Framing Riots and Social Disorder Across History

Vocabulary flashcards covering key biblical narratives, ancient and early modern riots, slave rebellions, early American social protests, and the political and religious frameworks governing public disorder.

Hebrew Bible

The collection of 24 books included in the Jewish scripture, also referred to as the Old Testament.

The Tower of Babel

A biblical narrative from Genesis 11 set in the plain of Shinar, in which humanity built a brick-and-tar tower to reach heaven, leading God to confuse their single language and scatter them across the earth.

Sodom and Gomorrah

Two biblical cities in Genesis 19 destroyed by God for their wickedness after the inhabitants attempted to gang rape angels.

Levite

A landless follower of God in the Hebrew Bible whose concubine was assaulted in Gibeah, a tale of strangerhood and community inhospitality that provoked an inter-tribal war.

Demetrius

A silversmith in Ephesus who made miniature silver shrines of Artemis and incited a craft-worker riot against Paul out of fear that Paul's monotheistic preaching would ruin their trade and discredit the temple.

Spartacus

A gladiator trained in Italy who led a ten-year slave rebellion beginning in 73 BCE.

Saint-Domingue (Haiti) Revolution

A 1791–1804 uprising that defeated European colonial forces to become the largest successful slave uprising since Spartacus.

Spartakusbund

A German communist organization (1916–1919) that viewed Spartacus as an early proletarian revolutionary.

Pinkster Day

A Pentecost festival that evolved from a Dutch religious holiday into an African-American carnival before being banned by Albany in 1811 due to fear of the gathering.

Pope Day

An anti-Catholic and anti-aristocratic working-class tradition derived from Guy Fawkes Day where participants carried pageants and competed to burn effigies of the Pope, the Pretender, and the Devil.

Charivari

A traditional, ritualized form of community protest (also called shivaree, skimmington, or rough music) that used public noise and mockery to reinforce social norms.

Mobocracy

Rule by mobs, analyzed by historian Paul Gilje in his study of early American popular protest titled 'The Road to Mobocracy.'

Conservative Rioting

Paul Gilje's concept of traditional American protest characterized by limited violence, minimal property destruction, and broad community tolerance intended to preserve social norms.

Printers Riot (1788)

A politically driven riot in New York City in which Federalists attacked the home of anti-Federalist newspaper printer Thomas Greenleaf.

Federal Republican

An anti-war Federalist newspaper in Baltimore edited by Alexander Hanson whose printing press was destroyed by a pro-war Republican mob on June 20, 1812.

Dar al-Islam

An Islamic conceptual division of the world translating to the 'house of Islam,' denoting territory governed by Islamic rule.

Dar al-harb

An Islamic conceptual division of the world translating to the 'house of war,' referring to territories outside Islamic governance.

Pact of Umar

An agreement regulating the status of non-Muslims in an Islamic empire to maintain order and hierarchy by prohibiting public displays of the cross and loud prayer.

Inviolable

The quality of a sacred space or principle meaning that it cannot be violated or breached.

Feudalism

A medieval socio-political hierarchy where power was based on land ownership, and land was granted to others in exchange for military service.

Truce of God

A medieval church directive, exemplified in a letter from the Archbishop of Cologne to the bishop of Munster, prohibiting the bearing of weapons on specified holy days.

Walker v. City of Birmingham (1967)

A U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Martin Luther King Jr.'s conviction for violating a local court injunction against marching on Good Friday 1963, requiring him to serve his sentence.

Ethnicity (in Ethnic Rioting)

A shifting, invented, codified, and manipulated identity activated by pre-nationalist or para-nationalist rhetoric to divide a nation and justify collective violence against a perceived threat.