Anti-abolitionist riots (1834)
Encyclopedia
The Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834, also known simplistically as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City
over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativism
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the booming city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing underclass of Irish and other immigrants crowded together in the Five Points
district, rigorously segregated house by house.
and his brother Lewis
stepped up their agitation for the abolition of slavery by underwriting the formation in New York of a Female Anti-Slavery Society. Arthur Tappan stirred up a row by sitting in his pew at Samuel Cox's Laight Street Church with an acquaintance, a light-skinned clergyman, Samuel Cornish
. By June lurid rumors were circulated and perhaps invented by the champion of repatriating "colonization"
, James Watson Webb
, through his newspaper Courier and Enquirer
: abolitionists had told their daughters to marry blacks, black dandies in search of white wives were promenading Broadway on horseback, and Arthur Tappan had divorced his wife and married a negress.
Reports appearing in London in The Times, taken from American newspapers, cite as the triggering cause a disturbance following a misunderstanding at the Chatham Street Chapel, a former theater converted with money from Arthur Tappan for the ministry of Charles Grandison Finney
. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace note that on the July 4
an integrated group that had convened at the Chapel to celebrate New York's emancipation of its remaining slaves (1827) was dispersed by angry spectators. The celebration was rescheduled for July 7. According to The Times
report, the secretary of the New York Sacred Music Society, which leased the chapel on Monday and Thursday evenings, gave a black congregation leave to use it on July 7 to hold a church service. The service was in progress when members of the Society who were unaware of the arrangement arrived and demanded to use the facility. The black congregation had already begun its service, and though one person called for the chapel to be vacated to the members of the Sacred Music Society, most refused. After a time a 'fracas' ensued 'which resulted in the usual number of broken heads and benches'. Burrows and Wallace notes that the constables arrived and arrested six African-Americans. Webb's paper described the event as a Negro riot, owing to "Arthur Tappan's mad impertinence", and the Commercial Advertiser reported that gangs of blacks were preparing to set the city ablaze.
Concurrently the Rose Street, Chatham Square
home of Arthur's evangelist brother, Lewis Tappan
(who had fled with his family) was also targeted; his furniture was thrown through the windows and set ablaze in the street. Mayor Lawrence arrived with the watch but was shouted down with three cheers for Webb, and the police were driven from the scene.
Now four thousand rioters descended on the Bowery Theatre
to revenge an anti-American remark made by George P. Farren, the theatre's English-born stage manager and an abolitionist
: "Damn the Yankees; they are a damn set of jackasses and fit to be gulled." He had also fired an American actor. Pro-slavery activists had posted handbills detailing Farren's actions around New York.
A production of Metamora
was in progress as part of a benefit for Farren. Manager Thomas S. Hamblin
and actor Edwin Forrest
tried to calm them, but the rioters demanded Farren's apology and called again for the deportation of blacks from the United States. The riot was apparently quelled when Farren had the American flag displayed, and blackface
performer George Washington Dixon
performed "Yankee Doodle
" and the blackface minstrel
song "Zip Coon", which makes fun of a Northern black dandy. The mayor then addressed the crowd, followed by Dixon. The crowd then dispersed.
Violence escalated over the next two days, orchestrated in part by printed handbills. A list of other locations slated for attack by the rioters was compiled by the Mayor's office, among them the home of Rev. Joshua Leavitt
at 146 Thompson Street. Leavitt was the editor of The Evangelist and an ardent abolitionist. He was also a manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society
. Tappan's prominently-sited Pearl Street store was defended by its staff, armed with muskets.
The mob targeted homes, businesses, churches, and other buildings associated with the abolitionists and African American
s. More than seven churches and a dozen houses were damaged, many of them belonging to African Americans. The home of African-American Episcopal Reverend Peter Williams was damaged, and his St. Philip's African Episcopal Church was utterly demolished. One group of rioters reportedly carried a hogshead
of black ink with which to dunk white abolitionists. As well as the Chatham Street Chapel, among the churches targeted were the Laight Street Church of vocal slavery opponent Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox
, whose house nearby on Charlton Street was invaded and vandalized. The rioting was heaviest in the Five Points
.
At the time, the riots were interpreted by some as just deserts for the abolitionist leaders, who had "taken it upon themselves to regulate public opinion upon [the subject of abolition]" and who showed "smutty tastes" and "temerity". The rioters represented "not only the denunciation of an insulted community, but the violence of an infuriated populace." Dale Cockrell partially agrees, stating that the riots were "about who would control public discourse and community values, with class at base the issue." Pro-abolitionist observers saw them as simple explosions of racism
.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativism
Nativism (politics)
Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the booming city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing underclass of Irish and other immigrants crowded together in the Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
district, rigorously segregated house by house.
Before the riots
In May and June 1834, the silk merchants and ardent Abolitionists Arthur TappanArthur Tappan
Arthur Tappan was an American abolitionist. He was the brother of Senator Benjamin Tappan, and abolitionist Lewis Tappan.-Biography:...
and his brother Lewis
Lewis Tappan
Lewis Tappan was a New York abolitionist who worked to achieve the freedom of the illegally enslaved Africans of the Amistad. Contacted by Connecticut abolitionists soon after the Amistad arrived in port, Tappan focused extensively on the captive Africans...
stepped up their agitation for the abolition of slavery by underwriting the formation in New York of a Female Anti-Slavery Society. Arthur Tappan stirred up a row by sitting in his pew at Samuel Cox's Laight Street Church with an acquaintance, a light-skinned clergyman, Samuel Cornish
Samuel Cornish
Samuel Eli Cornish was an American abolitionist, journalist, and Presbyterian minister.-Early years:Cornish was born in Sussex County, Delaware, to free parents. In 1815, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
. By June lurid rumors were circulated and perhaps invented by the champion of repatriating "colonization"
American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society , founded in 1816, was the primary vehicle to support the "return" of free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa. It helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22 as a place for freedmen...
, James Watson Webb
James Watson Webb
General James Watson Webb was a United States diplomat, newspaper publisher and a New York politician in the Whig and Republican parties.-Biography:...
, through his newspaper Courier and Enquirer
New York Courier and Enquirer
The New York Courier and Enquirer, properly called the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in New York City from June 1829 until June 1861, when it was merged into the New York World. Throughout its life it was edited by newspaper publisher James...
: abolitionists had told their daughters to marry blacks, black dandies in search of white wives were promenading Broadway on horseback, and Arthur Tappan had divorced his wife and married a negress.
Reports appearing in London in The Times, taken from American newspapers, cite as the triggering cause a disturbance following a misunderstanding at the Chatham Street Chapel, a former theater converted with money from Arthur Tappan for the ministry of Charles Grandison Finney
Charles Grandison Finney
Charles Grandison Finney was a leader in the Second Great Awakening. He has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism. Finney was best known as an innovative revivalist, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate of Christian perfectionism, a pioneer in social reforms in favor...
. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace note that on the July 4
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
an integrated group that had convened at the Chapel to celebrate New York's emancipation of its remaining slaves (1827) was dispersed by angry spectators. The celebration was rescheduled for July 7. According to The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
report, the secretary of the New York Sacred Music Society, which leased the chapel on Monday and Thursday evenings, gave a black congregation leave to use it on July 7 to hold a church service. The service was in progress when members of the Society who were unaware of the arrangement arrived and demanded to use the facility. The black congregation had already begun its service, and though one person called for the chapel to be vacated to the members of the Sacred Music Society, most refused. After a time a 'fracas' ensued 'which resulted in the usual number of broken heads and benches'. Burrows and Wallace notes that the constables arrived and arrested six African-Americans. Webb's paper described the event as a Negro riot, owing to "Arthur Tappan's mad impertinence", and the Commercial Advertiser reported that gangs of blacks were preparing to set the city ablaze.
Riots erupt
On Wednesday evening, July 9, three interconnected riots erupted. Several thousand whites gathered at the Chatham Street Chapel; their object was to break up a planned anti-slavery meeting; when the abolitionists, alerted, failed to appear, the crowd broke in and held a counter-meeting, with preaching in mock-Negro style, calling for deportation of blacks to Africa.Concurrently the Rose Street, Chatham Square
Chatham Square, Manhattan
Chatham Square is a major intersection in Manhattan's Chinatown. The square lies at the confluence of seven streets: Bowery, East Broadway, St. James Place, Mott Street, Oliver Street, Worth Street and Park Row. The postal ZIP Code is 10038.-History:...
home of Arthur's evangelist brother, Lewis Tappan
Lewis Tappan
Lewis Tappan was a New York abolitionist who worked to achieve the freedom of the illegally enslaved Africans of the Amistad. Contacted by Connecticut abolitionists soon after the Amistad arrived in port, Tappan focused extensively on the captive Africans...
(who had fled with his family) was also targeted; his furniture was thrown through the windows and set ablaze in the street. Mayor Lawrence arrived with the watch but was shouted down with three cheers for Webb, and the police were driven from the scene.
Now four thousand rioters descended on the Bowery Theatre
Bowery Theatre
The Bowery Theatre was a playhouse in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populist, pro-American management of Thomas Hamblin in the 1830s and 1840s...
to revenge an anti-American remark made by George P. Farren, the theatre's English-born stage manager and an abolitionist
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
: "Damn the Yankees; they are a damn set of jackasses and fit to be gulled." He had also fired an American actor. Pro-slavery activists had posted handbills detailing Farren's actions around New York.
A production of Metamora
Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags
Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags is a play originally starring Edwin Forrest. The play was written in 1829 by John Augustus StoneIt was first performed December 15, 1829, at the Park Theater in New York City....
was in progress as part of a benefit for Farren. Manager Thomas S. Hamblin
Thomas S. Hamblin
Thomas Sowerby Hamblin was an English actor and theatre manager. He first took the stage in England, then immigrated to the United States in 1825. He received critical acclaim there, and eventually entered theatre management. During his tenure at New York City's Bowery Theatre he helped establish...
and actor Edwin Forrest
Edwin Forrest
Edwin Forrest was an American actor.-Early life:Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Scottish and German descent. His father died and he was brought up by his mother, a German woman of humble origins. He was educated at the common schools in Philadelphia, and early evinced a taste...
tried to calm them, but the rioters demanded Farren's apology and called again for the deportation of blacks from the United States. The riot was apparently quelled when Farren had the American flag displayed, and blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
performer George Washington Dixon
George Washington Dixon
George Washington Dixon was an American singer, stage actor, and newspaper editor. He rose to prominence as a blackface performer after performing "Coal Black Rose", "Zip Coon", and similar songs...
performed "Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle
"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known Anglo-American song, the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years' War. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today and is the state anthem of Connecticut...
" and the blackface minstrel
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
song "Zip Coon", which makes fun of a Northern black dandy. The mayor then addressed the crowd, followed by Dixon. The crowd then dispersed.
Violence escalated over the next two days, orchestrated in part by printed handbills. A list of other locations slated for attack by the rioters was compiled by the Mayor's office, among them the home of Rev. Joshua Leavitt
Joshua Leavitt
Rev. Joshua Leavitt was an American Congregationalist minister and former lawyer who became a prominent writer, editor and publisher of abolitionist literature. He was also a spokesman for the Liberty Party and a prominent campaigner for cheap postage...
at 146 Thompson Street. Leavitt was the editor of The Evangelist and an ardent abolitionist. He was also a manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society
American Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass was a key leader of this society and often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was another freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had...
. Tappan's prominently-sited Pearl Street store was defended by its staff, armed with muskets.
The mob targeted homes, businesses, churches, and other buildings associated with the abolitionists and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s. More than seven churches and a dozen houses were damaged, many of them belonging to African Americans. The home of African-American Episcopal Reverend Peter Williams was damaged, and his St. Philip's African Episcopal Church was utterly demolished. One group of rioters reportedly carried a hogshead
Hogshead
A hogshead is a large cask of liquid . More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either Imperial units or U.S. customary units, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages such as wine, ale, or cider....
of black ink with which to dunk white abolitionists. As well as the Chatham Street Chapel, among the churches targeted were the Laight Street Church of vocal slavery opponent Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox
Samuel Hanson Cox
Samuel Hanson Cox was an American Presbyterian minister and a leading abolitionist.Cox was born in Rahway, New Jersey, of Quaker stock. After renouncing his religion and serving in the War of 1812, he studied law before entering the ministry He was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mendham, New...
, whose house nearby on Charlton Street was invaded and vandalized. The rioting was heaviest in the Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
.
Militia and outcome
According to another report, the riots were only finally quelled when the New York First Division, swelled by volunteers were called out by the Mayor on 11 July in support of the police. The 'military paraded the streets during the day and the night of the 12th.: they were all furnished with ball cartridge, the magistrates having determined to fire upon the mob, had any fresh attempt been made to renew the riots' Also on July 12 the American Anti-Slavery Society issued a disclaimer, signed by Tappan and Rankin, denying any wish on the Society's part to promote intermarriage between the races; repudiating and disapproving a handbill previously circulated through the city 'the tendency of which is thought to be to incite resistance to the law'; and denying any wish to dissolve the union or to ask Congress to exceed its constitutional powers by imposing abolition on unwilling states.At the time, the riots were interpreted by some as just deserts for the abolitionist leaders, who had "taken it upon themselves to regulate public opinion upon [the subject of abolition]" and who showed "smutty tastes" and "temerity". The rioters represented "not only the denunciation of an insulted community, but the violence of an infuriated populace." Dale Cockrell partially agrees, stating that the riots were "about who would control public discourse and community values, with class at base the issue." Pro-abolitionist observers saw them as simple explosions of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
.