Within the Haunting Bedrock | Part 11-2. Abolitionists, Gangs, and False Propaganda Fuel the 1834 Anti-Abolition Riot

Historians highlight the strong links among Nativism, white supremacy, and anti-abolitionism found in the 1834 Anti-Abolition Riots. The Five Points neighborhood was home to Irish Catholics who escaped the Great Famine. They experienced harsh poverty in the company of free Black people. To protect themselves, they formed major street gangs such as the Dead Rabbits, the Forty Thieves, and the Roach. Loyal to their Irish background, they acted as muscle for Tammany Hall’s Democratic political machine.

Just north of Five Points, the Nativists inhabited the more prosperous Bowery working-class neighborhood and maintained their gang, the Bowery B’hoys. The patriotic Anglo-Saxon Protestants hated the Irish and German immigrants, Catholics, and free Blacks. They believed each would worsen the country’s culture, politics, religion, and economy.

As the editor of the influential New York Courier and Enquirer, James Watson Webb used his writings to attack the anti-slavery movement. He launched an aggressive smear campaign against prominent abolitionists like Arthur and Lewis Tappan. To inflame public anger, he claimed abolitionists were telling their daughters to marry Black men. Lewis Tappan had even divorced his wife to marry a Black woman. Finally, many sympathetic ministers were performing interracial marriages locally.

On July 4, 1834, an integrated gathering of Blacks and whites met in the 1500 seat Chatham Street Chapel to celebrate the 7^th anniversary of the final emancipation of New York State’s enslaved people. Inflamed by Webb and other newspapers, a hostile crowd gathered outside the Chatham Street Chapel and threatened those inside. The celebration broke up, and the organizers planned to continue the observance on July 7.

Webb’s writings fueled the 1834 Anti-Abolition Riots in New York City, and the militia had to be called out to stop them, yet there are no official records of deaths or injuries.