1600s
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.
Many authors, including several Pueblo authors, have written about the Revolt in fictional accounts. 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. Willa Cather wrote about rebel leader Po’Pay in “Death Comes for the Arch Bishop.” Aldous Huxley also refers to the revolt in “Brave New World.”
1700s
Today in Labor History August 21, 1752: French radical priest Jacques Roux (1752-1794) was born in Charente, France. He participated in the French Revolution and fought for a classless society and the abolition of private property. He also helped radicalize the Parisian working class. Roux led the far-left faction, Enrages and held office in the Paris Commune in 1791. He demanded that food be available for everyone and argued that the wealthy should executed if they horded it.
Roux is featured in a mission in the French Revolution-set game Assassin’s Creed Unity. Peter Weiss depicts him in Marat/Sade as a straight jacketed inmate in an asylum to symbolize the state’s desire to restrain political radicals.
1830s
Today in Labor History August 21, 1831: Nat Turner launched a 2-day slave revolt in Virginia. They killed over 50 whites. In response, mobs and militias lynched scores of African-Americans, 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.”
1890s-1950s
Today in Labor History August 21, 1893: Emma Goldman led a march of a 1,000 people to Union Square, NY. She told the crowd that workers have a right to take bread if they are hungry and to demonstrate “before the palaces of the rich.” The authorities arrested her because her speech was “incendiary.” You can read about her life in her 2-volume autobiography “Living My Life.”
Today in Labor History August 21, 1920: Ongoing violence by coal operators and their paid goons in the southern coalfields of West Virginia led to a three hour gun battle between striking miners and guards that left six dead. 500 Federal troops were sent in not only to quell the fighting, but to ensure that scabs were able to get to and from the mines. A General Strike was threatened if the troops did not cease their strikebreaking activities.
Today in Labor History August 21, 1952: A strike began against International Harvester by the United Electrical Workers.