0:00

Samuel Miller, 40 acres on Edisto.

0:03

Fergus Wilson, 40 acres on Sapelo

0:05

Island. Primus Morrison, 40 acres

0:08

on Edisto. More than 1,200 formerly

0:10

enslaved people got land from the federal

0:13

government, and then had

0:15

it taken away. This was a betrayal.

0:18

I'm Al Letzen, host of the Reveal

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Podcast. Our new series, 40 Acres

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and a Lie, is available now. Subscribe

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1:00

not available in all states or situations. Prices vary

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based on how you buy. When I

1:04

say, when you hear the word capitalism, what comes

1:07

to mind? Selling and

1:09

buying. You know, exchanging of

1:11

goods for services, goods for

1:14

money, that kind of thing. Capitalism?

1:16

Who? I guess people

1:18

spending too much money on things that we don't

1:20

need. It's all about, you know,

1:23

I'm going to make as much money as I can. I

1:26

deal the state within the law, but people

1:28

oftentimes go outside the law if it means

1:30

having the most money. And

1:33

it's money, money, money, money, money. They

1:35

never have enough money. It's

1:37

not, to me, a terrible word.

1:41

What comes to mind is production

1:43

and people buying what they need. It's

1:46

a good system with the exception of people who

1:48

game the system. When I say

1:50

the word capitalism, like what comes to mind for

1:52

you? Political

1:55

piracy. Torture.

1:59

So I don't necessarily think that. and

20:00

waiting and but I was bound to

20:02

behave in a particular way to restrict

20:04

my movement to have as

20:06

many children as I could possibly bear and I

20:08

mean that in all senses of the word bear.

20:11

You know healthcare obviously yes of

20:14

course there was healthcare and there was

20:16

ways of being but it was nothing

20:18

like we received today in a yes

20:20

over medicalised environment sure

20:22

but no literacy

20:24

levels were low and

20:28

I don't don't see it

20:30

I mean yes like okay if we

20:32

have more bees and plant

20:34

life and things like that

20:36

there's definitely biodiversity is better

20:38

but yeah I wouldn't

20:41

envy the medieval people at all. A

20:44

few minutes later though we're wrapping up our

20:47

stroll around the village and

20:49

Karen says something that seems to contradict

20:51

what she just said or

20:53

maybe it doesn't she's making a

20:55

broader more philosophical point. Change

20:58

happens and change means

21:01

trade-offs. I load the

21:03

narrative of progress like progressing towards

21:06

what I

21:08

really do and just thinking of would I like

21:10

to live in the medieval world no do

21:12

we have a different world now yes are some

21:14

parts of it better yes are some parts of

21:16

it worse yes so there

21:19

I don't think progress in terms of

21:21

making things better really exists in that

21:23

way. In

21:41

the Middle Ages across the world and in

21:43

Europe most people lived and

21:45

worked on the land but

21:48

not everyone did and this is I think

21:50

a really interesting thing because people don't tend

21:52

to think about cities in the medieval period

21:55

which I think is a shame because I love

21:57

medieval cities and medieval

21:59

cities I

28:00

love the Wat Tyler's Rebellion peasants.

28:02

They're my very favorite people. Before

28:08

we say more about that

28:10

attempted revolution, some context. There's

28:13

a common idea about peasants in the

28:15

Middle Ages that they meekly accepted their

28:17

place in the scheme of things or

28:20

were just too ignorant to imagine a

28:22

different world. In

28:24

a classic Monty Python and the

28:26

Holy Grail scene where the traveling

28:28

king encounters peasants working in a

28:30

muddy field, the flouting

28:32

of that stereotype is part of the

28:34

joke. Well, I am king. Oh,

28:36

king, eh? Very nice. And

28:39

how'd you get that, eh? By

28:41

exploiting the workers, by hanging on

28:43

to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates

28:45

the economic and social differences in

28:48

our society. In fact, though, a

28:50

medieval peasant speaking out against class

28:52

division to the king himself, no

28:54

less, is not far-fetched.

28:57

They knew it sucked. Peasants

29:00

couldn't really understand that they were

29:02

disadvantaged and that they were treated

29:04

abysmally. And they

29:06

periodically tried to do something about

29:08

it, especially the 14th century is a

29:10

big one for that. In

29:17

the 13th and 14th centuries,

29:19

peasants revolted in northern France,

29:21

on the coast of Flanders,

29:24

in present-day Belgium, and

29:26

in Florence, Italy. Historians say

29:28

feudalism was already beginning to crumble by

29:30

the early 1300s, as

29:33

peasants demanded a bigger piece of the pie,

29:36

and some voted with their feet, running off

29:38

to cities to find work. Then

29:41

came the bubonic plague of the late 1340s.

29:44

It killed a third of the

29:47

European population, maybe more. This

29:49

created a huge labor shortage,

29:51

giving peasants, the ones who

29:54

survived, more leverage. They

29:56

demanded lower rents and higher wages and

29:59

got them. them for a while. The

30:02

ruling class tried to push back,

30:04

passing laws to limit the wages

30:06

and mobility of the peasantry, stoking

30:09

anger in the countryside. We

30:12

must build a great society where

30:14

men are born free, live free,

30:17

work for whom they will, where

30:19

they will, free of

30:21

humiliation, free of poverty,

30:24

free of forced labor, free

30:27

of the rich. The time, 1381.

30:29

The place, England. The man, John Ball,

30:31

preacher, whom some called mad. This

30:40

is from an educational film produced in

30:42

1969 about the English peasants revolt. The

30:46

uprising was a defining episode in

30:49

late medieval history. On

30:51

top of the general discontent among

30:53

the peasantry, the immediate spark was

30:55

a series of poll taxes, or

30:58

head taxes, that the

31:00

Crown levied to pay for England's

31:02

unending war with France. The

31:04

poorest people had to pay as

31:07

much as the richest. When the

31:09

government realized that a lot of

31:11

peasants were

31:15

dodging the tax, it sent

31:17

commissioners out to the countryside to

31:19

collect. Those officials,

31:21

underestimating the peasants' fury,

31:24

abused and humiliated villagers,

31:27

including young women. Let

31:32

her go, stop that! Who speaks?

31:36

How about us? No! A serf

31:38

commands me to let her go. You

31:41

will pay twice, I think. You will

31:43

pay the poll tax and you will pay

31:46

for your insolence. No! In

31:48

a village in Essex, a crowd of peasants

31:50

attacked and killed some of the king's men.

31:53

Yes! And

31:59

the revolt was over. on.

32:05

Words spread, and soon up

32:07

to 60,000 peasants marched toward

32:09

London. On the

32:11

way, they killed local tax collectors

32:13

and burned records at manners and

32:15

abbeys. Watt Tyler,

32:17

who was probably a roof Tyler,

32:19

thus his name, became their leader,

32:22

but the radical preacher John Ball

32:24

was the inspirational voice of the

32:26

rebellion. He'd been

32:28

roaming the countryside, speaking against the

32:30

poll taxes and the oppressive structures

32:33

of feudalism, against

32:35

inequality itself. My

32:37

friends, unless we bring God's

32:39

law into our land, we

32:42

will be ruled by devils. We

32:45

build the castles, but who looks

32:47

out of the windows? We

32:50

pick the grapes, but who drinks

32:52

the wine? This

32:54

is our land, and we must take it.

32:57

As they marched on London, John Ball gave these big

32:59

rousing speeches, and the peasants who were

33:02

largely kind of coming from Kent, the

33:04

countryside down in the southeast, came, stormed

33:07

London, let everyone

33:09

out of prison, which I think

33:12

is excellent because prison is mostly for debtors

33:15

in the medieval period, killed

33:17

the nobles they could get a hold

33:19

on, went down the Savoy Palace, and

33:21

a lot of the times destroyed the

33:23

kind of wealth therein. Some people stole it,

33:25

but a lot of people just destroyed it

33:27

because the point was that they wanted an

33:30

actual equitable society. They thought that lands should

33:32

be held in common, that they shouldn't be

33:34

being charged to farm. You

33:36

know, they're the ones who are kind of producing

33:38

everything around here. Why is it that they're paying

33:40

rich people for that privilege? The

33:43

rebels beheaded two of the king's

33:45

top officials, the Archbishop of Canterbury

33:47

and the Lord Treasurer. Like

33:50

almost everything in medieval Europe, the

33:52

peasants' protest found its

33:54

justification in Christianity. And,

33:57

you know, there's no such thing as a conception of rights

33:59

in the medieval period.