Today in Labor History May 20, 1776: The Mohawks, under the leadership Joseph Brandt (Thayendanegea), defeated the American Revolutionaries at the Battle of the Cedars (on the St. Lawrence River). A day earlier, Benedict Arnold, commanding the American military garrison at Montreal, surrendered to a combined force of British and Indigenous troops. Brant was born into the Wolf Clan of the matrilineal society, where power was divided between male chiefs and clan mothers, with decisions made by consensus between them. Much of this history is portrayed in the wonderful novel Manituana, by Wu Ming (2007), an Italian writing collective formerly associated with the Luther Blissett Project. #workingclass #LaborHistory #indigenous #mohawk #josephbrandt #Revolution #canada #wuming #lutherblissett #author #writer #fiction #historicalfiction #novel #books @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in labor history April 30, 1871: A mob massacred more than 100 Apaches at Camp Grant, Arizona. The mob included 48 Mexican Americans and 92 Tohono O’odham. Most of the Apaches that were killed were women and children. The Apaches had already surrendered and placed themselves under U.S. protection when the attack occurred. As a result, the Apache, and their Yavapai allies, launched a series of attacks against the U.S. Their attacks continued into 1875. Descendants of those massacred are currently fighting against Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, to block mining on the massacre site—the third largest copper deposit in the world. John McCain and Jeff Flake authored the legislation that opened the site to mining. Seventh-day Adventists, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute, Mormans, the Christian Legal Society, Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, and the Sikh Coalition, have joined together to support the Apache and filed legal briefs for them. Rio Tinto is responsible for some of the worst environmental devastation on the planet, union busting, and for the mass murder of indigenous environmental and labor activists around the world. They also have a history of collaborating with fascists, including Franco, in Spain. As recently as March, 2024, the federal courts have ruled in favor of Rio Tinto, allowing them to mine the sacred Apache land. #workingclass #LaborHistory #massacre #indigenous #genocide #RioTinto #copper #mining #union #fascism #racism #pollution #apache #nativeamerican #sacredland #solidarity

Happy #SocialistSunday.

Today in Labor History April 18, 1977: Native American activist Leonard Peltier was found guilty of murdering two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation. However, he was actually framed by undercover FBI agents who were conducting counterintelligence on the reservation. During the trial, some of the government’s own witnesses testified that Peltier wasn’t even present at the scene of the killings. In 2017, President Obama denied Peltier's application for clemency. He is still in prison and his health has been deteriorating. There is a petition to get him transferred from prison to Mayo clinic in Minnesota. On June 7, 2022, The UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Peltier’s imprisonment violates the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. #workingclass #LaborHistory #LeonardPeltier #fbi #obama #AmericanIndianMovement #indigenous #prison #racism #nativeamerican #politicalprisoner #pineridge

Today in History, March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born. In addition to being one of the most significant physicists of all time, he was also a pacifist. Yet his letter to President Roosevelt warning of the Nazi progress on atomic weapons research was arguably key to the U.S. implementation of the Manhatton Project, a decision he later lamented. In 1955, well after the Cold War and nuclear arms race had begun, he and ten other intellectuals and scientists, including other Nobel Prize laureates, like Bertrand Russell and Linus Pauling, wrote a manifesto warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons. Einstein also participated in the U.S. Civil Rights movement, calling racism America’s “worst disease.” Later in his life he began to support socialism, and he criticized the Bolsheviks for their barbarism. Einstein was also a Zionist, and supported Jews’ right to return to Palestine. However, he wanted a free, bi-national Palestine in which Jews and Arabs shared sovereignty, living peacefully and equally with each other. #workingclass #LaborHistory #einstein #nazis #pacifism #antisemitism #zionism #palestine #israel #physics #atomicbomb #nuclear #socialism #civilrights #racism #nobelprize

Today in Labor History February 27, 1973: 300 Oglala Sioux activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) liberated and occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This was the site of the infamous Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890). They occupied the site to protest a campaign of terror against them by the FBI, and corrupt tribal officials, and the tribal thugs knowns as GOONs (Guardians of Oglala Nation). The occupation lasted over 2 months, before being quashed by the U.S. government. 3 Native activists were killed. Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted for their roll, but charges were later dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. #aim #indigenous #WoundedKnee #massacre #genocide #occupation #fbi #oglala #sioux #workingclass #LaborHistory #native #terrorism #AmericanIndianMovement

Today in Labor History January 31, 1606: Guy Fawkes jumped to his death moments before his execution for treason. Guy Fawkes belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes, who had converted to Catholicism, also fought in the 80-Years War for Catholic Spain against the Dutch. He later traveled to Spain seeking support for a Catholic rebellion in England. The English tortured him into confessing the names of his co-conspirators. Brits have celebrated Guy Fawkes Day ever since, usually accompanied by fireworks and burning effigies, traditionally the pope, but recently they’ve burned effigies of Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Margaret Thatcher, instead. James Sharpe, professor of history at the University of York, called Fawkes "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions." Numerous historical novels and children’s books have been written about Fawkes, including William Harrison Ainsworth's 1841 historical romance “Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason.” #workingclass #LaborHistory #guyfawkes #conspiracy #gunpowder #plot #catholic #spain #england #liztruss #rishisunak #margaretthatcher #fiction #historicalfiction #books #novel #author #writer @npub1wceq...lzu8