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Land ownership wasn’t a topic of conversation at the dinner table for Jennine Labuzan. As a California youth, she recalled hearing stories from the elders about her family tree, but never about land.
Before the pandemic, she began diving deeper into her ancestral history. To her surprise, her third-great grandfather, Charles A. Labuzan, a Louisiana native, purchased land in Mississippi that was granted through a federal land patent. The land patent is a legal document that transferred land ownership from the government to an individual up until the mid-20th century.
In 2022, she began to pursue what she believed was her stake in the land. She sued several parties, including lawyers, farmers, and the U.S. government, alleging they are illegally occupying her land. Last month, this journey landed her in federal custody.
I wrote about it this week.
At issue are five words referenced in the land patent: “to heirs and assigns forever.”Jennine argues that language means as a descendant, she has a vested interest in the property.
Believing she had the law on her side, she filed a deed for the land. The defendants disagreed. They say Jennine slandered their title, meaning she cast doubt on “someone else's ownership of real property causing some kind of financial harm to the owner.” They also alleged her ancestor sold his one-fourth interest in the land to the Merchant Bank of New Orleans in 1848.
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock demanded that Jennine sign a quitclaim deed to transfer ownership back to the other parties. When she refused, Judge Aycock issued a bench warrant, sent the U.S. Marshals to detain her, and closed the case.
But Jennine, a Muslim American mom of seven, isn’t backing down. She’s still pursuing legal options with a GoFundMe to support, and is teaching others how to track their ancestral lineage and understand federal land patents. She questioned whether she should continue her quest. She thought: How could pursuing ancestral land lead her behind bars? While traveling across three federal facilities and engaging with incarcerated women, she knew she couldn’t quit, she said.
“It was very disheartening, but, in the first couple of days of just beating myself up, God finally gave me a peace,” she told me. “This is a door you had to walk through.”
If you want to learn more about Jennine’s story and her fight for land ownership, head over to the article. |
