Tensions Between The Nativists Essay

December 1853 German and Irish immigrants continued to flood into the city of Cincinnati during the fall and early winter of 1853 to the consternation of the original Ohio settlers. Tensions between the Ohio “Nativists” as they were called and the immigrants were becoming more and more hostile and the breaking point would come when word came that Archbishop Bedini, an emissary of Pope Pius IX, would be coming to Cincinnati, Ohio, during his visit to the United States. The German Protestant immigrants who came to Cincinnati after the Revolution of 1848, identified the Archbishop with the cruelty of the royal rulers in their old countries. Their unlikely allies the anti-Catholic Nativist or “Know-Nothing” Political Party members in Cincinnati also singled out the Archbishop out as a target for attack. Meanwhile German and Irish Catholic immigrants like Stanislaus and Karolina and their families welcomed him. On Christmas Day, the Archbishop preached at the Saint Peter in Chains Cathedral while his opponents were meeting to prepare a demonstration later that
Stanislaus was recruited by the Catholic leaders to help build and man the barricades. He kissed his wife goodbye while she recalled when he left to join the Baden revolutionaries several years before. She warned him to take care of himself and he nodded as he went out the door. Along with his wife’s cousin Heinrich, they ran to the nearest bridge over the canal to begin building the barricades before any of the Anti-Catholic marchers would reach their neighborhood. An old cannon had been found and placed in front of the main barricade. This cannon fired a single shot over the heads of rioters as they came closer to the canal. The Cincinnati police were advancing to meet the demonstrators and a brawl broke out between