Finders Keepers Losers Weepers Summary

Wealth Matters: Loss of Black Land Ownership

"Finders Keepers, Loser's Weepers." --Unknown

Introduction

Finders keepers, losers weepers is a childhood adage that means whatever is found on the school playground can be kept. There is no principle of law that supports an individual is entitled to keep whatever is found, while the original owner bears the loss. The premise when something is lost by one individual and found by another has been expressed in various ways over the centuries.

The law of lost and found is rooted in ancient Roman laws and the concept of finders keepers derived from the work of the second century jurist Gaius, who suggested that unowned property (res nullius) became “the property of the first taker.” The Roman

Emperor Justinian further proposed that property intentionally abandoned by its owner (res derelicta) turned into no one's property (res nullius) and could thereafter be claimed by any individual who found it (occupatio).
Not all things left abandoned fall under the category of lost and found. Adverse possession is a method by which a person who acquires another individual's personal property for a specified period of time may gain title to that property. The concept of adverse possession has been in existence for more than five thousand years and is used in the same manner today as it was under the reign of Hammurabi, who established the eminence of Babylon during the seventeenth century. “If a man leaves his house, garden, and field … and someone else takes possession of it for three years...he who has taken possession of it shall continue to use it."
Today, the legal doctrine of adverse possession derives from a combination of statutes and court decisions. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, land ownership represented wealth and allowed landowners and their heirs to make investments, build a residence, establish businesses as well as become prominent leaders within the community.
Post Civil War, more than a million African-Americans (Blacks) rented, worked and/or farmed the land for other land owners until they acquired their own. During Reconstruction, the first generation of Black landowners established communities, built churches and schools, created businesses, formed civic and social organizations, operated their farms as well as developed other forms of employment, and increased their economic stability.
During the 20th century, blacks owned an estimated nine million acres of land but by this time, the second generation of Black landowners had grown disenchanted with the harsh realities of Jim Crow and perceived they would have a better quality of life and obtain higher wages if they sold their land and migrate to the urban cities.

Contrary to the voluntary sales, Black landowners lost land due to partition and tax sales, foreclosures, intestate, property liens due to welfare recipients and eminent domain. Although black landownership rapidly declined through legal means, there is documented evidence that Black owned lands were also taken through violent techniques and adversely possessed.

My thesis statement is “land ownership is the greatest source of acquired wealth but Black landowners did not acquire generational wealth because their land ownerships were sabotaged through legal means and violent techniques which prevented a loss of economic growth in the black communities."

My research will explore how land ownership is considered the greatest source of acquire wealth and a vital asset to all communities followed by how legal means and racist techniques forced Black people to abandon their lands which were acquired and/or sold through adverse possession. Finally, I will defend my thesis statement by illustrating how the decline and/or denial of land ownership may be a crucial element in the economic development within the black

community.
Background
This research will discuss that at the turn of this century, Black landowners lost more than nine million acres of land which resulted in a tremendous loss of social, political and economic power. In a capitalistic society, land ownership is used to create income, develop communities, start businesses, build schools, provide social and civic organizations and increase political power. For generations, Black families have passed down through oral history how their lands were lost but moreover, documentations show their lands were stolen through legal techniques and also taken by violent means. In some cases, government officials took part and approved the property transfers through adverse possession. Some of these lands have become country clubs, oil fields and a training facility for a major-league baseball team. Thousands of public records in county courthouses and state and federal archives have documented hundreds of land takings through adverse possession. Within those cases, black landowners lost farms, houses, businesses and entire city blocks. The lands lost may seem relatively small but today, they are valued in the tens of millions of dollars and have resulted in generational losses. Land ownership within the Black community was a sign of status, respect and prosperity and a means of economic security.
This paper consists of on-line research obtained from databases and draws upon legal articles, scholarly papers, case briefs, newspaper and magazine articles, published books, periodicals, electronic media and other non-print resources form the core of its argument.
The Homestead Act of 1862
After the conclusion of the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 on Jan. 16, 1865, granting over four hundred thousand acres of confiscated land to the slave who aided the union soldiers during the war. To make restitution for slavery, this proclamation gave the freedman an expectancy to claim forty acres of land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coastlands. After the assassination of President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, a former southern Democrat was sworn in as the seventeenth President. Johnson, a loyal proponent of states' rights overturned Sherman's proclamation in the fall of 1865, reverting the coastlands back to the original plantation owners even though they declared war against the United States.
During the Civil War, Union Soldiers confiscated land throughout the southern states and distributed it to the slaves because they assisted them during the war but, the majority of redistributed lands were returned to the original plantation owners. Less than one percent of the freed four million slaves in South Carolina and Georgia, maintained the land they were promised, moreover the majority of freedman obtained land through the Homestead Act.
The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged Western migration to "any person who was the head of a family, twenty-one years of age, and a US citizen," by providing one hundred sixty acres of public land to individuals willing to pay a minor filing fee and complete five years of continuous residence to receive land grant ownership. After six months of residency, homesteaders had the option of purchasing the land from the government at $1.25 per acre.
Access to homesteading was not available to blacks until the Southern Homestead Act of 1866. The land, was not as beneficial because much of the distributed land consisted of swampland and was very difficult for any homesteader to make a decent living. Black homesteaders also faced the extra burden of racism, illegal fees, and court challenges due to illiteracy, discriminatory court decisions and land speculators. Nevertheless, by 1870, blacks had significant landholdings spread across Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Arkansas. By the 1900s, more than eighty million acres of public land were distributed through homesteading and one quarter of black farmers owned their own farmlands.
The Homestead Acts consisted of several federal laws and more than a million homesteaders were granted over 270 million acres of public land west of the Mississippi River, to include Alaska, between 1862 - 1988.
The Importance of Land Ownership
The Founding Fathers rationalized restricting the right to vote to freeholders (property owners). Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, believed the Constitution should protect property owners from those who did not have it. Becoming a landowner in the early colonies had an enormous impact on the social, economic and political process. Land was the greatest economic asset and provided the necessary key to gain social status and political power as well as gave every citizen the opportunity to become an independent freeholder.
Notwithstanding states' rights, some states required land ownership a basic requirement for social mobility and political activity. Those who did not own land were considered to be outside the boundaries of social respectability. Before the Civil War, the economy was driven by labor, but after the war, land ownership was the greatest source of wealth because an individual could use the land to invest, rent or sale.
By 1910, the majority of Black had obtain more than nine million acres of land through private transactions.

Unfortunately, the financial recession of the Great Depression resulted in the majority of the nation losing their personal property which included the loss of land. Documentations show at the start of the Depression, black farmers began to transfer their land to White landowners and Black farmers began to show a yearly loss of 350 thousand acres of land.

Meanwhile, Old Age Insurance (Social Security) was established under the Roosevelt Administration but unfortunately did not include coverage for agricultural and domestic workers. Without social security benefits, retired or disabled citizens were unable to pass down savings to the next generation because any savings earned were more than likely spent on daily expenses. The lack of social security insurance required the second generation to care for and support indigent and/or elderly family members which diverted resources away from their savings and capital accumulation.

Loss of Land

Ownership
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund (FSC) is an organization which assist Black land owners, particularly rural black farmers, in retaining their lands and increasing land ownership. The FSC has also enriched low-income communities to become more humane and livable through education and outreach strategies that developed cooperatives and established credit unions which increased income and created economic self-sufficiency.
A vital asset to all communities is the ownership of land. Black land ownership has been in a steady decline since 1910 when black land ownership was estimated at fifteen million acres. The FSC has identified several reasons for the loss of black land ownership: heir property ownership; lack of estate planning; tax, partition and voluntary sales; lack of legal counsel and adverse possessions.
Property passed down according to state law is known as heir property ownership. When a person dies intestate, state laws vary and control which heir can rightfully inherit what portion, plot, and/or location of interest of land which they receive. Until the courts take into consideration the kinship of each individual, their interest will be undivided and no one can assume their specific interest in the property until the court does so. With each passing generation, a new generation of heirs is able to obtain an interest in land ownership.
Land ownership is often lost because one heir or a small group of heirs manage the ownership of the land while everyone else reap the benefits. The few who manage and/or invest in land ownership have faced many obstacles because they failed to grant or obtain specific authorization from other heirs to harvest timber, lease or allow others to build structures on the land.
Estate planning is a process where an individual or family arranges the transfer of assets in anticipation of death. The aim in estate planning is to (1) preserve the maximum amount of wealth possible for the intended beneficiaries; (2) flexibility for the individual prior to death; (3) prevention of heir property and (4) for an heir property owner to prevent further fractionation of it.
Despite the advantages of estate planning, eighty percent of black land owners fail to create a will resulting in a decline in black land ownership.
Every property owner has a responsibility of paying a real estate tax and failure to pay can result in unfunded sources to schools, police and fire departments, hospitals, road constructions and maintenance of local and state parks and playgrounds. Unpaid taxes can result in the loss of land through the process of tax sales which is another challenge of owning heir property - who is responsible for paying the taxes. Two types of tax sales occur when (1) the county government sell the rights of the tax lien on the real estate property and allows the buyer to bid on the tax debt as an investment to the property and (2) the county government outright sell full ownership and possession rights of the property through a tax deed sale.
Partition Sales typically occur when there are multiple interest to a piece of land. Partition sales are court-ordered sales of land, the property will go to the highest bidder and the proceeds from the sale are distributed among the interested parties property according to the size of their fractional interest. A partition sale is another means of lost land because it may be difficult to outbid land speculators and developers. Interest holder in heir properties do not need to obtain the consent of the other heirs before seeking the partition sale of the family land.
There is no definitive explanation why Blacks sell their properties but a 1980 Emergency Land Fund study cited that economic stress due to potential foreclosures or family and external pressures may be a reason for the occurrence. Another reason the black community has lost land ownership is because they more often voluntarily sell their properties to members of the White community.
The Sixth Amendment grants every citizen the right to legal counsel in criminal proceedings, unfortunately affordable legal counsel is not guaranteed in civil matters. (U. S. Const. amend XV). Property law is very complex area of law and without the knowledge and guidance of legal expertise, Black land owners have lost property due to ignorance, legal loopholes and/or discriminatory maneuvers.
Researchers have documented hundreds of cases where Black land owners lost their properties through adverse possession because of legal exploitations and violent techniques. The possessions of personal properties have been documented by reviewing deeds and estate papers, tax records, mortgage records, court proceedings, surveyor maps, utility bills, marriage, birth and death records, census takings and archive records from the Freedmen's Bureau. Documentation were also obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Farmers Home Administration records and case files from the FBI.
Newspaper articles, oral historians and eye witnesses tell stories of how Blacks were violently forced off their properties. Because of those threats, Blacks left behind thousands of acres of farm and timber lands and never returned. Their properties were adversely possessed and/or sold through legal means. Today, some of these properties are currently owned by Whites and/or major corporations and value estimated in the millions of dollars.
Conclusion
The United States has a bitter history of land disputes that began with broken land treaties with Native Americans, Claim Jumpers during the Gold Rush and Range wars in the old West. Poor White landowners were also unfairly mistreated by railroad, lumber and mining companies that forced them to sell their properties below fair market value. Sadly, by 1910, Blacks had acquired fifteen million acres of land but a century later, own less than seven million acres of land and less than one percent of all farm land.
The decline in Black land ownership include issues related to complex property ownership, inaccessibility to legal counsel, and unjust, violent, and legally exploitive techniques. Whether it is an acreage, parcel or city block, land ownership is of vital importance because the United States is a capitalistic society. Land ownership is used to create income, develop communities, start businesses, build schools, provide social and civic organizations and more importantly, increase political power.
The generational wealth of a child is closely related to that of his parents and the current economic opportunity across racial lines remain unequal. The loss of Black land ownership has had a negative effect on economic opportunities within the Black communities. If the rate of Black land ownership continues to decline, there will continue to be an inability for grandparents and parents to leave an inheritance to their children.