Question

Question 4 Who was Captain Swing? What did the name symbolise or represent?

Class 9 - Social science - Peasants and Farmers Page 137

Answer 1

Captain Swing was a mythical name used in the threatening letters written by the poor laborers in rural England to the rich farmers telling them to stop using threshing machines or face the consequences. The rich farmers had introduced threshing machines, due to which demand for labour decreased which caused the labourers to become agitated.  The name Captain Swing symbolised or represented the anger of the poor labourers in rural England who wanted return to the pre machine days when human labour was used. 

Answer 2

Captain Singh was no person but a mythical name used by the agricultural labourers to sent letters to land owners to threatened the rich landlords who are replacing workers for machines.

The labourers were asked to oppose the threshing machines while the land owners were instructed to break those machines.
Threshing machines had completely ruined the life of the labourers and deprive them of their livelihood. Sometimes they even destroyed the threshing machine after reading those letters.
Because the landlords have taken their common land which was essential for the survival so the poor labourers threatened them of dire consequences and the symbolic name of Captain swing. This name became so common in about 1830 that the riots started by the poor labourers began to be called the ‘Swing Riots'.

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