Thibodaux Massacre of 1887
In the fall of 1887 approximately 10,000 sugar cane workers struck in Thibodaux, Louisiana, seeking an increase in pay. They were opposed by a powerful coalition of sugar planters, the Louisiana Sugar Producers Association (LSPA), consisting of more than 200 of the largest sugar plantation operations in the state. The LSPA supported the withholding of earned wages until the completion of the sugar harvest to ensure that workers remained until the end, retaining 80% of wages. They also favored the payment in the form of scrip, ensuring the wages would be returned to the employer via the company store system.
Organized by the Knights of Labor, the strikers demanded an increase in wages to $1.25 per day, with earned wages paid in full every two weeks, in cash rather than in company scrip. When the LSPA ignored the demands the workers went on strike in early November, a date calculated to coincide with a critical point in the harvesting of the sugar cane, which would rot and cause massive losses to the owners if not brought in and processed in a timely manner. About 10% of the striking workers were white, the rest African-American.
Governor Samuel McEnery was sympathetic to the sugar planters, motivated no doubt by the fact that he was a major sugar plantation owner himself. The governor ordered several regiments of the state militia to Thibodaux, including an artillery regiment. Their orders were to protect strikebreakers, many of whom were convicts dispatched from state prisons and local jails. After several skirmishes in neighboring communities the strike was limited to the Thibodaux region and the state militia was withdrawn from there in favor of local resolution of the issue.
Local authorities declared martial law and mustered about 300 men to enforce it under the control of the Parish District Judge, also a sugar planter. The city was sealed off and blacks were required to show a pass at all times or face arrest. Black strikers and Knights of Labor supporters were targeted by the Parish paramilitary group and vigilantes supporting them. The attacks took place over the course of three days, and the number of strikers and bystanders killed is impossible to estimate accurately. At least 50 were known to have been killed during the three day period, but bodies continued to be discovered for months later. The strike was broken.
The Knights of Labor was driven from the state and recruitment of workers for the union essentially ceased for the next 45 years. Most of the sugar cane workers returned to the fields, under the terms dictated by the plantation owners. The system continued to operate as before until the late 1940s.