On this day in 1891, armed Tennessee Coal Miners freed hundreds of prisoners who were being used as strikebreaking convict labor. The raid took place in the context of the “Coal Creek War”, a militant labor uprising in the early 1890s.
The Coal Creek War took place primarily, but not exclusively, in Anderson County, Tennessee. This labor conflict ignited in 1891 when coal mine owners in the Coal Creek watershed began to remove and replace their company-employed, private coal miners then on the payroll with convict laborers leased out by the Tennessee state prison system, used in this case as strikebreakers.
Coal workers at the Tennessee Coal Mining Company (TCMC) went on strike on April 1st, 1891, demanding to be paid in cash, not scrip (currency only usable at company stores) and to be allowed to check the weight of their haul (they were paid by weight, but not allowed to check the company’s measurement).
Workers initiated a series of raids against the TCMC - on July 14th, armed miners surrounded the stockades where leased convicts were held and sent them by train out of the city. On October 31st, 1891, the miners burned company stockades to the ground and freed hundreds of convicts being held there. On Nov. 2nd, another band attacked stockades in a different location and freed those prisoners as well. From those two events alone, at least 453 convicts were set free.
The strike was forcibly put down by state militia, ending with the arrest of hundreds of miners. All but one were either acquitted or merely fined. Tennessee ended its policy of leasing convict labor, using convicts to work in state-owned mines instead.
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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
hands someone chocolate
“Chocolate, pour vous!”
Subtitles: “speaking French”
Maybe subtitling ppl are not supposed to translate stuff on their own, but cmon.
Broke: [speaking French]
Woke: (in French) Chocolate, for you!
Bespoke: [unintelligible]
:michael-laugh:
The only movie I approve of not translating the subtitles is Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. There are several scenes where folks are speaking Cree and Blackfoot and they’re deliberately not translated so only speakers of those languages can enjoy them. Apparently the dialogue contains a couple of jokes specifically for indigenous American viewers. Deeply weird movie, and worth a watch as a great western that spits in the face of westerns. Also a lot of good writing and thought discussing how Dead Man portrays native American people, how it’s better than some depictions, and how it’s still limited and flawed.
i support not telling the audience if the characters aren’t meant to understand it tbh
This character spoke French as a second language, though. In general I’d agree with you
Yeah [speaking French] or [non-english] is industry standard, even if it’s fairly obvious from context.