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Tax Strike Tactics

Intimidate Tax Collectors with Humiliation Attacks

Another way to discourage tax collectors is with attacks or actions that humiliate them.

Example The Tar and Feathers Treatment

The textbook example of humiliation attacks on tax collectors is “tarring and feathering.” It was practiced, in particular, by American revolutionaries. After the revolution, the Whiskey Rebels also took up the practice. In one case:

An illustration shows colonial Americans pouring tea into the mouth of a man covered in feathers. In the background a paper labeled “Stamp Act” is pinned to the Liberty Tree, from which a noose hangs, and people are pouring tea from boxes on a ship into the water

“The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering”

A party of men, armed and disguised, waylaid [Robert Johnson, collector of the revenues] at a place on Pidgeon Creek, in Washington County, seized, tarred and feathered him, cut off his hair, and deprived him of his horse, obliging him to travel on foot a considerable distance in that mortifying and painful situation.

On other occasions, the rebels “docked [collectors’] horses’ tails, and in at least one instance tarred a collector and rolled him in leaves.” One process server “was seized, whipped, tarred and feathered, and after having his money and horse taken from him, was blindfolded and tied in the woods, in which condition he remained five hours.”

Example Carding

The Tithe War in Ireland featured violent humiliation attacks known as “carding.” According to one account:

The tithe proctor was generally waked out of his first sleep by his door being smashed in; and the boys in white shirts desired him “never to fear,” as they only intended to card him this bout for taking a quarter instead of a tenth from every poor man in the parish. They then turned him on his face upon the bed; and taking a lively ram cat out of a bag which they brought with them, they set the cat between the proctor’s shoulders. The beast, being nearly as much terrified as the proctor, would endeavour to get off; but being held fast by the tail, he intrenched every claw deep in the proctor’s back, in order to keep up a firm resistance to the White Boys. The more the tail was pulled back, the more the ram cat tried to go forward; at length, when he had, as he conceived, made his possession quite secure, main force convinced him to the contrary, and that if he kept his hold, he must lose his tail. So, he was dragged backward to the proctor’s loins, grappling at every pull, and bringing away, here and there, strips of the proctor’s skin, to prove the pertinacity of his defence. When the ram cat had got down to the loins, he was once more placed at the shoulders, and again carded the proctor (toties quoties) according to his sentence.

Example A Tithe Auction in Wales

In 1891, an auctioneer who was selling off a farmer’s produce to pay his refused tithes was met with a crowd who were determined that he have a bad day:

They were armed with eggs of a veteran vintage, and with these they began bombarding the auctioneer and chief constable. Those parties were soon plastered with the odorous stuff, but tried to drive away the crowd by threats of prosecution. This enraged the people more and they set fire to the furze, and seized the auctioneer and tried to duck him in an adjoining pond. He pleaded and promised to give up tithe sales, if they would let him go, which they did.

Example LaSaunders Hudson

In 1972, when state revenue agents tried to collect $197 in back taxes from LaSaunders Hudson at his business in Memphis, Tennessee, Hudson pulled out a gun and told them “to strip to the buff and march out of his store, much to the astonishment of the passersby in predominantly black Park Street.”

“A crowd of people had already gathered on the street and they cheered and clapped when we walked out,” [agent John Mabile] said.…

Mabile said as the agents were removing their underwear, Hudson advised them that “this is part of the punishment we are going to give the white man for injustices done the black man.”

Example Gabelle Riots

During the salt tax (gabelle) riots in Bordeaux in 1548, some tax collectors were killed, and to make sure the point was well-understood: “Their bodies were dragged through the streets and covered in heaps of salt.”

Example Canadian Irish

In 1881, a deputy sheriff tried to seize property from Irish settlers in Canada who were refusing to pay a county tax. Instead, the settlers “compelled him to eat the writs he had, and then gave him a limited time to get out of the township.”

Example Humiliation in Absentia

Some humiliation attacks might be inflicted on the tax collector in absentia or in effigy. During the Tithe War in Ireland, resisters

…audaciously dug a grave within sight of Dinefwr Castle, the family seat, and announced that [Colonel George Rice] Trevor would occupy it by 10 October. Trevor, however, surrounded by soldiers, survived unscathed.

And during the Whiskey Rebellion,

[T]he inspector of the revenue was burnt in effigy in Allegany county, at a place, and on a day, of some public election, with much display, and without interruption, in the presence of magistrates and other public officers.

Example The Tax Collectors’ Chair

When a tax professional took a tour of the Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, he learned about an interesting tax avoidance tactic from bygone days:

When you walk into the house you are greeted by the typical fare—a somewhat nice looking staircase, a chandelier, older looking pictures, etc. What is most interesting is the calling card basket and the chair that sits nearby.

…The chair is the only real piece of furniture in the room. The chair is made of a beautiful polished wood. It has a nice dark brown stain. But there are some peculiarities about the chair. The seat of the chair has a sharp raised crevice running through the middle in the most obscene manner and the backrest is bent outward in the most unergonomic way. Further, the chair has only one small armrest. The whole contraption is polished and it slants forward at a steep angle. It is a very odd-looking piece of furniture.

I could not resist asking the tour guide why anyone would have such a contraption in his or her home. Could the original inhabitants not afford proper furniture? The tour guide explained that, given the calling card system, the only person who would show up without an appointment would be the tax collector. So the tax collector would be offered a seat in the chair and would be left waiting for several hours. The hope was that the tax collector would simply go away. So the chair was a tax savings measure—a tax savings measure that, according to the tour guide, was widely used in wealthy Southern homes before the turn of the last century.

Example Non-Violent Humiliation

As that example shows, humiliation doesn’t have to include violence or the threat of violence to be effective. Mockery is also a nonviolent but humiliating deterrent. Tax collectors in Bardoli were stymied by villagers who sounded the alarm whenever they approached, so that when they arrived in town “women stood in front of locked doors laughing at them.”

Another amusing example comes from the tithe resistance campaign in Coventry in 1892:

The quarrel was attended by a good many fights and some funny episodes as when a farmer, living in the suburbs, upon whose stock it was proposed to levy, greased all his pigs, so that they slipped through the hands of the bailiffs at every attempt, much to the delight of a crowd that witnessed the spectacle. The bailiffs at length gave up the chase in disgust.

Notes and Citations