Nativist's Riots: Native American Immigrants In The 19th Century

Philadelphia has had a long standing immigration of Irish citizens. The highest immigration of Irish into Philadelphia however was during the 19th century. The central cause of this spike in immigration was due to the failed potato crop in Ireland, which later became known as the Great Famine. Over a million Irish people died of starvation, while nearly another two million emigrated. A large portion of this plight landed in America, primarily to the Eastern coast cities, because copious amounts of them were extremely poor. The Library of Congress explicates that the Irish “In the 1840s…comprised nearly half of all immigrants to this nation” (Immigration). The majority of these Irish immigrants followed the Catholic religion, while previous
Many of the local Irish Protestant inhabitants supported or were part of the movement known as the ‘Know Nothings’, which was part of the Native American (Nativist) political party. Hurst notes that “Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment fueled the growth of the Know-Nothings as general apprehension led to a downright fear of foreigners, ignited by the public perception that this massive influx of immigrants was contributing to the spread of pauperism, crime, and public drunkenness, while driving wages down and rents up” (350). Before the riots of the summer of 1844 broke out, many factors contributed to the accumulation of tensions in the city. During this time period the King James version of the Bible was read every day in public schools and other religious activities of the faith were practiced. This was a point of contention for local Catholics of the city. Reading the King James version of the Bible went against the religious beliefs of Catholics, many of whom did not want their children reading it. Though trying to alleviate this conundrum, “Archbishop Francis P. Kenrick precipitated further controversy by efforts to prevent public schools from requiring Catholic children to read the Protestant King James Version of the Bible” (Clark 21). Catholics were not trying to stop the Bible from being read in schools, neither were they asking for their version of the Bible to be read by everyone. Nonetheless, this caused a huge stir in the Protestant community of the city, who had fears that the Irish-Catholics followed the dictates of the pope in Rome. The Philadelphia school board determined that Catholic students did not have to read the King James version of the bible, nor did they have to partake in any of the affiliated religious activities. This added to the slowly melting