1700s
Today in Labor History November 29, 1781: The crew of the British slave ship Zong slaughtered over 130 enslaved Africans. According to the crew, the ship ran low on drinking water after several navigational blunders. Consequently, they threw the insured slaves overboard. However, when the insurers refused to pay, the slavers sued. On appeal, the judges, ruled against the slave trading syndicate, due to evidence that the captain and crew were at fault. Following the first trial, a freed man, Olaudah Equiano, brought news of the massacre to the attention of the anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp, who fought unsuccessfully to have the ship’s crew prosecuted for murder. This did increase publicity, stimulating the abolitionist movement.
1830s
Today in Labor History November 29, 1832: Louisa May Alcott, author, nurse, feminist and abolitionist, was born. The transcendentalists, like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Longfellow, whom she knew personally, were also a strong influence on her writing. While she was most famous for her book, “Little Women,” she also wrote “Work,” an autobiographical novel that exposed the exploitation of women workers. Poverty forced her to work at a young age as a teacher, seamstress, governess and domestic. During the Civil War, she worked as a nurse and developed typhoid fever. The medicine she took contained mercury, which may have contributed to the autoimmune disorders that plagued her for the rest of her life and that ultimately killed her. She is buried on Author’s Ridge, at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Concord, near Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne.
1860s-1870s
Today in Labor History November 29, 1864: Colonel John Chivington led a 675-man force in a massacre of at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants. They attacked and destroyed a village in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 69 to over 600 Native Americans, two-thirds of whom were women and children. Numerous authors have written about the massacre, including “Centennial” (1974) by James Michener; “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (1971) by Dee Brown; “Flight” (2007) by Sherman Alexie; and “Choke Creek” (2009) by Lauren Small.
Today in Labor History November 29, 1870: England initiated state-run compulsory education.
1930s
Today in Labor History November 29, 1934: Retail workers at Boston Stores in Milwaukee launched a strike at the beginning of the Christmas rush. The strike was a united effort between three unions, including clerks, teamsters & building-service employees. An extremely cold winter and the store’s willingness to hold out through the holiday season eventually broke the strike. For the next 60 years, none of the city’s major department stores were unionized.