Joe Bruno on the Mob – The New York City Anti-Abolition Riots of 1834

It started as a peaceful service at the Chatham Street Chapel by a black minister, but soon turned into four days of riots, that transformed the streets of New York City into an evil cauldron of hatred.

In the early 1800’s, there was a vibrant movement in the United States to end slavery. Yet, there was no place in the country that incited more animosity against black slaves than the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The Abolitionist Movement (to abolish slavery) was spearheaded by men like William Lloyd Garrison, and bothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan. Yet the hatred for black slaves permeated the streets of New York City and was incited by the ruling Irish faction of Tammany Hall. This hatred was punctuated by atrocities committed against slaves by the Irish Five Points street gangs, that Tammany Hall so overtly protected from prosecution for their numerous crimes.

In 1833, aided by the fiery speeches made by William Lloyd Garrison, slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. Many of the British living in America spoke out vociferously against slavery and this did not go over too well with the powers that be at Tammany Hall , which convinced the Irish street gangs that the Abolitionists were looking to transform America back into a British colony. Anti-Abolitionist James Watson Webb inciting the Irish gangs even further when he printed in his Courier and Enquirer that, “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.” All lies, but believed by the rabble nevertheless.

On July 7, 1834, a group of black slaves gathered at the Chatham Street Chapel to hear a sermon by a black minister. In the audience lending his support. was Arthur Tappan. The sermon had just begun, when members of the New York Sacred Music Society broke in, claiming they had rented the place for the evening. The blacks, who had paid for the use of the chapel, refused to leave. The street gangs, with members of the Plug Uglies, Forty Thieves and Roach Guards banding together, attacked the blacks with leaded canes, seriously injuring several of them.

An angry mob formed outside the chapel, and as the police arrived to try to quell the disturbance, Tappan hurried from the scene to his house on Rose Street, which is now the site of the New York City Municipal Building. Knowing he was an avowed abolitionist, a crowd followed him and pelted his home with rocks as he rushed inside.

Webb’s paper predictably lied again when he described the event as a “Negro riot,” owing to “Arthur Tappan’s mad impertinence.” The Commercial Advertiser, another pro-slavery rag, said that “gangs of blacks were preparing to set the city ablaze.”

Yet this was just the beginning. The next night a huge mob of gang members broke down the door of the Chatham Street Chapel, and while they held an impromptu meeting inside, W.W. Wilder yelled, “To the Bowery Theater!”

The reason for their attack on the Bowery Theater was because it’s manager and British actor George P. Farren, another avowed abolitionist, had recently said of the pro-slavery crowd, “Damn the Yankees; they are a damn set of jackasses and fit to be gulled.” Farren had also just fired an American actor, and as a result, anti-abolitionists had posted handbills detailing Farren’s actions all around New York City.
An estimated 4000 rioters broke down the doors of the Bowery Theater, interrupting the performance of beloved American actor Edwin Forrest, who was a favorite of the Five Point gangs. Forrest tried to quiet the angry mob, but they insisted on knowing the whereabouts of Farren, who was hiding somewhere on the premises. Before they could take the place apart looking for Ferren and subsequently hang him, a large contingent of police arrived and drove the mob from the theater with billy clubs.

Yet the mob was not through. They yelled, “To Arthur Tappan’s house!” And that’s where they went.

Tappan and his family had escaped before the mob arrived. But when the mob did arrive, they tore his house down, board by board. They pilled Tappan’s furniture on the street and set it on fire, until there was nothing left but a painting of George Washington. As one rioter tried to throw the painting into the fire, another one ripped it from his hands saying, “It’s George Washington! For God’s sake, don’t burn Washington!”

The mob rampaged though the city, torturing and raping black slaves, and even gouging out the eyes of an Englishman, after they ripped off his ears. The worst rioting was in the Five Points area where dozens of houses, including St. Phillip’s Church were burned to the ground. Several English sailors and black slaves were captured and mutilated. Word soon went out that every house would be burned down in the Five Points that did not have a candle burning in the window. In minutes, candles appeared in almost every window, saving the neighborhood from destruction at the hands of the out-of-control mob.

On the afternoon of July 11, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence issued a proclamation asking all good citizens to band together to stop the rioting. He also told Major General Shadfor to call in the 27th Regiment of the National Guard Infantry. At 9 pm that night, around 300 Five Point Gang members assembled before the Laight Street Church, which was run by vocal abolitionist Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox. The church was guarded by several New York City policemen, but the mob charged anyway, forcing the out-manned policemen to run for their lives.

As the mob destroyed the Church, Mayor Lawrence ordered the infantry into action. Armed with clubs, bayonets, muskets and pistols, the infantry drove the rioters from several downtown churches and the surrounding streets, back into the Five Points area.

The next day, armed soldiers and policemen scoured the Five Points looking for known mob members. They rounded up and arrested 150 Five Points gang members, but then Tammany Hall stepped in and released almost all of them. Only 20 gang members, out of the thousands who pillaged the streets of New York City in July of 1834, were ever tried and convicted.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – The Civil War Draft Riots of 1863

Never in the history of New York City, or any place on this planet, has there been a more brutal mass insurrection than the New York City Civil War Draft Riots of 1963.

The seed was planted for these riots, when in March of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation, called The Conscription Act (or Enrollment Act), stating he needed 300,000 more men to be drafted into the Northern Army, to beat back the Southern Rebels in the Civil War. This act required that every male citizen between the ages of twenty and forty be drafted into the war. Each man who joined was given a bounty of up to $500 to enlist, but the gravest inequity was that for the sum of $300, a man could buy himself out of being drafted. The rich could afford the $300, but the poor could not, which led to the Civil War being called “A rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

New York City (which was only Manhattan at the time) had over 800,000 citizens, of which more than half were foreign. Of that half, half again were poor Irish, who had no desire to fight in a war to end the slavery of Negroes, whom they intensely despised. These poor, low-class Irish people settled in the Five Points and Mulberry Bend areas in downtown Manhattan. And also in the 4^th Ward, near the East River. In these slums, gangs like the Plug Uglies, the Bowery Boys, Roach Guards and Dead Rabbits committed atrocious crimes, and this is where the Irish draft rioters began their bloodthirsty march.

Lincoln announced that Draft Day in New York City would commence on Saturday July 11^th. On that day, with only minor disturbances throughout the city, 1,236 men were drafted, and it was announced that the draft would continue on Monday morning. Yet the seeds of discontent were planted during the rest of the weekend, spurred on by an article in Saturday evenings “Leslie’s Illustrated,” which stated, “It came like a thunderclap on the people, as men read their names in the fatal list, the feeling of indignation and resistance soon found vent in words, and a spirit of resistance spread fast and far. The number of poor men exceeded that of the rich, their number to draw from being that much greater, but this was viewed as proof of the dishonesty in the whole proceeding.”

As Monday morning drew near, the poor slum-living Irish populace began planning how to voice their displeasure, and it wouldn’t be pleasant. At 6 am Monday morning, men and women started spilling out of the downtown slums and they began their vicious march to the north. At every street more discontents joined their forces and the group became so huge it split into two groups. It is estimated that eventually 50,000 to 70,000 people took place in the four-day Draft Riots, and the New York City Metropolitan police had only 3000 men to beat the rioters back.

As the rioters moved north along Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they finally turned east and made a beeline toward the main draft office at 46^th Street and Third Avenue. Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy, realizing trouble was brewing, dispatched 60 police officers to guard the Third Avenue draft office and another 69 to guard the draft office at Broadway and 29^th Street. The rioters on Third Avenue were led by the volunteer firemen attached to Engine Company 33, known as the Black Joke. They consisted of members of the Plug Uglies street gang, who had now stopped traffic completely and were pulling people out of their carts. Signs in the crowd were held saying “NO DRAFT!!”, when suddenly someone in the crowd shot a pistol up into the air and the riots commenced.

The mob threw bricks and stones at the draft office, breaking all the windows in the building. Then they surged forwards, thousands of them, while the 60 cops tried in vain to hold them back. The rioters stepped over the unconscious police, and as draft officials jumped out rear windows, the mob set fire to the building.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Kennedy had left Police Headquarters at 300 Mulberry Street, wearing civilian clothes as a disguise. He took a horse carriage to 46^th Street and Lexington, but when he saw the smoke, he jumped out of the carriage and proceeded on foot. He was immediately recognized and beaten to a bloody pulp, until he was unconscious. A good Samaritan saved him, when he announced to the mob that Kennedy was dead. Kennedy was covered by a gunny sack and put in a wagon, which drove him to Police Headquarters. When he was examined by doctors, Kennedy was found to have 72 bruises on his body, and over two dozen cuts.

The rioters then attacked the Colored Orphans Asylum on Fifth Avenue and 46^th Street. As the rioters stormed the building, 50 matrons and attendants snuck 200 Negro children out a secret back door. The mob rush in, stole blankets, toys and bedding, then set fire to the building. One little Negro girl, who was accidentally left behind, was found hiding under a bed. She was dragged out and beaten to death.

All through the streets of New York City, angry Irish mobs chased Negroes, whom they blamed for the drafts in the first place. The Negroes, who were caught, were beaten to death and sometimes hanged. As their dead bodies hung from trees and rafters, mad Irish woman, glee in their eyes, stabbed the dead Negroes’ bodies, while the mad crones danced under lit touches and sung obscene songs.

Finally, Mayor George Updyke wired the War Department in Washington for help. During the next three days of unspeakable mayhem, while hundreds of buildings were being burned down, innumerable business looted, and Negroes killed for no other reason than the color of their skin, the United States Militia, armed, trained and 10,000 strong, stormed New York City to quell the riots. On Tuesday, July 14^th, New York Governor Horatio Seymour, stood on the steps of City Hall and said to the assembled crowd, “I have received a dispatch from Washington that the draft is now suspended.” He was booed and jeered, and the riots continued for two more days.

It is impossible to estimate how many people were killed in the four days of riots. The New York Post reported that the bodies of the rioters were shipped across the East River and buried quietly under the blanket of darkness. Police Superintendent Kennedy put the dead total at 1,155 people, but that did not include those buried secretly at night. Of the tens of thousand of rioters involved, and despite the brutal murders of scores of Negroes, only 19 people were tried and convicted of any crimes. Their average prison sentence was a mere five years.

Diarist George Templeton Strong summed up the disgrace of New York City when he wrote, “This is a nice town to call itself a center of civilization.”