1300s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1381: Tax collector John Bampton sparked the Peasants’ Revolt in Brentwood, Essex. The mass uprising, also known as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising, began because of attempts to collect a poll tax. However, tensions were already high because of the economic misery and hunger caused by the Black Death pandemic of the 1340s, and the Hundred Years’ War. During the uprising, rebels burned public records and freed prisoners. King Richard II, 14 years old, hid in the Tower of London. Rebels entered the Tower and killed the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, but not the king. It took nearly six months for the authorities to suppress the Peasants’ Revolt. They slaughtered over 1,400 rebels. Roughly 600 years later, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tried again to impose a poll tax on Britain’s working class. It also sparked a revolt which brought an end both to the tax and Thatcher’s regime.
1400s: Joan of Ark
Today in Labor History May 30, 1431: Teenage peasant soldier and crossdresser, Joan of Ark, was burned at the stake by an English tribunal. Twenty-fiver years later, Pope Callixtus III declared her a martyr. In 1909, they beatified her and they granted her sainthood in 1920. She rose to prominence during the Hundred Years’ War, which was essentially a feud between competing monarchies (French and English) that left the peasants poor, hungry and at risk of being slaughtered. England had been winning the war and had almost gained control over France when Joan of Ark decided to intervene. She had been having religious visions and was convinced that only she could turn things around for France.
She traveled to Chinon to meet King Charles, disguised as a male soldier, which later led to charges of cross-dressing. Convincing the King to turn the conflict into a religious war, she led his troops in the Battle of Orleans. By many contemporary accounts, it was her military advice that won the battle. However, by her own words, she never killed a man, preferring to carry the banner “forty times better” than a sword. In the centuries after her death, she became legendary.
1700s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1741: The authorities burned thirteen black men at the stake for their role in a purported plot to start a slave revolt in the colony of New York. They also hanged seventeen black men, two white men, and two white women. However, historians disagree whether the plot ever existed. The prosecution continually changed its story during the trial, even leveling accusations of Spanish and Catholic involvement.
In the weeks leading up to the trial, there had been a series of fires in Manhattan, which had the second highest slave population in the colonies at the time. They arrested several slaves, including a 16-year-old Irish girl. She testified that poor white and black people were conspiring to kill rich white men, steal their wives and elect a new king. In the end, the authorities arrested over 200 people and hanged or burned 100 of them, in a witch hunt that drew parallels to those of Salem fifty year before.
Bakunin’s Birth
Today in Labor History May 30, 1814: Russian anarchist militant and philosopher Mikhail Bakunin was born. In Paris, in the 1840’s, he met Marx and Proudhon, who were early influences on him. He was later expelled from France for opposing Russia’s occupation of Poland. In 1849, the authorities arrested him in Dresden for participating in the Czech rebellion of 1848. They deported him back to Russia, where the authorities imprisoned him and then exiled him to Siberia in 1857. During his imprisonment, he lost all his teeth due to scurvy. However, he eventually escaped and made it to England.
In 1868, he joined the International Working Men’s Association, leading the rapidly growing anarchist faction. He argued for federations of self-governing workplaces and communes to replace the state. This was in contrast to Marx, who argued for the state to help bring about socialism. However, he agreed with Marx’s class analysis. Nevertheless, in 1872, they expelled Bakunin from the International.
Bakunin died in 1876 in Bern, Switzerland. He influenced anarchist movements throughout the world, but especially in Italy and Spain. He also influenced the IWW, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, Herbert Marcuse, and Emma Goldman.
1890s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1899: Pearl Hart committed one of the last stage coach robberies in America, and one of the only committed by a woman. At a young age, she married a man who turned out to be abusive. After watching Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she decided that the cowboy lifestyle was the life for her. So, she abandoned her husband and caught a train to Trinidad, Colorado (near the site of the future Ludlow Massacre).
“I was only twenty-two years old. I was good-looking, desperate, discouraged, and ready for anything that might come.” During this time, she may have worked as a prostitute and developed a morphine habit. However, she wasn’t earning much money and decided to rob a stagecoach, along with a companion, Joe Boot. She cut her hair short and dressed as a man. They robbed the stagecoach without incident. But the authorities caught up them and arrested them less than a week later. Hart escaped, but was recaptured after two weeks. During her trial, she pleaded that she needed the money for her sick mother. The jury acquitted her, which really pissed off the judge.
1900s
Today in Writing History May 30, 1901: The Russian authorities released writer Maxim Gorky from prison after Leo Tolstoy interceded on his behalf. They had imprisoned him for printing revolutionary literature. Later, during the Soviet era, Gorky interceded on behalf of other writers who had been imprisoned by Stalin.
1920s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1925: The Shanghai Massacre. Police murdered nine members of the May 30th Movement of workers and anti-imperialists. Shanghai was one of the most unionized cities in China at the time. The Communist Party was also very active there. However, most of the workers lacked a viable grievance process and their factories were dangerous and seldom, if ever, inspected for safety. In the months leading up to the police massacre, there had been numerous violent strikes and protests, especially at Japanese-owned factories. On May 30, protesters arrived at the police station to demand the release of other activists who had been arrested. The police opened fire on the crowd, killing at least nine and injuring another fourteen. During the strikes and protests that followed, the police killed between 30 and 200 more people.
Today in Labor History May 30, 1929: The Ford Motor Company signed a “Technical Assistance” contract to produce cars in the Soviet Union. Numerous Ford workers went to the Soviet Union to train the labor force in the use of its parts. The name of the plant was Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, after the writer, Maxim Gorky, who was released from prison on this same day in 1901.
1940s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1943: Civil Rights activist James Chaney was born. He was one of the three members of CORE who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964.
1960s-1970s
Today in Labor History May 30, 1969: a workers’ uprising began in Curaçao against low pay and discrimination against the black population. The Trinta di Mei riots lasted two days. The Caribbean island was then part of the Dutch empire. Racism against black residents continued after slavery was abolished in 1863. Leading up to the protests, there had been growing black power and anti-imperialism movements. Two people died in the uprising. Hundreds were arrested. However, workers achieved most of their demands: higher wages and the resignation of the government. Leaders of the uprising won seats in the next elections.
Today in Labor History May 30, 1972: The Angry Brigade went on trial in the UK for a series of bombings it had carried out. In total, the police blamed 25 separate bombings on the far-left militant group. Targets included banks, embassies, the BBC and the homes of some Members of Parliament. No one died from the bombings. The court acquitted four of the eight activists in the trial. Four others were sentenced to 10 years.