After nearly 20 years of legal uncertainty and relentless community advocacy, 35 long-time residents of Bozine Town officially received property deeds to their land on Wednesday, closing a chapter of fear and uncertainty that disrupted generations of families who built their homes on the contested ground. For many of the beneficiaries, the historic milestone came too late for the loved ones who led the early fight for ownership and spent years organizing resistance before their deaths.
The root of the decades-long dispute stretches back to a 2004 court ruling that upended decades of assumed ownership for Bozine Town residents. The ruling validated a ownership claim from Harold Road Land Development Company (LANDCO), which ordered hundreds of families to vacate their properties within 14 days or face immediate eviction proceedings. Overnight, households that had lived on and developed the land for generations suddenly found their most valuable asset at risk of seizure.
Seventy-six-year-old Ellen Daniels, one of the residents who received her deed at Wednesday’s official ceremony, described the moment as surreal after so many years of disappointment. Daniels’ husband, who spent years organizing fellow residents and fundraising for legal costs, died before he could see the dispute resolved. “Just trying to digest it,” Daniels said, holding the official document that confirmed her ownership. “You got it in your hand but you’re trying to say to yourself, ‘Is it really happening? Is it true?’ Because you know it’s here, but you’re still asking yourself these questions. I’m just so excited because you always wonder if it’s going to really happen after so many disappointments.”
By Daniels’ estimate, roughly 75 percent of the original Bozine Town residents abandoned their properties and relocated after the 2004 ruling, worn down by the constant threat of displacement. The remaining residents banded together, staging public protests, pooling whatever funds they could spare to cover legal fees, and holding community fundraisers to sustain their multi-year legal battle. Even as they continued to maintain their homes and properties through the uncertainty, residents were unable to access the full rights of legal ownership, such as refinancing or passing land to heirs through formal title.
Multiple consecutive national administrations prioritized resolving the dispute after it emerged in 2004. Housing Minister Keith Bell explained that the former Christie administration first intervened in 2005, issuing a formal guarantee that no residents would be forcibly displaced from their homes. In 2012, the Ingraham government finalized a land swap agreement, trading 34 acres of the contested Bozine Town holding for Crown Land located in Abaco, setting the framework to eventually transfer individual plots to resident ownership. The subsequent Minnis administration continued advancing the process, and the current Davis administration finalized the legal steps to issue individual deeds earlier this year.
“We cannot talk seriously about home ownership without dealing with ownership of the land beneath the home,” Bell told attendees at Wednesday’s ceremony. “We cannot talk about generational wealth if one generation cannot securely pass property to the next.” Bell framed the resolution of the Bozine Town dispute as a key early milestone of the Davis administration’s broader national land reform agenda.
For 89-year-old Adline Burrows, the deed fulfills a dream her late husband spent decades pursuing after he built the family home decades ago while she resided in Cat Island. Her daughter, 54-year-old Adline Burrows-Mott, who grew up in the home, recalled the constant anxiety that followed the 2004 ruling. “It was very frustrating, very frustrating in that time,” Burrows-Mott said. “My dad, everybody was fighting, trying to get the property sorted and all of that. But thank God we got it through today.” She also recalled the community’s early years, before basic infrastructure was installed, when residents carried water uphill to their homes.
Sixty-two-year-old Eleanor Patricia Archerdean, who has lived in her family’s Bozine Town home for more than 55 years, inherited the fight from her parents, who passed the property to her in their will before their deaths. “When they pass on and my parents always leave will to me, so I was able to, you know, get in the fight and continue to push for getting this done,” she said.
Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis told ceremony attendees that the resolution of the dispute underscored the urgent need for national land reform, adding that decades of uncertainty had finally been replaced with long-term security. “For years, you’ve lived with uncertainty over land that has been your home. You built your houses here, you built relationships here, and you raised your families here, and you watched generations grow up here,” Davis said. He noted that while multiple prior governments worked to address the issue, the current administration had finally crossed the finish line to deliver title to residents.
Garden Hills MP Mario Bowleg emphasized that the milestone also honors the many residents who fought for ownership but died before they could receive their deeds. “We remember them today with great respect and gratitude. Their hopes, sacrifices, dreams were a part of the journey that brought us here today,” Bowleg said. “Today, that long-awaited day has arrived.”
