There’s a bush lot on Manitoulin Island still registered in my father’s name, even though he passed away over three years ago. My siblings and I, heirs to his estate, still haven’t reached a conclusion on what we want to do with the property: Sell it, subdivide it or hold on to it as an investment. Lot 1 Concession 4 of Campbell Township is described as 139 acres more or less, on the shore of Lake Kagawong. With at least a half a mile of shoreline, the property would have considerable value for development did the shoreline not consist of a 50 foot bluff!
The property has been in the Wilson family since 1920. As the story my father told me goes, his uncle Herb Wilson sold it to his father (my grandfather) for a wheelbarrow. In spite of the shallow soil—probably less than 12 inches of loam over the limestone bedrock—the lot is completely wooded with a mix of maple, oak, ironwood, white birch, balsam and cedar. Access over unimproved roads can be difficult unless you have a four-wheel drive or an ATV. Even as a teenager, I visited the property with my father only rarely, maybe twice a year—in the summer, to cut and split firewood, and in the winter to haul it home to heat our farmhouse through the winter. Now, I try to walk the property once a year to make sure no one is cutting down trees without permission or squatting on top of the bluff. And so, when I visited Manitoulin a month ago, I made a trip to Red Rock, armed with a camera and a compass.
It’s been a number of years since the property lines were last blazed, so it’s becoming increasingly difficult to determine where our family’s property starts and finishes. Thankfully, the southwest corner of the property is clearly marked with a post, with Lot 1 carved on one side and Lot 2 on the other. I have no idea who erected the post or when, but it told me everything I needed to know. Had I the time and tools, I could have measured 1320 feet due east and found the southeast corner of the property. (Those of my readers educated in the metric system may not be familiar with the rod as a unit of measurement. The rod is named after a surveyor’s tool and is exactly 5½ yards or 16½ feet in length. An acre of land is equal to 16 square rods. Each 100 acre lot measures 80 rods—1320 feet—by 200 rods.) The boundary marker oriented me, located me, told me where I belonged. To the left, I could be accused of trespassing; to the right, I could legitimately make the claim that the property belonged to my family.
When the ancient Scriptures exhort us, “Do not move an ancient boundary stone”, they are acknowledging the importance of secure enjoyment of property to the stability, continuity and prosperity (emotional and material) of individuals and families. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property” (Article 17). It is highly unlikely that anyone will maliciously remove the boundary marker from our secluded bush lot, or arbitrarily deprive me and my siblings of our inheritance, but that is not the case for many people in places in the world where the rule of law is respected and enforced much less effectively in Canada. In fact, the second half of the verse I quoted earlier, Proverbs 23:10, evokes my memory of Juliana, one of the most arresting encounters of my 12-year journey with International Justice Mission: “Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless…”
“Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless…”
As I related some time ago on the International Justice Mission Canada blog, I met Juliana in May 2015 along with some colleagues from IJM and a group of friends from Canada. She is a 70-year-old widow who lives in rural Mukono County in Uganda with her daughter and her four grandchildren. When we arrived at her mud-brick home on her small plot of land, she was dressed in a crisp blue, yellow and white gomesi (traditional Ugandan dress) with its distinctive peaked shoulders. This had been her home for more than 50 years; she had raised her children there and had buried her husband and four of her five children there. She had been tending the land and living peaceably in her home for decades until 2014, until a young man who said he was her grandson showed up, claiming to be entitled to inherit her property.
Juliana had never met this man in her life and so she said no. Over the course of many months, the imposter continued to bully and intimidate her, making threats against her life and her land. He said that because Juliana was a woman, she had no right to her home. At one point he said, “If you don’t give me a portion of this land, blood is going to be spilled here. A person will die in this family.” Eventually he moved into the kitchen house on Juliana’s property and brazenly began work to enlarge it. But he went too far when he attacked Juliana with a machete, severely cutting her hand when she raised it to block a blow to her head. She called IJM for help and our staff quickly came with the local police to arrest her tormentor. Within six months he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
After we heard Juliana tell her story, our group of muzungus set to work on planting a vegetable garden for Juliana. With guidance from Juliana, her daughter Harriet, and the IJM Kampala staff who had accompanied us, we set to work planting cabbage, sweet potatoes, and eggplant. We worked quickly and efficiently as a team—some of us dug holes, others filled them with black earth, others tamped in the young plants, while still others watered. I, for one, relished the opportunity to get my hands dirty in the terracotta red Ugandan soil.
As we drove away, I questioned our host Kathryn Wilkes (at that time, director of IJM’s field office in Kampala) about the value of a group of Canadians showing up to help Juliana plant a garden. She told me it was very significant, because it let the community know that someone was watching over Juliana. Indeed, only a few weeks after her previous attacker had been convicted and sent to prison, a fresh threat had already been made against Juliana and her land. But she is resolute; she has made a will and is confident that her land will be in her family for generations.
Secure title to their land gives women identity, dignity, and political status.
It’s a long way from Manitoulin Island to Mukono County, but boundary markers have significance in both environments—especially for widows like Juliana and the fatherless like her daughter Harriet. I walk our family property once a year to assure myself that its borders have been respected, but threats against the land and property of the poor in Uganda and elsewhere are much more real and often violent in nature. In fact, a 2014 IJM study revealed that over 30% of widows in Mukono County have been victims of successful property grabbing in their lifetime, even though they had a legal right to inherit property. 31% of the victims in the study experienced threats or acts of violence around the time of the grabbing event. We cannot overestimate the economic, social and psychological effects of widows and their children being forcibly and unlawfully evicted from their land: The small vegetable garden that we helped Juliana plant will not only sustain her and Harriet and Harriet’s four children, but provide her with a small income from the sale of produce. Moreover, secure title to her land will give Juliana identity, dignity, and political status: Often in rural communities, women don’t have a voice in their community simply because they don’t own land.
Two stories of property: one secure and unthreatened, the other vulnerable to the eviction of its occupants. One so dispensable as to be traded for a wheelbarrow, the other essential to a family’s survival. I am privileged to be somewhat intimately acquainted with both pieces of property, having dirtied my hands and knees in Uganda and also walked the length of the bluff at Red Rock. But now, whenever I see a boundary marker, I will remember Juliana and her sisters and daughters who are fighting to protect their land.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text © 2018 Edwin Wilson
