Coeur d’Alene War.
Today in Labor History May 17, 1858: 1,200 Coeur d’Alene, Palouse, Spokane & Skitswich Indians defeated Colonel Steptoe’s forces near Colfax, WA. Colonel George Wright returned with a larger force and defeated the indigenous warriors in early September during the Battle of the Four Lakes.
In 1851, Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens negotiated a treaty with the region’s tribes. He did this in order to remove them from lands he intended to use for railroads. The treaty promised the tribes their own lands. Furthermore, it also promised that whites would not trespass on their new lands. However, white settlers rushed into the region after gold was discovered along the upper Columbia River. They trespassed on Indian lands in violation of the treaty. In response, native chiefs launched the Yakima War, which they lost in 1856.
In 1857, Stevens left for Congress. Many local tribes still didn’t have treaties. Others were skeptical that their treaties would be honored once he was gone. So, Yakima Chief Qualchan organized the other tribes to band together. They decided that if any soldiers crossed the Snake River, it would be trespassing and a hostile act. In May of 1858, the army did cross the river, and so began the Coeur d’Alene War.
The World’s First Concentration Camps
May 17, 1900: The siege of Mafeking ended, during the Second Boer War. The British interned tens of thousands of Boers in the world’s first concentration camps. As a result, over 27,000 Boer women and children died. The Spanish had created similar death camps in Cuba during the Ten Year’s War (1868-1878). However, the death camps in South Africa were the first to be called concentration camps. Additionally, the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time an entire nation had been targeted. During the war, Mahatma Gandhi and 800 Indian slaves started the Ambulance Corps to serve the British.
Tom Mooney and the Preparedness Day Bombing
Today in Labor History May 17, 1917: The government stayed the execution of Tom Mooney while he appealed his case. Mooney ultimately spent 22 years in prison for the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade bombing in 1916, a crime he did not commit. Mooney, along with codefendant Warren Billings, were members of the IWW and were railroaded because of their union and radical affiliations. The bomb exploded at the foot of Market Street, killing ten and wounding forty. Billings had heard rumors that agents provocateurs might try to blacken the labor movement by disrupting the pro-war parade. He tried to warn his comrades.
As a young man in San Francisco, Tom Mooney published The Revolt, a socialist newspaper. He was tried and acquitted three times for transporting explosives during the Pacific Gas & Electric strike in 1913. Consequently, he already had the reputation of being a bomber, prior to the Preparedness Day parade, regardless of whether it was true.
Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus in 1937, providing evidence that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and evidence tampering. He was finally pardoned in 1939. Upon his release, he marched in a huge parade down market street. Cops and leaders of the mainstream unions were all forbidden from participating. An honor guard of longshoremen accompanied him carrying their hooks. His case helped establish that convictions based on false evidence violate people’s right to due process.
May Days Crisis, Spanish Civil War
May 17, 1937: The Spanish Republican socialist (PSOE) government of Largo Caballero resigned. Juan Negrin, another member of the PSOE, replaced him. This new Republican government completely excluded the anarcho-syndicalists (members of the CNT union).
Caballero was affiliated with the moderate socialist UGT union. In the early 1930s, he collaborated with the national dictator, Primo do Rivera, in exchange for allowing the UGT to continue operating. By the mid-1930s, he had moved to the left, and formed alliances with the communists (PCE) and the anarcho-syndicalists. He even called himself the “second Lenin,” who’d unify the Iberian Soviets. He became prime minister in 1936, but only reigned a few months. His reign ended during the May Days Crisis of 1937, when factional fighting broke out between members of the PSOE, PCE and CNT.
1930s-1940s
Today in Labor History May 17, 1938: Marcia Freedman was born. She was an American-Israeli feminist and a peace, human rights and LGBTQ rights activist. She was also founding president of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and a past president of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
May 17, 1947: President Truman ended a nation-wide railroad strike by threatening to take over the railroads and send in the army.
1950s-1960s
Today in Labor History May 17, 1954: In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” public education was unconstitutional, and a violation of the 14th Amendment. The ruling reversed the 1896 “separate but equal” Plessy vs Ferguson decision.
May 17, 1968: Thousands of students marched for the second day in a row from the Sorbonne to the Renault works in spite of the opposition of the trade unions which were afraid of revolutionary contamination.
Today in Labor History May 17, 1968: BOAC pilots in England began a work-to-rule, 48 hours earlier than originally planned.
1970s
May 17. 1974: The Troubles, Northern Ireland: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonated four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, killing 33 civilians and wounding 300. It was the deadliest attack of the troubles and in the Republic’s history. The UVF is a loyalist paramilitary. They were likely aided by members of Britain’s state security forces.
Symbionese Liberation Army
Today in Labor History May 17, 1974: Cops raided the headquarters of the Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles. As a result, they killed six SLA members. It was one of the largest police shootouts in U.S. history. The cops fired 5,000 rounds and the SLA fired 4,000. Prior to the shootout, they had committed several bank robberies and murders. However, they were most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst. One of the conditions they demanded for her release was for the Hearst family to distribute four hundred million dollars’-worth of food to the Bay Area poor. In actuality, over 100,000 bags of groceries were distributed.
The SLA was a Maoist organization. Members saw themselves as urban guerillas, like the Tupamaros, in Uruguay. However, by most accounts, the SLA was a group of confused wingnuts. Furthermore, leader and founding member, Cinque, has been accused of being a police informant.
1980s-1990s
Today in Labor History May 17, 1980: In order to suppress student demonstrations, General Chun Doo-hwan seized control of the South Korean government and declared martial law.
Today in LGBTQ History May 17 1990: The World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.
2000s
Today in LGBTQ History May 17 2004: Massachusetts performed the nation’s first legal same-sex marriages.
May 17 2004: Twelve Starbucks baristas in a midtown Manhattan store, declared they couldn’t live on $7.75 an hour. Therefore, they signed cards demanding representation by the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies.