"It comes from sources independent of that law, or of any other — from malignant hate toward those in better circumstances, from a craving for plunder, from a love of commotion, from a barbarous spite against a different race, from a disposition to bolster up the failing fortunes of the southern rebels." |
"Throughout America, anti-Irish sentiment was becoming fashionable. Newspaper advertisements for jobs and housing in Boston, New York and other places now routinely ended with 'Positively No Irish Need Apply.'" |
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The social tensions that were manifested in the draft riots resulted from the Irish immigrants' experiences of coming to the U.S. Hatred that the Irish felt towards the various ethnic groups in New York City, and vice versa, also contributed to the buildup of these tensions. |
Around the time of the Irish potato famine, masses of Irish people came to the U.S. in the hopes of leading better lives, but soon had their hopes and dreams crushed; instead of finding job opportunities to work hard and financially support themselves, they found dirty, overcrowded slums. The majority of Irish immigrants settled in the Five Points District, which was, as the New York Mirror described, "a loathsome den of murderers, thieves, abandoned women, ruined children, filth, drunkenness, and broils [brawls].”
The Irish also experienced a lot of discrimination from the Protestant natives. Acts against the city's Irish ranged from discrimination in hiring to attacks by mobs on Catholic property. Posters were planted all over the city to express the native citizens' hate of the Irish, for the natives feared that these immigrants were Catholic spies who planned a conspiracy to take over the U.S.
After the ratification of the Emancipation Proclamation, social tensions increased in the city due to the Irish's heightened racist attitude towards African-Americans.
After the ratification of the Emancipation Proclamation, social tensions increased in the city due to the Irish's heightened racist attitude towards African-Americans.
"I saw Susanna Brady, who talked in the most violent manner against the Irish and in favor of the blacks. I feel quite differently, although very sorry and much outraged at the cruelties inflicted. I hope it will give the Negroes a lesson, for since the war commenced, they have been so insolent as to be unbearable. I cannot endure free blacks. They are immoral with all their piety." |
"New York in the nineteenth century was not a melting pot of cultures and races. Rather, New York was an eclectic stew of races, nationalities, and religions that did not blend and did not get along." |