squatter, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Special senses of general English squatter.
1. In historical contexts. A Black person living on White-owned farm land; in law, a Black man living on such land but not employed by the White farmer. Also attributive. Cf. bywoner.
Note:
In many cases the communities of Black people considered to be ‘squatters’ were the earliest inhabitants of the land in question.
1936 Act 18 in Stat. of Union 120There shall be paid by the owner in respect of each squatter to the native commissioner a licence fee.
1936 Act 18 in Stat. of Union 140‘Squatter’ means, in relation to land.., a native male..residing thereon, if such native is neither a servant nor a labour tenant as herein defined.
1949 O. Walker Proud Zulu (1951) 95The squatters on the farms taken up by the Boers were chary about giving their labour, and still more chary about paying taxes.
1980 Rand Daily Mail 24 Nov. 13The helplessness of black farm workers is crowned by official policy..: the moment a farmhand becomes ‘unproductive’ he is defined as a ‘squatter’ liable to removal to a ‘homeland’.
1983 D. Boutall in E. Prov. Herald 28 Apr. 1Trying to solve the squatter problem in the rural areas..was like trying to sweep up leaves on a windy day, the council’s chief engineer..said yesterday.
2. a. A person living in a shack settlement which occupies an area (usually in or near a town) which is either not officially proclaimed as a residential area or (in historical contexts) is set aside for the use of a racial group to which the person does not belong. b. A person who occupies a self-built shack on land owned by somebody else (sometimes paying rent). Also attributive. Cf. stand-owner (see stand sense 2).
1949 E. Hellmann Handbk on Race Rel. 248An area of land four miles from Orlando at Jabavu, where the squatters were permitted to put up temporary shelters.
1954 Bantu World 15 May 1The squatters had been throwing dirt into the spaces between the closely packed shanties.
1982 Cape Times 29 Jan. 2A group of Nyanga squatters will appear in..Court today charged with being in the Cape Town area for more than 72 hours without a permit.
1985 Platzky & Walker Surplus People p.xivSquatters, The official use of the term is far broader..and it may be used to describe any black person whose presence on a particular piece of land is not approved of by the authorities, regardless of the nature of the agreement between the occupant and the landowner. It has been used to describe people living on white-owned land, on black-owned land, both within and without the bantustans, on tribal land and on state land.
1987 Weekly Mail 12 June 15The Crossroads complex, a focal point of squatter resistance to the state, no longer exists.
1990 M. Kentridge Unofficial War 84Trust Feed is a township occupied in freehold by about fifty landowning families who let their land to tenants and squatters.
3. combinations
squatter camp, also squatters’ camp, a shanty town of self-built dwellings; cf. shackland.
1954 Bantu World 15 May 1I visited the ruins of the Vierfontein squatters’ camp which had been burned down by the police in a dawn raid.
1970 J.H. Coetzee in Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. II. 141Attention was also given to..residential segregation. That objective was realised in part by providing more and better housing..and by demolishing squatters’ camps and slums.
1985 S. Afr. Panorama Apr. 1Khayelitsha is a Xhosa word meaning ‘new home’. It is the new home for the inhabitants of the Crossroads squatter camp.
1992 G. Evans in Weekly Mail 16 Apr. 2Winnie may remain popular in squatter camps and other communities faced with repression.
A Black person living on White-owned farm land; in law, a Black man living on such land but not employed by the White farmer. Also attributive.
A person living in a shack settlement which occupies an area (usually in or near a town) which is either not officially proclaimed as a residential area or (in historical contexts) is set aside for the use of a racial group to which the person does not belong.
A person who occupies a self-built shack on land owned by somebody else (sometimes paying rent). Also attributive.
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squat, verb intransitivev.SRC, nounn.
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