Silesian weavers' revolt
Also called: Silesian weavers uprising · Topic: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "The Rise of Nationalism in Europe"
Meaning
The Silesian weavers' revolt was a rising by poor weavers in Silesia, a region then in Prussia. Contractors supplied the weavers with raw material and gave them orders for cloth. Then the contractors cut the payments sharply. The revolt shows the hunger and poverty that spread across Europe before the revolutions of 1848. NCERT dates it to 1845. Most histories place it in June 1844.
Example
The journalist Wilhelm Wolff wrote an account of the revolt. In it, angry weavers marched to a contractor's mansion and smashed it. The contractor fled. He came back with the army, and eleven weavers were shot.
Don't confuse with
- The 1848 revolution of the liberals: the weavers' revolt was a hunger revolt by the poor about wages. The 1848 liberal revolution was led by the middle class and demanded constitutions and national unity.