Attack the Homes and Property of Tax Collectors

Tax resisters can also attack the homes and property of tax collectors, to turn the tables on them.

Example Poll Tax Rebellion

Bailiffs who seized goods from poll tax rebels in Thatcher’s Britain were targeted in this way. In one case protesters surrounded the home of John Roach of Roach & Co., the bailiffs who had been hired by Councils to carry out property seizures and sales. When they found that the target of their protest was not at home:

…had a look at his double garage—the door was open.… Well, there wasn’t a car inside, but there was a mountain bike, fishing tackle, clothes, bottles of wine, garden equipment. In fact, the place was chock-a-block. A mock auction was held in front of the press. Anyway, his possessions ended up strewn all over the garden, and slogans were daubed across the back of his wall: “Fuck off bailiff, we’ll be back!” The police arrived about five minutes after we had gone. We heard that Mr. Roach [the bailiff company chief] was escorted home later that night in a police car. It’s good to give people like that a taste of their own medicine.

Example Rebecca Riots

This tactic was used frequently during the Rebecca Riots in Wales.

Hundreds of Rebeccaites surrounded the home of tithe collector Rees Goring Thomas and fired guns through the windows at the terrified occupants.

[P]arts of the walls were so thickly marked with shots and slugs that scarcely a square inch was free from them, while the windows and curtain were thickly perforated… There were in all fifty-two panes of glass broken in five windows.… several of the mob forced open the door, and entered the beautiful walled garden adjoining the house, where they committed devastations of a most disgraceful character. Nearly all the apple trees and wall-fruit trees of different kinds, were entirely destroyed, being cut to pieces or torn up from the roots. The various plants and herbs with which the garden abounded were all destroyed, and a row of commodious greenhouses, extending from one side of the garden to the other, was attacked, and a large quantity of glass broken with stones.

That same crowd then attacked the home of a game warden, firing a blank cartridge directly into the face of his wife.

They then broke the clock, a very good one, an old pier-glass which had been handed down for several generations, the chairs, table, and all the little furniture the poor people possessed. They also carried away the gamekeeper’s gun, and 10s. or 12s. worth of powder and shot, and previous to leaving took from the drawers all the clothes of the family, which were torn, trodden upon, and partly burnt. They then left the place, after firing several times. Several of the painted doors, leading from the road to the plantation, were destroyed by the Rebeccaites.

Example Masaniello’s Revolt

In Naples, in 1647, people attacked the homes of tax farmers:

…first that of the cashier of taxes, Alphonso Vagliano. Beautiful household furniture, plate, pictures, everything that could be found was dragged into the streets, thrown together in a heap and burnt.…

All the rich and noble persons who were concerned in the farming of tolls, as well as all members of the government, saw their houses demolished.… Above forty palaces and houses were consumed by the flames on this day, or were razed to the ground.

Interestingly, when one of the rioters tried to pocket a jewel from one of the destroyed houses, “he was violently upbraided by the rest,” which shows that the point of the exercise was intimidation, not looting.

Notes and Citations

Burns, Danny Poll Tax Rebellion AK Press (1992), pp. 158–59
Burrows, Glen “May Day at Nempnett Thrubwell” Somerset Clarion July 1991
Evans, Henry Tobit Rebecca Riots! (2010 ed.) pp. 134–35
von Reumont, Alfred The Carafas of Maddaloni (1854) pp. 312, 317