On this day in Labor History the year was 1887. That was the day of the Thibodaux Massacre, in Louisiana just southwest of New Orleans.
Thousands of African American sugar cane workers had gone out on strike. Before the Civil War, sugar cane, like other southern crops had been harvested by enslaved labor. After the war, planters put laws and practices into place to control and repress the newly freed labor force.
By the late 1880s one of those practices was paying sugar cane workers in scrip. Instead of actual money workers received scrip only redeemable at the planters’ stores. This let planters set the prices for goods and keep their workers in debt.
The Knights of Labor began to organize the bayou sugar workers through their Local Assembly 8404. The union presented the Louisiana Sugar Producers Association, which represented 200 of the largest planters, with a list of demands.
The list included the end of scrip payment and a small wage increase. The planters refused. The union called a strike to begin on November first, during a key time in the sugar harvest.
Outraged planters brought in scabs to replace the strikers and militia troops to protect the scabs. They evicted strikers from their plantation homes. Many evicted black workers made their way to the black section of Thibodaux.
White armed men began to picket around the black neighborhood. Two of these white picketers were fired on by an unknown person.
In retaliation, for more than two hours the vigilantes rained gun fire on black strikers and their families. At least thirty people, and possibly many more were killed. The strike was crushed.
December 9 - The Cordiner Doctrine
December 8 - The American Federation of Labor is Founded
December 7 - Strong Arming Goldminers
December 6 - Breaking Through the Racial Divide
December 5 - Striking in Solidarity
December 4 - Organizing to End Slavery
December 3 - Learning & Labor at Oberlin
December 2 - 21st Century Corporate Greed
December 1 - Standing Up for Themselves and Their Patients
November 30 - Angel of the Stockyards is Born
November 29 - The Fight for $15 & A Union
November 28 - Disaster in the Mines
November 27 - Death Trap in Newark
November 26 - The Birth of William Sylvis
November 25 - Chicago Printers Walk Off the Job
November 24 - The Hollywood Ten
November 23 - The Thibodaux Massacre
November 22 - Uprising of the 20,000
November 21 - Autoworkers Join the Postwar Strike Wave
November 20 - Birth of the Time Clock
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