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hopeless odds, to defend different aspects of their way of life. Similarly, a revitalized “Red Power” movement during the 1960s and 1970s saw a revival of resistance in the Alcatraz Island Occupation of 1969–1970, the Trail of Broken Treaties protest in 1972, and the Wounded Knee Occupation in 1973. Of course, the United States was founded as a result of a collective action that was, at times, called a revolt or a rebellion. Going back as far as Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, those who came over to North America showed a propensity for taking action against the government when they felt that it was not serving their interests. With the onset of the 1760s and the growing debate over taxation in the American colonies, the pace of revolt quickened. In 1765, the Stamp Act Protests gave the colonists a common cause. The Boston Massacre in 1770 galvanized the colonists through the effective use of propaganda. The Regulator Movement in 1771 gave those theoretical movements some meaning, with the addition of violent action. The Pine Tree Riot in 1772 again protested the rising royal authority over the col- onies’ economic lives. The move toward revolution became almost inevitable after the Boston Tea Party in 1773 led to greater repression by the British government, which led to greater resistance by the colonies. The onset of the American Revolu- tion was, largely, the culmination of this particular set of revolts and protests over the prior 12 years. But even after the American Revolution ended, the colonists-turned-Americans were not averse to protesting against the government they had just installed if they felt that their needs were not being met. Only three years after the end of the Rev- olution, Shays’ Rebellion demonstrated that the newly elected leaders could not afford to rest on their laurels at the expense of the common farmers. The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, the Dorr Rebellion in 1841, the actions of the Molly Maguires in the 1870s, the Brooks-Baxter War in 1874, the Black Patch War in 1909, the Bonus Army protests in 1932, the Battle of Athens in 1946, the Sagebrush Rebel- lion in 1979, and the World Trade Organization protests in 1999 all had to do with the discontent different groups of Americans felt over political and economic con- ditions, and that the governing authorities were to blame. But one of the most common ways that Americans collectively protested against economic injustice was through organized labor action. As America’s pop- ulation grew with the arrival of many immigrants during the late 19th century, labor activism began to take over as one of the most common forms of revolt. The Great Railroad Strikes of 1877, the Haymarket Square Riot in 1886, the Homestead Strike in 1892, the Pullman Strike in 1894, the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, the Boston Police Strike in 1919, the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, the Toledo Auto-Lite Strike in 1934, and the West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike the same year all featured organized labor as one of the moving forces in American xxii Introduction