Today in Labor History December 7, 1905: A General Strike of 150,000 workers began in Moscow, at the climax of the 1905 Russia Revolution. The strike escalated into a general uprising, with thousands of workers taking up arms against the imperial government. At least 400 workers died. The revolt was based in the apartment of writer, Maxim Gorky. Militants made bombs in his study and ate in his kitchen. On December 10, socialist revolutionaries bombed the headquarters of the Moscow Okhrana (secret police). By December 12, the rebels held six of the seven railway stations and many neighborhoods. On December 15, they assassinated the head of the Okhrana. However, the Imperial Guard brought in reinforcements on the 15th. They shelled the proletarian district of Presnia, home to 150,000 textile workers, and ultimately quashed the rebellion.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
Today in Labor History November 4, 1839: The Newport Rising began. It was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain. It began when approximately 4,000 Chartists, led by John Frost, marched on the town of Newport. When several were arrested, other Chartists, including coal miners, many armed with homemade weapons, marched on the Westgate Hotel (where they were held) to liberate them. Up to 24 were killed when soldiers were ordered to open fire on them. The Chartists were fighting for the adoption of the People’s Charter, which called for universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and the right of regular working people to serve in the House of Commons. Three leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death, but popular protests got their sentences commuted to Transportation for Life, probably to Australia or Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania). America’s first cop, Allan Pinkerton, supposedly participated in this rebellion. He was a known Chartist in those days, a physical force man who loved to battle cops and Tory thugs. Because of his history of street violence and vandalism, he had to flee Britain in the dark of the night, ultimately settling in Illinois, where he eventually set up the private detective agency that would go on to murder numerous union organizers, and set up hundreds more for long prison stints through the use of agents provocateur and perjured testimonies.
The riots were depicted in the following novels: “Sir Cosmo Digby,” by James Augustus St John (1843), “Rape of the Fair Country,” by Alexander Cordell (1959) and “Children of Rebecca,” by Vivien Annis Bailey (1995).
Today in Labor History August 30, 1800: Gabriel Prosser postponed his planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia. The authorities still arrested and executed him, along with 20 others. While the revolt never occurred, it was the one event that most directly confronted the founding fathers with the enormous gulf between their ideal of liberty and their sleazy accommodations to slavery. It led to a rash of new legislation curtailing the rights of free African Americans, as well as laws prohibiting the education and hiring out of enslaved black people. Richmond, at the time of the planned revolt, was a black-majority town, with 39% of its residents being enslaved. There was a community whipping post, where people were brutalized publicly. There was also a growing number of free black people in Richmond, due in part to the influence of abolitionist Quakers and Methodists, as well as numerous refugees from the Haitian Revolution, a few years prior. The goal of the uprising was to completely end slavery in Virginia by holding Virginia's Governor, James Monroe, hostage to negotiate for their freedom. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel.
Arna Bontemps, a member of the Harlem Rennaisance, wrote Black Thunder (1936), a historical novel based on Gabriel's Rebellion. Alex Haley mentions it in his book, Roots. Barbara Chase-Riboud writes about it in her 1979 novel, Sally Hemings. And "Gabriel, the Musical" was produced in Richmond Virginia in 2022, with libretto by Jerold Solomon, Foster Solomon and Ron Klipp, and Music & Lyrics by Ron Klipp.
Today in Labor History August 21, 1680: Pueblo Indians captured Santa Fe from the Spanish. The Pueblo Revolt was an uprising against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. The Pueblos killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. However, the Spaniards reconquered New Mexico 12 years later. One cause of the revolt was the Spaniard’s attempt to destroy the Pueblo religion and ban their traditional dances and kachina dolls.
The Pueblo Revolt has been depicted in numerous fictional accounts, many of which were written by native and Pueblo authors. Clara Natonabah, Nolan Eskeets & Ariel Antone, from the Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team, wrote and performed "Po'pay" in 2010. In 2005, Native Voices at the Autry produced “Kino and Teresa,” a Pueblo recreation of “Romeo and Juliet,” written by Taos Pueblo playwright James Lujan. La Compañía de Teatro de Albuquerque produced the bilingual play “Casi Hermanos,” written by Ramon Flores and James Lujan, in 1995. Even Star Trek got into the game, with references to the Pueblo Revolt in their "Journey's End" episode. The rebel leader, Po’pay, was depicted in Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Arch Bishop” and in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
Today in Labor History August 21, 1831: Nat Turner launched a 2-day slave revolt in Virginia. They killed over 50 whites. In response, scores of African-Americans were lynched, including many who did not participate in the revolt. Turner survived in hiding for more than two months. Mobs & militias killed around 120 enslaved and free African Americans. In the aftermath, state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of free and enslaved black people and restricted the civil liberties for free blacks.
The rebellion is referenced in “Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown.” Thomas R. Gray wrote an 1831 pamphlet, “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” based on his jailhouse interview with Turner. Harriet Beecher Stowe referenced Turner's Confessions in her 1855 novel “Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.” Harriet Jacobs, an escaped slave, refers to the pogrom against blacks following Turner's rebellion in her 1861 classic, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” In the 1990s, Tupac Shakur honored Turner with a cross tattoo on his back "EXODUS 1831."
Today in Labor History August 19, 1920: A peasant insurrection began in Tambov, USSR, over the confiscation of their grain. Led by Alexander Antonov, a former official of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Green Army uprising evolved into a guerrilla war against the Red Army, Cheka Units and the Soviet authorities. The Bolsheviks finally suppressed the revolt in June, 1921. 240,000 died in the rebellion and over 50,000 were imprisoned. They also used chemical weapons on the peasants. Dissident writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote about it in a short story in his book, “Apricot Jam and other Stories,” (2010).