A fact from 1619 Jamestown craftsmen strike appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 February 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that some historians consider a 1619 strike by Polish craftsmen in the Jamestown Settlement to be the first strike in North American history?
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Not Quite a Hoax, But Currently Based on a Fraud[edit]
Although something one could characterize as a Polish craftsmen's strike seems to have taken place, this article relies almost entirely on fraudulent 20th C. assertions concerning the non-existent Pamiętnik handlowca ("Memoir of a Mercantilist"), and on secondary sources dependent on those assertions. The only reliable secondary sources on this subject, as far as I've been able to determine, are Pula, James S. (2008). "Fact vs. Fiction: What Do We Really Know About The Polish Presence In Early Jamestown?". The Polish Review 53 (4): 477–493; and Barbour, Philip L. (January 1964). "The Identity of the First Poles in America". The William and Mary Quarterly 21 (1): 77–92. They make it very plain that the "memoir" is, at best, an unlikely and unreliable source. This subject deserves an article on Wikipedia, but not the current piece of filiopietism. It must be rewritten consistent with Pula and Barbour, or deleted. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 18:57, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added the several relevant references noted above (ie, Pula[1] and Barbour[2]) to the article - to better support statements in the article - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble is that the Pula and Barbour papers don't support the assertions DrBogdan attaches them to, and they discredit the other sources relied on for most of the assertions in the article. For instance, Pula proves that the Poles at Jamestown were not glassmakers, and Barbour shows that we do not know the Polish artisans' names (except for one "Molasco the Polander"), not even that of "Slovak Jan Bogdan", whom the article mentions by name several times. (There is no evidence, by the way, that any of the artisans in question was a Slovak. That allegation seems to have been invented by a Wikipedia editor, perhaps on the basis of the name "Bogdan"; but since the name is fictional, as Pula demonstrates, there's no basis for the allegation.) Ultimately, the sole basis for any claim as to the names of the Poles, their having been glassmakers, and practically every other detail currently asserted in this article, is the fraudulent "Memoir of a Mercantilist", whose authenticity Barbour casts into doubt, and Pula destroys.
The article needs to be rewritten from scratch, not bolstered with additional citations. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 21:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
