learn so much about all the misleading advertising that drew people out here. I think my ancestors were pretty lucky, considering my second cousin (third cousin? or something once-removed? his father and my grandfather were brothers) still owns that ranch. With the original Sears house.
I've heard from more and more people who emigrated from Ukraine region after the Russian Revolution. My Russian grandparents were originally from Belarus and Ukraine -- near Odessa! But they believed in communism (only to be disillusioned) and moved to Leningrad, which was where they met.
Fascinating! Yes, I read some of Jonathan Raban’s book too quite a while ago. I didn’t finish it but that part stayed with me as well as the tales passed down to my mom from her grandparents who were sad about the climate and missed fruit trees. Their cooking was a mix of Mediterranean, Russian, and German. Though my grandparents spoke fluent German only when they argued in front of me. My great grandfather fought in the Russian Japanese War for Russia. We have some lineage stories in common. :)
Sounds like we do! My mother has told me that her great-grandparents spoke fluent Danish and German in the home, too, though they didn't pass it on to their kids or grandkids.
The bleakness in the way Raban described homesteader life was ... bleak.
My other grandmother was Danish! She didn’t speak it in front of me but her parents immigrated from there. And yes ... bleak. It’s no coincidence that both of my grandparents came from big farming families in eastern Montana and then they each only had two children. My grandmothers could see the toll having 6-12 children had on their mothers. Anyway, thanks for going down this rabbit hole. I hope it somehow helps inform your work!
Greed, now that is something worth looking into with a mirror.. and the wide open sky.
It's ok, all quiet places are connected and I am walking out into one now...