Il labirinto

I Mollymaguires

he Molly Maguires were members of an Irish-American secret group, whose members consisted mainly of coal miners. Many historians^[who?] believe the "Mollies" were present in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania in the United States from approximately the time of the American Civil War until a series of sensational arrests and trials in the years 1876−1878. The Molly Maguires were accused of kidnapping and other crimes, largely because of the allegations of one powerful industrialist (Franklin B. Gowen), and the testimony of one Pinkerton detective (James McParland). Fellow prisoners testified against the defendants, who were arrested by the Coal and Iron Police, who served Gowen, who acted as prosecutor in some of the trials.^[1]

The trusts seem to have focused almost exclusively upon the Molly Maguires for criminal prosecution. Information passed from the Pinkerton detective, intended only for the detective agency and their client — the most powerful industrialist of the region — was apparently^[vague] also provided to vigilantes who ambushed and murdered miners suspected of being Molly Maguires, as well as their families.^[2] The industrialist standing to gain financially from the destruction of the striking union acted as prosecutor of some of the alleged Molly Maguires at their trials. Molly Maguire history is sometimes presented as the prosecution of an underground movement that was motivated by personal vendettas, and sometimes as a struggle between organized labor and powerful industrial forces. Whether membership in the Molly organization overlapped union membership to any appreciable extent remains open to conjecture.^[3]

The Molly Maguires originated in Ireland, where secret societies with names such as Whiteboys and Peep o'Day Boys were common beginning in the 18th century and through most of the 19th century. In Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, historian Kevin Kenny traces "some institutional continuity" from the Molly Maguires, back to the Ribbonmen, and previously, to the Defenders.^[4]

Another organization — the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), with which the Molly Maguires have sometimes been associated — was founded in the United States, and is properly described as a fraternal organization. Although some believe that the Molly Maguires, Ribbonmen, and Ancient Order of Hibernians are different names for the same organization, Kenny has cast some doubt on such linkages, describing the practice of conflating these names as a strategy which "provided an important rationale for [the Molly Maguires'] eventual destruction". Kenny observes that most of the Ireland-based equivalents of the AOH were secret societies, and some were violent. Kenny describes a process of leaders from north-central and northwestern Ireland "[adapting] their AOH lodges to classic 'Ribbonite' purposes".^[5]

Even though there was a specific organization called the Society of Ribbonmen, the term Ribbonism became a catchall expression for rural violence in Ireland. The Ancient Order of Hibernians was extended to Ireland by the Ribbonmen, according to the official history of the AOH. Kenny believes, "If the AOH was a transatlantic outgrowth of Ribbonism, it was clearly a peaceful fraternal society rather than a violent conspiratorial one." In some areas the terms Ribbonmen and Molly Maguires were used interchangeably. However, some have drawn distinctions between the Societies of Ribbonmen, who were regarded as "secular, cosmopolitan, and protonationalist", and the Molly Maguires who were "rural, local, and Gaelic".^[6]

Agrarian rebellion in Ireland can be traced to local concerns and grievances relating to land usage, particularly as traditional socioeconomic practices such as small-scale potato cultivation were supplanted by the fencing and pasturing of land. Agrarian resistance often took the form of fence destruction, night-time plowing of croplands that had been converted to pasture, and killing, mutilating, or driving off livestock. In areas where the land had long been dedicated to small-scale, growing-season leases of farmland, called conacre, opposition was conceived as "retributive justice" that was intended "to correct transgressions against traditional moral and social codes". The Mollies believed that they were carrying out "a just law of their own in opposition to the inequities of landlord law, the police and court system, and the transgressions of land-grabbers." The Mollies' reaction to "land-grabbers" of the 1840s — surreptitiously digging up the land to render it useful only for conacre — followed similar practices by Whiteboys in the 1760s, and by another group called the Terry Alts in the 1820s and early 1830s.^[7]

One area of Molly Maguire activity was County Donegal where they practiced rundale, in which land was divided for tenant usage by the tenants themselves, rather than according to the landowner's dictates. For example, the concept of "a cow's grass" acted as a measure of the land which was necessary to sustain one cow through summer grazing and winter fodder. The subdivision of land took into account the quality of grazing, and while some lots of land were frequently subdivided generationally among family members, other land was held in common. Although such practices had existed from "time immemorial", there were no written leases to protect the tenants. As landlords implemented new ways of using the land, such as "highly disruptive" experiments with intensive sheep farming, some tenants in Donegal and elsewhere were moved to resistance.^[8]

Most landlords and their agents were Protestant, while the Molly Maguires were Roman Catholic — an exacerbating factor that complicated relations. The victims of agrarian violence were frequently Irish land agents, middlemen, and tenants. Merchants and millers were often threatened or attacked if their prices were high. Landlords' agents were threatened, beaten, and assassinated. New tenants on lands secured by evictions also became targets.^[7] Local Molly Maguires leaders were reported to have sometimes dressed as women, i.e. as mothers begging for food for their children. The leader might approach a storekeeper and demand a donation of flour or groceries. If the storekeeper failed to provide, the Mollies would enter the store and take what they wanted, warning the owner of dire consequences if the incident was reported.^[9]

There are a number of folk tales about the source of the Molly Maguires' name. Molly may have been a widow who was evicted from her house, inspiring her defenders to form a secret society to exact retribution. Molly Maguire may have been the owner of a shebeen, an illicit tavern, where the society met. Another story suggested the name was that of a fierce young woman who led men through the countryside on nighttime raids.^{[citation needed]}

Kevin Kenny, an author who has written extensively on the Molly Maguires, believes the most likely explanation is simply the practice of men dressing up like women and taking a female name both as a disguise and simple form of social transgression. While the Whiteboys were known to wear white linen frocks over their clothing, the Mollies blackened their faces with burnt cork. Kenny noted similarities — particularly in face-blackening and in the donning of women's garments — with the practice of mummery, in which festive days were celebrated by mummers who traveled from door to door demanding food, money or drink as payment for performing. The Threshers, the Peep o'Day Boys, the Lady Rocks, and the Lady Clares also sometimes disguised themselves as women.^[10]

Some historians (such as Philip Rosen, former curator of the Holocaust Awareness Museum of the Delaware Valley^[11]) believe that Irish immigrants brought a form of the Molly Maguires organization into America in the 19th century, and continued its activities as a clandestine society. They were located in a section of the anthracite coal fields dubbed the Coal Region, which included the Pennsylvania counties of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Schuylkill, Carbon, and Northumberland. Irish miners in this organization employed the tactics of intimidation and violence used against Irish landlords during the "Land Wars" yet again in violent confrontations against the anthracite, or hard coal mining companies in the 19th century.^{[citation needed]}

A legitimate self-help organization for Irish immigrants existed in the form of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), but it is generally accepted that the Mollies existed as a secret organization in Pennsylvania, and used the AOH as a "front". However, Joseph Rayback's 1966 volume, A History of American Labor claims the "identity of the Molly Maguires has never been proved".^[12]

Authors who accept the existence of the Mollies as a violent and destructive group acknowledge a significant scholarship that questions the entire history. In The Pinkerton Story, authors James D. Horan and Howard Swiggett write sympathetically about the detective agency and its mission to bring the Mollies to justice. Yet they observe:

"The difficulty of achieving strict and fair accuracy in relation to the Mollie Maguires is very great. Sensible men have held there never even was such an organization... We do believe, however, that members of a secret organization, bound to each other by oath, used the facilities and personnel of the organization to carry out personal vendettas..."^[13]

Such disagreements over a period when "labor was at war with capital, Democrat with Republican, Protestant with Catholic, and immigrant with native"^[14] notwithstanding, the prevailing view is that the Maguires did exist and were affiliated with the AOH.