What Was The Haymarket Affair?

 In the 1880s, there was a evolution taking place in America....over rights of workers.  Unions were leading this on, and in major urbanized areas....there was a lot of conflict going on.

So in Chicago, around Haymarket Square....around early May of 1886....a demonstration was scheduled.  Most people were led to the idea that it was all peaceful and just supposed to send a 'message'.

The day prior to this (3 May), police had gotten into some type of scuffle and killed a protest guy....and injuring a couple of other folks.

In the middle of this event on the 4th of May....with police trying to bust-up the protest demonstration....dynamite was thrown around.  You can ask various questions, but no one knows much of anything....other than 7 police were dead and around four protest folks were no longer among the living.  A fair number of folks were wounded from the blast.

What came up in the weeks after this....around eight individuals were arrested and held to be anarchists'.  Some evidence was presented to say that one of the eight probably made the dynamite device.   Evidence that this guy threw the device at the police?  None.  Local Chicago court felt enough evidence was there.....so seven of the eight were convicted and sentenced to be hanged....with the 8th getting a 15-year period in state prison.

Roughly 18 months after the blast.....four of the seven were actually hanged (Nov 1887).  Around six years would pass and the remaining folks were pardoned by the state governor, who deemed the whole process and accomplishments to be 'pretty crapped up' (my expression, not his). 

If you dig through all the history to this.....the dynamite device itself only killed one single policeman, and wounded six others.  

It's what comes immediately after this where a bunch of people (police included)....pulled pistols and just started firing rounds.  A whole bunch of shooting erupts.....with seventy-odd people wounded, and four dead folks on the ground (from the gunshots, not the bomb).

The numbers business being faulty?  There's been various discussions over the years and some people think the wounded number might be two or three times what is generally regarded as 'fact'.  A lot of wounded people just walked away....preferring not to admit being anywhere near the event.

What the Chicago news media did after this?  Well...they blamed the union folks, and the term 'anarchist' started to get uttered at the same level that 'militia-members' gets uttered today.  

The accusation of infiltrators or 'insiders' being uttered?  This is a curious thing.  Pinkerton agents were quickly pointed as possible in the planning process, and maybe the use of the dynamite itself.  

Some or all of the legal proceedings simply 'cooked-up'?  Well....this gets brought up and there's little you can do but read the accepted history and go over the suggested false-history (fake news, more or less).

The court hearing (running from 21 June to 11 August)?  More or less....a circus atmosphere.

The bomb 'thrower' ever brought to justice?  No.  No one could ever get a serious bit of evidence to say who this was.  

The fact that there are a serious number of Germans in the middle of this anarchist accusation?  Well....that is an odd part of the story.  Maybe there were just a lot of radical Germans who immigrated into the US, or maybe they were wild characters to start with.

Enough material for a twenty-hour mini-series?  Oh, without any doubt.  But you'd be dragging up a lot of 1880s history which people of today simple aren't aware of. 

All of this.....of an incident where more people were dead from gunfire, than the actual bomb itself?  Yeah, that is an interesting part of the story.