workingclasshistory:

On this day, 12 July 1917, over 1,000 striking copper miners in the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union were illegally deported by armed vigilantes from Bisbee, Arizona to New Mexico. The strike, by a diverse workforce including many Mexican and European migrant workers, began in late June demanding better paid, safety, union rights and an end to discrimination against migrant and workers of colour. Mine bosses refused all the demands, and instead the Citizen’s Protective League, a vigilante group formed by local employers, was put under the control of the sheriff. On July 12 at 5 AM, a private army of 2000 deputies, armed vigilantes and scabs assembled, seized the telegraph office to cut off communication with the outside world and began abducting striking workers, beating and robbing many, and abusing women. One striker, James Brew, warned his attackers that he would shoot anyone who tried to take him, and when they decided to invade his home anyway he shot and killed one strikebreaker, before being murdered by the strikebreaker’s accomplices. In the end 1186 men were rounded up, marched two miles to a waiting train with a machine-gun mounted on it. They were then loaded onto boxcars filthy with manure alongside 186 armed guards and taken to New Mexico with no shelter. Many of the workers were subsequently detained for several months, and prevented from returning to Bisbee by armed guards on horseback deployed on every route into town. While the strike in Bisbee was broken, the resulting publicity of the deportations assisted IWW organising efforts elsewhere.
Learn more about the union in our podcast series: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/iww/
Pictured: strikers being marched out of town https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1473573132827832/?type=3