20 Times Americans Rebelled Against Their Government

1. A revolt launched by inmates of Attica Correctional Facility in 1971, the retaking of the prison saw the deadliest one-day encounter between Americans since the end of the Civil War

Part of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement, the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 saw inmates at Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, participate in a mass rebellion in protest of brutal conditions and in pursuit of political rights. Involving 1,281 out of the prison’s approximately 2,200 inmates, on September 9, 1971, the prisoner’s took forty-two officers and civilian members of staff hostage. Issuing a list of demands, including adequate medical treatment and fair visitation rights, negotiations were led by twenty-old-year-old Elliott James “L.D.” Barkley. Despite agreeing to twenty-eight reasonable requests, authorities refused to grant amnesty to those involved and talks broke down.

Ordered by Governor Nelson Rockefeller to regain control of the prison by force, at 0946 on September 13 police opened fire. Indiscriminately hitting hostages and inmates, including those not resisting, ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates were killed during the attack, becoming the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War. Barkley, just days away from his scheduled release, attempted to surrender but was murdered by state police upon recapture. A subsequent report, released to the public in 2013, revealed a long history of inmate abuse, including the torturing of those incarcerated at Attica.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775”, Bernhard Knollenberg, Liberty Fund (2003)

“Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History”, Francis D. Cogliano (1999)

“In Debt to Shays: The Bicentennial of an Agrarian Rebellion”, Robert A. Gross, University of Virginia Press (1993)

“A Little Rebellion”, Marion Lena Starkey, Literary Licensing, LLC (2011)

“Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising”, Leland Baldwin, University of Pittsburgh Press (1939)

“Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts That Built America”, Charles Adams, Free Press (1998)

“Fries’s Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution”, Paul Douglas Newman, University of Pennsylvania Press (2005)

“American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt”, Daniel Rasmussen, Harper Press (2011)

“Nat Turner and the Rising in Southampton County”, David F. Allmendinger Jr., Johns Hopkins University Press (2014)

“Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion”, Herbert Aptheker, Humanities Press (1966)

“A Free Soil – A Free People: The Anti-Rent War in Delaware County, New York”, Dorothy Kubik, Purple Mountain Publishing (1997)