Bisbee deportation essays

Bisbee deportation essays The Bisbee deportation event was not only a pivotal point in 1917 on Arizonas labor history but it also had a great contribution on labor activities throughout the country. The Bisbee event was an event that led to labor movement by copper miners in Bisbee, Arizona, even though it all started as a dispute between the miners and the miner companies over high risk jobs and poorly paid wages it turned out into a strike. It all started during World War I when the price of copper reached unprecedented heights and the companies reaped enormous profits, Bisbee was booming with five thousand miner workers. The mining companies controlled Bisbee and depended on the miner workers but the problem was that they had Mexicans and European immigrants working the mines with low pay even though it was better paid than what they could earn in any outside job in Bisbee. So The Industrial Workers of The World (I.W.W.) took action and presented some demands including improvements in safety, working conditions and discrimination. The copper companies refused all the I.W.W. demands, so the workers went on strike having roughly half of the Bisbee work force on strike. As tensions heighten, two so called vigilant groups Workmans loyalty league and the Citizens Protective League took action and about 2000 deputies got together wearing white armbands to distinguish themselves from the strikers. By 6:30 in the morning, vigilant groups rounded up and men were roused from their beds, houses and from the streets, they rounded about 1000 men and gave them the opportunity to quit the strike and would be released. Hardly any one quit the strike, so a train arrived and took them all to Columbus, New Mexico but had to turn back once they realized there was no accommodation for all these men, the train traveled back and stopped at Heramanas, New Mexico and abandoned them their with no food nor shelter until the US troops ...