If you were Black and woke up in NYC on Monday, July 13, 1863, things got terrifying quick. For Black New Yorkers, there was no reprieve. Black life was dispensable to white mobs & law authorities. The Civil War, poverty, & rabid racism in 19th-century New York explains the events of that week. For Black Americans, the NYC Draft Riots were a heinous episode in an already brutal age. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum.
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Competition for jobs, poor living and working conditions, political opportunism, and deep-seated prejudice, as well as chronic alcoholism and gangsterism—-all in the context of the Civil War and slavery made for a very combustible mix in 1863.
The New York City draft riots did not occur spontaneously.
This is what happened before.
[the following thread may contain objectionable language and sentiments]
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The United States witnessed a significant influx of Irish immigrants in the early 19th century due to a devastating famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. However, upon arriving in America’s rapidly growing industrial cities, the Irish faced new obstacles. Coming from predominantly rural backgrounds, their agricultural skills were of little value in the industrial economy of places like New York.
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In fact, over 70% of Irish immigrants in New York ended up working in low-paying, unskilled jobs. As a result, living conditions for Irish immigrants in New York were grim, with overcrowded and unsanitary neighborhoods plagued by crime and gang violence. These desperate circumstances led the Irish to heavily rely on the Democratic Party for support, widening the gap between them and the predominantly Protestant and nativist Republican Party.
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New York City was a hotbed of social conflicts, encompassing divisions between the rich and the poor, natives and immigrants, Protestants and Catholics, and Republicans and Democrats. Gang rivalries, winners and losers of industrialization, and other factors also contributed to the tensions. The Democrats, aligned with the Catholic Church, were cautious of the abolitionist movement, while the Republicans staunchly opposed slavery.
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Riots were a common occurrence during this period, and the Irish played a prominent role in some, such as the anti-abolitionist riots of 1834. Thus, the 1863 Draft Riots, though shocking, were not entirely unprecedented, but rather part of a longstanding tradition of violent social protest.
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Before the large influx of immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s, various occupations in New York, such as longshoremen, hod-carriers, brickmakers, whitewashers, coachmen, stablemen, porters, bootblacks, barbers, hotel and restaurant waiters, were predominantly held by Black men.
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Black women, on the other hand, often worked as domestic maids, cooks, scullions, laundresses, and seamstresses, earning relatively good wages and maintaining job security. However, the significant arrival of white foreigners, especially after the Irish famine of 1846, drastically changed the landscape.
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The influx of unskilled Irish immigrants flooded the jobs that were previously occupied by Black Americans. Desperate for any wages, the Irish reduced the earnings of Black workers
Frederick Douglass even remarked on the situation, urging Black Americans to learn trades or face unemployment, as they were continuously being replaced by newly arrived emigrants who were considered more entitled to the jobs due to their hunger and skin color.
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The Irish immigrants and Black New Yorkers found themselves in direct competition for unskilled jobs, particularly in the field of longshore employment. The issue escalated in December 1854 when striking Irish workers were replaced with Black strikebreakers, leading to racial violence.
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While the extent of Black labor being the main problem for the Irish is debatable, it was perceived as a significant threat. Aside from labor competition, Black New Yorkers were associated with abolitionism which clashed with the views of Irish Catholics in the city.
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At a Democratic rally in October 1860, James W. Gerard, a prominent lawyer and candidate for Congress, warned Irish and other immigrant laborers that the Republican party aimed to emancipate the laboring population of the South, resulting in Black labor overtaking white labor.
Consequently, anti-Republican and anti-Blackness had different targets but shared common grievances.
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General Leslie Combs, speaking at a Democratic mass meeting, similarly declared that if the slaves were liberated, they would compete with white laborers for jobs in various industries. Pro-South businesses also pressured their employees to vote for the fusion Democratic ticket, using the preservation from Black competition as an incentive.
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The NY Herald, known for its anti-Black sentiments, published editorials in 1860 campaign predicting catastrophe if Lincoln were elected, millions of Blacks would flood the North, refuse to work, burden Northern workers with taxes, and steal from Northern industry.
Despite patriotism, the narrative of competition persisted.Following the attack on Sumter, Democratic newspapers continued to raise concerns about Black labor upon emancipation.
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The Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge, an anti-emancipation propaganda group in NYC, published a letter by Henry Clay 2 decades earlier as its 1st pamphlet. The letter warmed a dire future for whites in the North if slavery were abolished.
The NY Weekly Caucasian, a fervently anti-emancipation publication, celebrated the opposition of the Metropolitan Record, the official organ of the Catholic Archbishop of New York, to the war.
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Democratic leaders and journalists succeeded in convincing the Irish that resisting the draft meant refusing to fight for their own economic well-being,
In 1862, Republican and abolitionist leaders, including Horace Greeley, recognized the impact of the labor competition argument, particularly among the Irish working class.
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Republicans began actively refuting it at every opportunity. They and abolitionists argued that Black Americans migrated to the North to escape slavery and that ending slavery would halt this movement. They claimed that Black Americans had a strong attachment to their birthplaces and were better suited to the climate and agricultural work in the South.
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Republicans argued that supporting emancipation was in the interest of white workers, including Irish laborers.
In his message to Congress in December 1862, President Lincoln acknowledged the argument of Black labor competition against emancipation and suggested colonization as a solution to reduce the supply of Black labor and increase demand and wages for white labor.
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Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Bodhipaksa