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(#2) The National Guard Set Fire To The Camp, Killing Women And Children In Hiding
As the firefight died down, a member of the Colorado National Guard set fire to the Ludlow tent colony. Unbeknownst to the guardsmen, four women and 11 children had sought shelter in a cellar-like pit beneath an infirmary. As the tent colony burned, the women and children in the pit were slowly overwhelmed by smoke and suffocated.
One survivor recalled:
The tent over us caught fire and blazed up big and the smoke commenced to come down on top of us. The bigger children tried to climb up out of the cellar, and they took hold of the burning floor, and their little fingers were burned and they fell back on top of us.
Two of the women survived the fire, and all 11 children died.
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(#8) The Mining Companies Evicted And Terrorized The Miners
Since the strikers lived in the company housing, the miners and their families were evicted from their homes once the strike began. After kicking them from their homes, company guards would arrest the newly homeless strikers for vagrancy. In place of their regular homes, strikers set up a tent colony around Ludlow.
As the strike continued, Rockefeller hired private detectives to terrorize the striking miners. To scare the strikers, they raided the camps and fired at random into the miners' tents. Miners and their families were injured and sometimes killed by these attacks, so they started digging pits under their tents to hide in at night. The detectives imported a machine gun and mounted it on an armored car, creating a vehicle the strikers nicknamed "the Death Special." The Death Special roamed the coalfields to further intimidate the miners.
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(#1) The National Guard And Striking Miners Engaged In A Deadly Firefight At Ludlow
On April 20, 1914, national guardsmen entered the Ludlow tent colony to speak to one of the unofficial leaders of the striking miners, Louis Tikas. They had heard that a man was being kept at Ludlow against his will, but Tikas denied it.
Following the conversation, a National Guard officer ordered a machine gun set up on the hill overlooking the camp. Strikers from the camp saw the troop movement and took up their own rifles in response. The strikers then heard three explosions, which the National Guard later claimed to be a signal for reinforcements.
Shots were fired, though history is unclear on who shot first, and a firefight broke out that lasted throughout the day. Women and children ran for cover. Over the course of the day, one guardsman, one bystander, and several of the strikers were killed in the gunfight. An 11-year-old boy in the camp was killed when he emerged from his hiding spot.
After hours of exchanging shots, a member of the National Guard set fire to the tent colony.
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(#11) The Union Lost The Strike
Despite the attention the Ludlow Massacre brought to the strikers' situation, the union ultimately lost the strike. The United Mine Workers of America exhausted their finances and had to give up the strike in December of 1914. Rockefeller launched a public relations campaign to spin the story in his favor. He started a company union to address the miners' grievances, a poor consolation prize for the strikers.
While very little changed in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the conversation about Ludlow continued. Congress convened to talk about the events of Ludlow and to consider limiting the martial power that private companies were able to wield.
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(#10) The Strikers Were Poorly Armed Compared To The National Guard
Despite accusations that the strikers posed a significant threat to the National Guardsmen, an archeological investigation conducted at the location of the Ludlow tent colony found that the strikers' weapons were likely no match for the National Guard. Archeologists found bullets and spent cartridges that revealed the type of weapons each side possessed.
The miners were mainly armed with hunting shotguns, while the National Guardsmen were armed with machine guns and high-powered rifles. The strikers' weapons were hardly effective in comparison to the guardsmen, which casts doubt on Rockefeller's claims that the strikers overwhelmed the National Guard.
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(#3) Armed Strikers Were Rounded Up And Shot
After the National Guard entered the Ludlow camp, they captured three strikers, including Louis Tikas, the unofficial leader of the colony. They were brought before Karl Linderfelt, the leader of the Colorado National Guard stationed at Ludlow. Linderfelt broke his rifle over Tikas' head, striking him hard enough to expose his skull.
Although the accusation was never proven, a sergeant testified under oath that Linderfelt then ordered the execution of Tikas. Some historians believe the militia told the three strikers to run before shooting them in the back. In the end, the three captured strikers were killed, and their bodies were left in the open for three days.
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About This Tool
On April 20, 1914, many striking miners attacked the guards of the Colorado National Guard and the Colorado Fuel and Steel Company in Ludlow, Colorado. This was the beginning of the Ludlow massacre. The massacre resulted in 25 people dead, including 11 children. Most of the coal miners who went on strike belonged to the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, a subsidiary of Rockefeller.
Rockefeller is the American wealthy family that has continued to this day, the first generation of American oil monopoly company, at this time, operating Colorado's largest coal mining company. The Ludlow massacre has proved the dark side of the Rockefeller family, the random tool introduced 12 details about this bloody conflict.
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