183. Nonviolent land seizure

These are nonviolent occupations in which the campaigners expect that the ownership of the land or facility will shift to them when they win the struggle. See also 173 and 182. Note that all three of these methods may be lumped together in the term "occupation" by writers and in popular discussion.

Showing 1-14 of 14 results

Brazilian Rubber Tappers campaign to protest the deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest region, 1977-1988

Country
Brazil
Time period
1977 to 1988
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Environment
Total points
7 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Olivia Ensign, 2/28/10

For centuries, those who made a living by extracting and collecting rubber from rubber trees had been virtual slaves to the powerful rubber barons who controlled the Amazon region. Attempts were made in the 1960s to unionize these workers, called “rubber tappers;” however, these attempts failed. The 1970s marked a shift in the dynamics of the extraction of resources from the Amazon. Ranchers from Southern Brazil began to buy up huge tracts of land in order to clear them for cattle grazing land.

Marshall Islanders campaign against nuclear testing sites, 1982

Country
Marshall Islands
Time period
June 19, 1982 to June, 1983
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Kira Kern 27/02/2011

The Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is home to the Kwajalein Missile Range, which the government leased to the United States beginning in 1978.  From the beginning, Marshall Islands natives protested U.S. usage of the range.

Internally displaced Peruvians campaign for land (Villa El Salvador Land Invasion), 1971

Country
Peru
Time period
April 29, 1971 to May, 1971
Classification
Change
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Sachie Hopkins-Hayakawa, 17/04/2011

Today Villa El Salvador is a squatting community on the Southern outskirts of Lima, Peru, and is home to about 400,000 people. The shantytown, which was born of a small land invasion in 1971, has been recognized internationally as the largest continuously squatted area in the world.  

Hondurans in Tacamiche resist eviction by Chiquita Banana company, 1994-1997

Country
Honduras
Time period
June, 1994 to November, 1997
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Alex Frye, 06/05/2011

In response to labor strikes on banana plantations throughout the country, which were a result of a large drop in wages for plantation workers, Chiquita Brands International closed its plantation in Tacamiche and three other farms in June of 1994 due to their heightened involvement in the strikes. The closure was not only devastating to the strike, which soon after conceded to a pay increase, which due to inflation was far below the amount from before the strike, but also for the people living on the plantations.

Chinese villagers seek reparations for effects of Dahe Dam, 1980-1990

Country
China
Time period
April, 1980 to April, 1990
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Total points
5 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
William Lawrence, 24/09/2010

In July 1975, the Dahe Dam on the Dahe River in Shanyang Township, southern China, was completed.  The environmental toll of the project accumulated within months.  Upstream of the dam, rising waters swamped homes and farmland, while downstream, water coming from the spillways scoured away riverbank, causing widespread erosion and loss of fertile land.  The government anticipated a certain amount of upstream flooding, and accordingly compensated the affected population and relocated them when necessary.  In the haste to complete the project, however, the engineers had ne

Bardoli peasants campaign against the Government of Bombay, 1928

Country
India
Time period
February 12, 1928 to August 4, 1928
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Adriana Popa, 07/11/2010

The Bombay Government (through its Revenue Department) had, in 1927, enhanced the land revenue assessment in the Bardoli taluka (county) by a nominal 22 percent, which, when applied, amounted in some cases to as much as 60 percent enhancement. This translated in increased land taxes. The Bardoli peasants had immediately made several claims regarding this modification, the most important of which were that the rate of enhancement was unjust and that it had been established without full and appropriate investigation.

Portuguese workers campaign for societal change (Ongoing Revolutionary Process), 1974-1976

Country
Portugal
Time period
25 April, 1974 to 25 April, 1976
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Economic Justice
Total points
5 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Thomas Fortuna, 30/11/2011

In the midst of the depression sweeping the globe during the 1930s, Portugal’s finance minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, established the Estado Novo (the New State), a right-wing, pro-Catholic, corporatist authoritarian regime. Based on “patriotism, paternalism, and prudence,” Salazar promised financial stability and economic growth. By the 1960s, Portugal was enjoying reasonably stable economic growth, but nearly all of that growth was absorbed by either Portugal’s “twenty families” or the regime.

Landless workers win land rights in Nova Ronda Alta, Brazil, 1982-1984

Country
Brazil
Time period
12 March, 1982 to January, 1984
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Elizabeth Reilly, 06/04/2012

Brazil is the largest country in South America with resources comparable to the continental United States as well as vast amounts of land for agricultural development. At the time of this campaign, two-thirds of the population went hungry and were without work. 48% of the arable land was controlled by 1% of the population for large-scale agricultural enterprises. In 1964, there was a military coup that resulted in a twenty-one year military dictatorship and small farmers were pushed off their land, which was taken by the government.

Native Americans occupy Alcatraz for land rights, 1969-1971

Country
United States
Time period
20 November, 1969 to 11 June, 1971
Classification
Change
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Environment
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
6 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Alexa Ross, 23/10/2010

In the 1950s the Eisenhower administration enacted the Relocation and Termination programs in regard to American Indian federal policy. The first part meant that Native Americans were to relocate from their respective reservations into big cities. In doing this, Native Americans would lose the unity of the immediate communities as they individually integrated as citizens into separate cities. Meanwhile, the reservation lands would be liquidated into the hands of the federal government. The second part, termination, was a broader result of the relocation.

Germans reclaim Heligoland from the United Kingdom, 1951

Country
Germany
Time period
December, 1950 to January, 1951
Classification
Change
Cluster
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Christopher Capron, 18/11/2012

Heligoland (also spelled Helgoland) is an archipelago 46 kilometers off the German coastline in the North Sea. The two small islands are less than 2 square kilometers in total, but the British, Danish and Germans have hotly contested the land over the centuries. In the Second World War, the British Air Force frequently bombed the islands, most notably in air to sea battles in 1939 and in 1945, when the residents of the island were forced to abandon their rock shelters and evacuate due to an enormous Allied air raid. 

Maori New Zealanders occupy Raglan Golf Course, win back land rights, 1975-1983

Country
New Zealand
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Lydia Bailey, 09/02/2013

During World War I, the New Zealand government seized burial grounds and traditionally valuable land from the Tainui Awhiro people to build an air base and bunker. Ten years after the end of the war, in 1928, the Public Works Act codified the government’s justification for keeping the land. 

Sicily Socialist Fasci unite for workers' rights, Italy, 1893-1894

Country
Italy
Time period
20 January, 1893 to 8 January, 1894
Classification
Change
Cluster
Economic Justice
Total points
4 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Laura Rigell, 02/03/2013

During the 1860s and 1870s, workers in Sicily supported each other through mutual aid societies, which claimed the right to strike and to lobby for wage increases.  This precedent of organized labor, along with a recent history of peasant uprisings against feudal aristocracy and the spread of socialist ideology, set the stage for the Fasci Siciliani movement.

Indigenous Gurindji win land rights in Australia (Wave Hill Walk Off) 1966-1975

Country
Australia
Time period
August 23rd, 1966 to August 16th, 1975
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Environment
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Angeline Rivard 18/11/2013

On August 23rd, 1966, the workers of the Wave Hill Station in Northern Territory, Australia, participated in a walk off led by Vincent Lingiari. The workers felt oppressed by the low wages, poor working and living conditions they received at the Wave Hill Station. The Indigenous people known to be part of the Gurindji Tribe were pastoral workers situated at Vesteys' Wave Hill station. The Vestey family was a rich British family that owned many acres of land and companies in Australia.

Caledonia First Nations Defend Grand River Territory 2006-2011.

Country
Canada
Time period
28 February, 2006 to 8 July, 2011
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Anna Kovacs, 24/11/2013

During
the 18th Century the Iroquois aided the British government to defend
what is now known as Canadian territory from the Americans. As an expression of
gratitude to the Iroquois, the British gifted to them six miles along both
sides of Grand River as a place to never be disturbed; as spiritual land for
the people to forever enjoy.