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1. Land distribution in South Africa was modeled after land distribution in US during the Revolution. New Yorkers created local committees to deal with the Loyalists and the legitimacy of the legal institutions that later emerged rested on expropriating Loyalist property. https://twitter.com/WandileSihlobo/status/864396792074571776
2. In his book, “Building a Revolutionary State” Howard Pashman details an overlooked wrinkle in US history: New Yorkers transformed the instability and turmoil of the American Revolution into a new, stable legal order by using property redistribution to gain popular support.
3. During the early stages of the Revolution, insurgents in America stumbled on land appropriation and redistribution as a solution to many of their problems, as colonial legal structures collapsed and committees, mobs and ad hoc groups emerged and shaped laws as they pleased. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197927022183493633
4. To understand why land appropriation+redistribution became a popular tactic to bring about stable, legal order at the founding of US, one must consider the unstable environment that prevailed. In 1776, New York’s colonial assembly had stopped meeting, courts ceased convening.
5. New York’s governor fled to a British ship in NY harbor. British then invaded NYC and occupied it as a base of operations for the remainder of the war, devastating the province and throwing it into greater chaos. The new constitution promulgated in 1777 remained a dead letter. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197930836554854401
6. The new constitution promulgated in 1777 remained a dead letter because the structures it created struggled to enforce its provisions. The Assembly, Senate and Supreme Court convened briefly in 1777 then fled a British raiding party and did not meet until the following year.
7. The Revolution destroyed imperial authority before stable, independent institutions could replace the old order. Consequently, ad hoc committees and a feeble Convention emerged in a chaotic jurisdictional environment with unclear lines of authority. New tactics were needed. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197928442479751168
8. Land redistribution helped American insurgents draw people into their networks of revolutionary support. This was appealing even to ordinary New Yorkers who weren’t committed to independence and to those who needed to find a place for a refugee family to live during the war.
9. Property redistribution had far-reaching effects and generated popular support for the legal structures of the American revolutionary state. By selling confiscated Loyalist property, New York’s feeble government convinced ordinary people to come forward, help enforce commands.
10. Land expropriation and redistribution addressed many of New Yorker’s urgent daily needs such as providing shelter during British occupation and revolutionary war, and it offered a highly public way of reckoning with “Loyalist crimes”…punishing those who had helped Britain. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197936631774404611
11. Redistribution of “real property” such as land linked purchasers to the new American state and gave them powerful reasons to support its nascent authority. People who had acquired goods and land under the new state feared a return to British rule would threaten those “gains”. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197940023259205633
12. Nowadays, revolutionary politicians dangle other forms of wealth redistribution - free healthcare and education, for example, by taxing the “uber wealthy” and “billionaires”. Once many people get those, they will likely reject politicians who threaten to take those away. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197940551808684032
13. Property redistribution in New York had a powerful symbolic significance. Revolutionary commissioners dispossessed British sympathizers in public ways. They marched around the grounds of an estate, taking inventories of all movable property, auctioning off clothes, cows etc. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197936631774404611
14. The public redistribution of property was not just a matter of revenue, but also a strong declaration of the growing authority of the revolutionary state. New Yorkers who had once displayed contempt for local officials shifted to heed ing commands of the revolutionary state. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197984391760416771
15. The British Invasion of New York scattered the provisional government. Refugees were on the run with little more than clothes on their back. An ideological police force called Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies hunted down suspected British sympathizers.
16. The Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies became an important recruitment tool for American insurgents. Many New Yorkers, terrified by the British invasion, came forward to report suspicious activity or deliver prisoners (British sympathizers) to the Committee. https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/1197987736705273857
