Cincinnati riots of 1836

Last updated

The Cincinnati riots of 1836 were caused by racial tensions at a time when African Americans, some of whom had escaped from slavery in the Southern United States, were competing with whites for jobs. The racial riots occurred in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States in April and July 1836 by a mob of whites against black residents. [1] These were part of a pattern of violence at that time. A severe riot had occurred in 1829, led by ethnic Irish, and another riot against blacks broke out in 1841. After the Cincinnati riots of 1829, in which many African Americans lost their homes and property, a growing number of whites, such as the "Lane rebels" who withdrew from the Cincinnati Lane Seminary en masse in 1834 over the issue of abolition, became sympathetic to their plight. The anti-abolitionist rioters of 1836, worried about their jobs if they had to compete with more blacks, attacked both the blacks and white supporters. [2]

Contents

Background

James G. Birney, abolitionist publisher whose press was twice destroyed during the riots. James G. Birney.jpg
James G. Birney, abolitionist publisher whose press was twice destroyed during the riots.

Blacks in southern Ohio suffered from severe restrictions to their freedom due to the Black Codes passed by the state legislature in 1804 and 1807. Under this legislation, the testimony of any black person was invalid in a court of law. A black person could not defend himself against a charge, and could not bring action against a white man. If he managed to acquire property, he was taxed for school support, but his children were not allowed to attend the schools. A black person moving to the state was required to obtain the signatures of two white men on a $500 bond. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was enforced rigorously, and steep fines were imposed on anyone who assisted a runaway slave. [3]

Despite this, growing numbers of black people moved into the state within the first three decades, which aggravated tensions. In 1819 a citizen asked for relief "from the hordes of idle runaway blacks of both sexes, who are sauntering about the streets at all hours of the day". Some who were opposed to slavery but alarmed at the social consequences of abolition argued for colonization schemes, by which free blacks would be shipped to Liberia, as proposed by the American Colonization Society, which revived the Black Code of Ohio so as to stimulate emigration; or to Haiti (which was trying to recruit American blacks); or to the west coast of North America. [3] Others were willing to risk public disapproval and fight for the rights of free blacks. [3]

James Gillespie Birney, a former slave owner from Alabama, had become an abolitionist. In January 1836 he set up The Philanthropist , a newspaper sponsored by the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. [4] At first, the newspaper was printed in nearby New Richmond. It was distributed across the Ohio River in Kentucky and was filled with anti-slavery propaganda. This angered local Cincinnati businessmen, who were keen to do business with the Southern states.

In late January 1836, some of the most prominent citizens organized a meeting opposing abolition; it was attended by over 500 people. Birney attended the meeting but was not allowed to give his views. [3]

April riot

In April, Birney moved his press to Cincinnati. [3] On 11 April 1836, a mob entered a black community, attacked people, burned buildings, and forced many of the occupants to leave their homes. [5] Irish rioters burned down a tenement in the Ohio River bottom section of the lower West End. [6] Several blacks died. The riot was not brought under control until the governor intervened and declared martial law. [5] The anti-abolitionist paper the Daily Cincinnati Republican described the tenement that was burned as "notorious as a place of resort of rogues, thieves, and prostitutes - black and white". The paper said the arson was viewed by a "large concourse of our citizens" who made no effort to extinguish the flames. [3]

July riots

On 5 July, a race riot began when African Americans observed an Independence Day celebration. Although this had long been the custom of the blacks, some whites considered it as a demonstration that the blacks wanted full integration. James Birney attended the event, which helped stir up passions as he was a noted abolitionist. [7] On 12 July 1836, about forty men broke into the building housing Birney's press and destroyed it. [3] The men were described as "respectable and wealthy gentlemen". They shredded newspapers, broke the press in pieces, and dragged the damaged parts through the streets. Birney lost an estimated $1,500 in damage. He agreed to continue producing the paper only when his property was guaranteed to the value of $2,000 by the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. [7]

Following the press smashing, placards appeared saying "The Citizens of Cincinnati ... satisfied that the business of the place is receiving a vital stab from the wicked and misguided operations of the abolitionists, are resolved to arrest their course. The destruction of their Press on the night of the 12th instant, may be taken as a warning". [3] On 17 July a placard was posted on the street corners: [8]

"FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE, $100 REWARD.
"The above sum will be paid for the delivery of one James G. Birney, a fugitive from justice, now abiding in the city of Cincinnati. Said Birney in all his associations and feelings is black; although his external appearance is white. The above reward will be paid and no questions asked by
OLD KENTUCKY".

At a public meeting on 23 July chaired by the city mayor, resolutions were passed that included promises to use all legal means to suppress abolitionist publications. [3] On 30 July a mob again attacked and destroyed Birney's press, scattering its type. The rioters threatened to burn down Birney's house, but were dissuaded by his son. [4] Men from Kentucky had a prominent role in the mob. [9] The angry whites marched to a black neighborhood nicknamed the Swamp, where they burned down several houses. They went on to Church Alley, where they met resistance from armed blacks, but again destroyed their property. [7]

Early portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1853 Harriet Beecher Stowe by Francis Holl.JPG
Early portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1853

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a resident of Cincinnati who later wrote the classic novel Uncle Tom's Cabin , described the events. [10] When the press had been destroyed, she said,

The mayor was a silent spectator of these proceedings, and was heard to say, 'Well, lads, you have done well, so far; go home now before you disgrace yourselves;' but the 'lads' spent the rest of the night and a greater part of the next day (Sunday) in pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable blacks. The 'Gazette' office was threatened, the 'Journal' office was to go next; Lane Seminary and the water-works also were mentioned as probable points to be attacked by the mob. By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well alarmed. A regular corps of volunteers was organized, who for three nights patrolled the streets with firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who by this time was glad to give it, to put down the mob even by bloodshed. [11]

It took several days for things to calm down. The authorities made no arrests. [7]

Reactions

Salmon Portland Chase, later to become Chief Justice of the United States Mathew Brady, Portrait of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, officer of the United States government (1860-1865).jpg
Salmon Portland Chase, later to become Chief Justice of the United States

The Ohio Anti-Slavery Society published a description of the riots, and commented on possible causes. Among these, they noted that while the black people of the city were preparing for their procession on the fifth of July (that being their custom), they were approached by a white citizen of "standing" who began to violently abuse them. One of the black men answered back in the same spirit, and this may have started the chain reaction. A more likely cause was considered to be the presence in the city of large numbers of visitors escaping from the heat of the South. A desire to please these valuable visitors may have led to the demonstrations against the abolitionist press. [8]

An 1888 biography of Stowe said:

During the riots in 1836, when ... free negroes were hunted like wild beasts through the streets of Cincinnati, only the distance from the city and the depths of mud saved Lane seminary and the Yankee Abolitionists at Walnut Hills from a similar fate.

The experience may well have influenced her subsequent views on civil rights. [12] Salmon P. Chase, who was until this time opposed to abolitionism, was shocked when his sister fled the mob and took refuge in his house. Viewing the riot "with disgust and horror", he organized a mass meeting in favor of law and order.

Later he helped with a damage suit that resulting in compensation of $1,500 for the owners, printer, and editor of the Philanthropist, and went on to become prominent in the abolitionist movement. [13] The publication of the Philanthropist was resumed, and the paper continued to be published for many years. [14]

Discussing the riots, Harriet Martineau said of the businessmen of Cincinnati: "The day will come when their eyes will be cleansed from the gold-dust". She condemned them for violating the principle of freedom of speech, and described them as "more guilty in this tremendous question of Human Wrongs than even the slave-holders of the south". [3] William Ellery Channing echoed this sentiment in a letter to James Birney, saying, "The abolitionists then not only appear in the character of champions of the colored race ... They are sufferers for the liberty of thought, speech and the press". [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism</span> Movement to end slavery

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved people around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamaliel Bailey</span> American abolitionist and journalist (1807–1859)

Gamaliel Bailey was an American physician who left that career to become an abolitionist journalist, editor, and publisher, working primarily in Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C. Anti-abolitionist mobs attacked his offices in both cities during the 1840s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Beecher Stowe</span> American abolitionist and author

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyman Beecher</span> American Presbyterian minister (1775–1863)

Lyman Beecher was a Presbyterian minister, and the father of 13 children, many of whom became writers or ministers, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Catharine Beecher, and Thomas K. Beecher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Dwight Weld</span> American abolitionist

Theodore Dwight Weld was one of the architects of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 to 1844, playing a role as writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He is best known for his co-authorship of the authoritative compendium American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, published in 1839. Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Weld's text; the latter is regarded as second only to the former in its influence on the antislavery movement. Weld remained dedicated to the abolitionist movement until slavery was ended by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James G. Birney</span> American politician (1792–1857)

James Gillespie Birney was an American abolitionist, politician, and attorney born in Danville, Kentucky. He changed from being a planter and slave owner to abolitionism, publishing the abolitionist weekly The Philanthropist. He twice served as the presidential nominee for the anti-slavery Liberty Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lane Seminary</span> Theological college in Ohio, United States

Lane Seminary, sometimes called Cincinnati Lane Seminary, and later renamed Lane Theological Seminary, was a Presbyterian theological college that operated from 1829 to 1932 in Walnut Hills, Ohio, today a neighborhood in Cincinnati. Its campus was bounded by today's Gilbert, Yale, Park, and Chapel Streets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Rankin (abolitionist)</span> American Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist

John Rankin was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist. Upon moving to Ripley, Ohio, in 1822, he became known as one of Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement.

<i>The Philanthropist</i> (Cincinnati, Ohio)

The Philanthropist was an abolitionist newspaper printed in Cincinnati, Ohio, starting in 1836, edited by James G. Birney, and printed Achilles Pugh for the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Originally published at New Richmond, Ohio due to complications with Cincinnati mayor Samuel W. Davies, the paper moved to Cincinnati in April 1836 to resume publication. The plan had always involved Cincinnati, but Birney wanted to publish a few issues out of the jurisdiction of Davies first. The paper often gave readers two sides of an argument, printing news items from the South that were proslavery and then critique them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calvin Ellis Stowe</span> American Biblical scholar (1802–1886)

Calvin Ellis Stowe was an American Biblical scholar who helped spread public education in the United States. Over his career, he was a professor of languages and Biblical and sacred literature at Andover Theological Seminary, Dartmouth College, Lane Theological Seminary, and Bowdoin College. He was the husband and literary agent of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the best-seller Uncle Tom's Cabin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society</span> American abolitionist organization (1833–1840)

The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833–1840) was an abolitionist, interracial organization in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. "During its brief history ... it orchestrated three national women's conventions, organized a multistate petition campaign, sued southerners who brought slaves into Boston, and sponsored elaborate, profitable fundraisers."

The Cincinnati race riots of 1829 were triggered by competition for jobs between Irish immigrants and native blacks and former slaves, in Cincinnati, Ohio but also were related to white fears given the rapid increases of free and fugitive blacks in the city during this decade, particularly in the preceding three years. Merchants complained about the poor neighborhoods along the river as having ill effects on their waterfront shops and trade with southern planters. Artisans excluded blacks from apprenticeships and jobs in the skilled trades. In June 1829 overseers of the poor announced that blacks would be required to post surety bonds of $500 within 30 days or face expulsion from the city and state. This was in accord with a 1807 Black Law passed by the Ohio legislature intended to discourage black settlement in the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cincinnati riots of 1841</span>

The Cincinnati riots of 1841 occurred after a long drought had created widespread unemployment in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Over a period of several days in September 1841, unemployed whites attacked black residents who defended themselves. Many blacks were rounded up and held behind a cordon and then moved to the jail. According to the authorities, this was for their own protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism in the United States</span> Movement to end slavery in the United States

In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the late colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery for non-criminals through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Ohio Anti-Slavery Society (1835–1845) was an abolitionist Anti-Slavery Society established in Zanesville, Ohio, by American activists such as Gamaliel Bailey, Asa Mahan, John Rankin, Charles Finney and Theordore Dwight Weld.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marius Robinson</span> American minister, abolitionist, and newspaper editor

Marius Robinson (1806–1878) was an American minister, abolitionist, and newspaper editor of the antislavery newspaper The Philanthropist and The Anti-Slavery Bugle. He helped establish a school for African Americans in Cincinnati, Ohio while attending Lane Seminary. Responding to backlash from the city's residents, he continued to teach and was one of the Lane Rebels who would not be pressured to give up improving the lives of African Americans. He was an anti-slavery lecturer. He worked together with his wife Emily Rakestraw Robinson, to better the lives of African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matilda Case</span>

The Matilda Case involved Matilda, a 20-year-old woman whose father, Missouri planter Larkin Lawrence, claimed to own her as his slave. In 1837, she fled from her master-father in Cincinnati, a city located in the free state of Ohio. Matilda was captured and returned to her master by order of the local courts, based on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.

Abolitionist children’s literature includes works written for children by authors committed to the movement to end slavery. It aimed to instill in young readers an understanding of slavery, racial hierarchies, sympathy for the enslaved, and a desire for emancipation. A variety of literary forms were used by abolitionist children’s authors including, short stories, poems, songs, nursery rhymes and dialogues, much of it written by white women. Pamphlets, picture books and periodicals were the primary forms of abolitionist children’s literature, often using Biblical themes to reinforce the wickedness of slavery. Abolitionist children's literature was countered with pro-slavery material aimed at children, which attempting to depict slavery as a noble pursuit, and slaves as stupid and grateful, or evil.

A symbolic day in the history of the American abolitionist movement was May 14, 1838. On that date two related events occurred: the inauguration in Philadelphia of Pennsylvania Hall, built to symbolize and facilitate the abolitionist movement, and the wedding of Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimké, "the wedding that ignited Philadelphia." The wedding was held that day because of the many out-of-town abolitionists present for the inauguration of the Hall.

References

  1. Richard Maxwell Brown (1975). Strain of Violence: historical studies of American violence and vigilantism. Oxford University Press US. p. 335. ISBN   0-19-501943-1 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  2. Junius P. Rodriguez (2007). "Cincinnati, Ohio, Race Riot (1829)". Encyclopedia of slave resistance and rebellion, Volume 1. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 119. ISBN   978-0-313-33272-2 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Daniel Aaron (1992). Cincinnati, Queen City of the West: 1819-1838. Ohio State University Press. p. 300ff. ISBN   0-8142-0570-4 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  4. 1 2 William Cullen Bryant (1994). "The Cincinnati Mob: August 10, 1836". Power for sanity: selected editorials of William Cullen Bryant, 1829-1861. Fordham Univ Press. p. 49. ISBN   0-8232-1544-X . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  5. 1 2 Joe William Trotter (1998). River Jordan: African American urban life in the Ohio Valley. University Press of Kentucky. p. 35. ISBN   0-8131-0950-7 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  6. John Emmeus Davis (1991). Contested ground: collective action and the urban neighborhood. Cornell University Press. p. 104. ISBN   0-8014-9905-4 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Stephen Middleton (2005). The Black laws: race and the legal process in early Ohio. Ohio University Press. p. 108ff. ISBN   0-8214-1623-5 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  8. 1 2 Narrative of the Late Riotous Proceedings Against the Liberty of the Press. Cincinnati: The Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. 1836.
  9. Stanley Harrold (2010). Border War: Fighting Over Slavery Before the Civil War. UNC Press Books. p. 67. ISBN   978-0-8078-3431-2 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  10. Henry Elliot (2009). Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Voice of Humanity in White America . Crabtree Publishing Company. p.  5. ISBN   978-0-7787-4821-2.
  11. Charles Edward Stowe, ed. (1890). "IV: Slavery Riots in Cincinnati". Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  12. James Grant Wilson, John Fiske, ed. (1888). Appleton's cyclopaedia of American biography, Volume 5. Gale Research Co. p. 714.
  13. Paul Finkelman (2000). An imperfect union: slavery, Federalism, and comity. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. 160. ISBN   1-58477-092-9 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  14. Levi Coffin (1876). "XV. THE MOB SPIRIT IN CINCINNATI—DESTRUCTION OF THE PHILANTHROPIST PRESS IN 1836—DEMONSTRATION OF PRO-SLAVERY FEELING IN 1841—A DISGRACEFUL RIOT—THE SCANLAN MOB.". Reminiscences of Levi Coffin. Cincinnati: Western Tract Society. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  15. Michael Kent Curtis (2000). Free speech, "the people's darling privilege": struggles for freedom of expression in American history. Duke University Press. p. 461. ISBN   0-8223-2529-2 . Retrieved 2010-10-24.