Lattimer Massacre - 19 Unarmed Immigrant Strikers Killed by Sheriff's Posse

Sheriff James Martin and 150 armed deputies open fire on 300-400 unarmed striking coal miners marching to support a newly formed United Mine Workers union at Calvin Pardee’s Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The peaceful demonstration consists mostly of Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian, and German immigrant workers protesting brutal working conditions in Luzerne County anthracite mines where 32,000 miners have died since 1870. At least 19 miners are killed and between 17 and 49 are wounded in the attack at 3:45 PM. Many victims are shot in the back, and several have multiple gunshot wounds indicating they were deliberately targeted by deputies, contradicting claims of self-defense or accidental shooting.

The immigrant strikers are protesting conditions that include wages 10-15% lower than “English speakers” for the same work, a discriminatory three-cent daily tax on all alien adult male workers, irregular employment from frequent layoffs, and exploitation through company stores, company doctors, and company housing that keep workers in debt peonage. Mine safety is virtually nonexistent, with death rates that make coal mining one of the most dangerous occupations in America. When the demonstrators reach Lattimer, Sheriff Martin orders them to disperse and attempts to grab an American flag from the lead marcher’s hands, triggering a scuffle. The deputies then open fire on the unarmed crowd without warning.

More than 2,500 Pennsylvania National Guard troops are deployed late on September 10 to restore order, but the massacre triggers a turning point in United Mine Workers organizing: over 10,000 new members join immediately, and the incident demolishes the myth of immigrant workers’ supposed docility. The defense at the subsequent trial vilifies the slain miners as “foreign aliens threatening the social and economic order,” and all defendants are acquitted despite overwhelming evidence of an unprovoked massacre. Three years later, during the Great Coal Strike of 1902, the UMW achieves many of the demands for which Lattimer miners died. The Lattimer Massacre demonstrates the violent intersection of labor suppression, nativist xenophobia, and corporate impunity characteristic of Gilded Age America—a pattern where immigrant workers face both wage discrimination and lethal violence, while those who kill them escape accountability. The massacre site remains uncommemorated for 80 years until the United Labor Council and UMW erect a memorial in 1972.