Did you ever heard about Polish strike in Jamestown 1619?

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I wonder if Americans have ever heard of a Polish craftsman strike in the Jamestown colony in 1619 and it's a contribution to labour rights:)?


I am Polish and a great lover of history.



Well, the founder of the first English colony in North America was a great adventurer and mercenary, before he became famous as the founder of the colony, he fought as a mercenary soldier on the side of Austria with Ottoman Turkey near Transylvania (yes that Transylvania )



There were also many mercenary troops in this war, also from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ( A kind of federal elective monarchy of Poland and Lithuania)

Poland-Lithuania was in at that time in XVI Century a state that was very much respected and feared (unlike today )

Due it's combined military and economic might, it was a kind of superpower at that time.



So John Smith was tasked with funding colony, he knows that he needs to build also heavy industry to make such colony both profitable self-sustaining so hie bring along the Pilgrims the only people he knew can do the job done namely Poles and Germans



Background
The Jamestown settlement was founded in 1607. Captain John Smith, leader of the Jamestown colony, argued that the colony must produce not only for its own food, but also for sale. Because it was rich in pine trees that can be used to produce tar and resin, experienced workers, tar workers were sought. Smith was in Poland a few years earlier, returning from Turkish captivity, which he got to in 1602. After taking over the colony in September 1608, on behalf of the Virgins Company of London], he recruited skilled craftsmen in the production of these goods and glass processing. The glass furnace built at that time became the first industrial plant in America.

The first group of Polish craftsmen arrived in Jamestown, Virginia on October 1, 1608, a year after the establishment of this first settlement of English colonists on the Mary and Margaret ship (initially numbering five), twelve years before the so-called "Pilgrims" who arrived in Massachusetts in 1620. Probably these people were bound by a contract, which in exchange for transport to America obliged them to work in the colony for a certain number of years [3]. Their qualifications were so high that they also dealt with teaching the profession.

During this period, the colony grew to 1000 inhabitants



Strike
The strike broke out on July 30, 1619, and consisted of refusing to work and closing their factories. The reason was the decision of the then governor, who in the election to the newly formed General Assembly of Virginia granted voting rights only to colonists of English origin. The number of colonists from Poland was small at the time and reached 50 people, but they controlled the colony industry. This refusal to work was the first in the English colony and the first in North America a workers' strike.

Epilogue
So as you see Poles and latter the Germans flipped the bird and without them was no export and without it would be no money to buy food for the colony

It’s sort of a situation of “what’s fair is fair.”

Rights were denied to the Polish craftsmen.

Being essential workers, they had recourse.

That IS interesting.

I didn't know the land that would become the United States had Polish immigrants that early. And I didn't know that the US had labor strikes that early on.

Though it wasn't the first EVER labor strike. That occurred in ancient Egypt during the Bronze Age.

Among my ancestors was Hessian mercenary. Hesse being part of what would become the unified state of Germany. He fought on the other side- with the Brits - against George Washington. He returned to Germany but his grandkids immigrated to America in the 19th century.

One Pole, Casimir Polaski, was an engineer who helped G. Washington fight the Brits.

I am familiar with the later big wave of immigrants from Poland to America during the Ellis Island period of the late 19th and early 20th Century. Large numbers of both Gentile Ethnic Poles, and large numbers of Polish Jews came over here in that era. Poland's fortunes had changed by then and was ruled by Czarist Russia. It was no longer the great power it had been in the Jamestown era.

If the last two presidents had been running Jamestown- Obama would have deported the Polish strikers- and loosing their skills with them.

And then Trump would have taken "credit" for what Obama did, but he also would have used then non existent Poles in Jamestown as scapegoats for all of Jamestown's problems, and then demanded that Poland pay for a wall to keep Poles out!

Poles and Germans.