Rebecca Riots were protests by farmers in Wales against having to pay a toll to use roads. The riots began in 1839 and continued until the Turnpike Act of 1844 abolished many toll gates. Bands of farmers dressed in women’s clothes and tore up toll gates. They were called Rebeccas from a passage in the Bible, Genesis 24: 60, which states, “Our sister, be the mother of thousands of ten thousands; and may your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them!”
The most extreme incident occurred in 1843, when 4,000 Rebeccas on foot and 500 on horseback attacked the Union Workhouse at Carmarthen. Mounted soldiers dispersed them.
