Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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Philadelphia Nativist
Riots (1844)
Riots took place on May 6–8, and July 6–7, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where there had been a rise in anti–Roman Catholic sentiment with many people
worried about the increasing Irish Catholic population, so many Irish people hav-
ing immigrated to the United States with the increase in the severity of the Irish
potato famine.
Following the outbreak of the potato famine in Ireland, many Irish started to
immigrate to the United States and elsewhere, and many of these immigrants
headed for the major cities in the United States, where the start of the Industrial
Revolution had led to the demand for a large unskilled labor force. Many poor
immigrants headed for Philadelphia, amongst other places. This le d to some ten-
sions as the existing population was largely Protestant, and most of the new immi-
grants were Roman Catholic. In the early 1840s, anti-Catholic leaflets were
distributed around Philadelphia, and matters came to a head on November 10,
1842. All students in government schools in Philadelphia started the day by read-
ing the Protestant King James version of the Bible. This had been accepted since
the Anglicans took over the reins of the government of the city from the Quakers
in the 17 40s. However on that day, the Roman Catholic bishop of Philadelphia,
Francis Kenrick, wrote to the Board of Controll ers o f Public Schools asking that
Roman Catholic children should be allowed to read the Douai version of the Bible.
He also asked that Roman Catholic students be excused from Protestant religious
education classes. The board agreed with thi s and ordered that no child should
be forced to take part in religious teaching, and that parents could nominate the
version of the Bible from which they wished to read.
In late 1843, rumors started circulating that a school director from Kensington,
Hugh Clark, who was Catholic, had visited a girls’ school and asked the principal
to stop reading the Bible. The principal then complained that she would rather lose
her job than obey that command, to w hich Clark reported that he found students
had stopped reading the Bible to use a different version. He felt that this was con-
fusing and suggested that perhaps the Bible reading should stop. This was soon
interpreted as a Roman Catholic interfering in the religious observances of Protes-
tants and that the Catholics were trying to stop the reading of the Bible.
325
As a result, on May 3, 1844, the primary supporters of the Protestant nativist
movement, the American Republican Party, held a meeting in Kensington denounc-
ing the situation. As the talk took part in a largely Roman Catholic Irish area, there
were many hecklers, and people hissed the speakers off the stage as well as thro wing
missiles at them. Three days later, the nati vists returned in large numbers and started
urging for action. As it started raining soon afterwards, the crowd moved into a local
market where inflamed rhetoric led to scuffles between protesters and counterpro-
testers. People from the nearby buildings then started opening fire, and one or two
nativists were shot dead. Soon a large crowd of nativists went on the rampage, and
they attacked the nearby Seminary of the Sisters of Charity and the house of some
well-known Catholics. Two more nativists were killed, but the riot was eventually
controlled as constables from nearby areas were brought into Philadelphia.
On May 7, nativists urged for Protestants to rise up and stop attempts by the
Roman Catholics to control the city. Marching to Kensington, there were nativists
who shot at passersby and vice versa. It was during these riots that nativists burned
down the Hibernia fire station, the original market used in the street dispute on the
previous day, and about 30 homes. General George Cadwalader had to call out the
local militia to try to calm down the situation, and Bishop Kenrick issued a state-
ment asking for all Catholics to avoid confrontations.
The matter calmed down slightly, but on May 8, rioting started again with nativ-
ists marching on Kensington and burning down St. Michael’s Roman Catholic
Church and its rectory, and also attacking the Seminary of the Sisters of Charity,
the target of the earlie r riot. It was largely contained in Kensin gto n, but anoth er
nativist crowd gathered and marched on St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church,
on Fourth Street in central Philadelphia. Mayor John Morin Scott pleaded with the
crowd and deployed troops nearby, but they were unable to stop people from set-
ting fire to the church and cheering when the steeple fell. During these riots, some
14 people were killed, 50 badly injured, 200 forced to flee, and property worth
some $150,000 was damaged or destroyed.
It was clear that the rioting was directed against the Irish Catholics, not the
German Catholics, and Mayor Scott had the militia standing guard on Catholic
properties. Bishop Kenrick also tried to diffuse the situ ation by ordering that all
Catholic churches close on the following Sunday (May 12) to avoid any provoca-
tion. On June 18, the grand jury blamed the Irish Catholics for starting the trouble,
and on the authorities for not reacting fast enough to the escalating s ituation.
Nativists argued that they were victims of the Catholics and that Mayor Scott
was in a large part responsible for the problems.
Gradually, the situation calmed down, but on July 4, a large demonstration by the
Native American Party took place to coincide with Independence Day. Father John
Patrick Dunn of the Church of St. Philip Neri was worried that his church might bear
326 Philadelphia Nativist Riots (1844)
the brunt of any rioting, and asked for a company of soldiers to help guard it. Twenty-
five muskets were made av ailable to the church. Five of these were later found to be
defective, but the demonstration passed off peacefully. However, on the following
day, several thous and nativis ts started demons tr ating in front of the church, and
Father Dunn deployed his armed volunteers to protect the place. At that point, the
sheriff intervened, disarming those guarding the church and urging the mob to dis-
perse. However, a man who had been injured in the May riots called on the crowd
to search the church in case there were any other weapons there. Another search by
the militia unearthed a keg of gunpowder, and also 53 muskets and 10 pistols. The
search party remained to guard the church, and the crowd gradually dwindled away.
At noon on July 6, another crowd appeared outside the church, and after a show
of force by the militia—numbering 150—they dispersed. Three cannons were then
deployed, and when the crowd started throwing rocks at the militia, General Cad-
walader ordered the firing of one of the cannons. After protests, he countermanded
the order and, on the following day, released a man called Charles Naylor, who
had been involved in begging Cadwalader not to open fire. It was not long before
the demonstrators themselves laid their hands on a cannon and started firing it at
the church. A second can non was then found at the wharfs and used to fi re at the
church.Massiveriotingthentookplace,andwithsoldiersfiringonthecrowd,
seven were killed and nine serious ly wounded. By the ea rly morning, the militia
had seized control of both cannons, and there were 15 to 20 dead, including some
soldiers. Governor David R. Porter continued to move soldiers into the city, and by
July 7, there were about 5,000 militia. Gradually, the numbers were scaled down,
but tension remained, especially after the grand jury again blamed the
Catholics for the rioting, but this time supported the actions of authorities.
There were worries that there might be rioting in other cities, especially in New
York City, but these did not eventuate. The Nativist Riots were to become an elec-
tion issue that the Whig Party used to garner support from the nativists, an action
condemned by the Democratic Party. The presidential elections saw a victory for
the Democrat, James Polk (who won Pennsylvania), over the Whig, Henry Clay.
—Justin Corfield
See also all entries under Pueb lo Revolt (1680); Philadelphia Election Riot (1742 ); Pima
Revolt (1751); Know-Nothing Riots (1855–1856).
Further Reading
Clark, Dennis. The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1973.
Weigley, R. F., et al., eds. Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1982.
Philadelphia Nativist Riots (1844) 327
Catholicism
With the exception of the French in parts of Canada, most of the settlers in North
America during the 18th century were from Britain or the Netherlands, and the vast
majority of these were Protestant. Some, such as the Pilgrim Fathers who had
arrived in the 17th century, wer e Puritans. As such, there was widespread distrust
of the Roman Catholics in many parts of North America, and in the United States
after it gained its independence. Some of this was c learly doctrinal, but many
Protestants were nervous about a large g roup that took their spiritual leadership
from the Papacy. These two reasons for anti-Catholi c hatred in Philadelphia—
especially the latter—helped the Protestant protagonists during the Nativist Riots
in 1844.
There had been Roman Catholics among some of the early settlers in what
became the United States. Lord Baltimore had hoped that Catholics might settle
in Maryland, although they were never more than a small minority of the state’s
inhabitants. There were also the French in areas such as New Orleans, and the
Spanish to the west. However, not until the early 19th century were there large
influxes of Irish Catholics into Pennsylvania. This came with the Irish potato fam-
ine, and hundreds of thousands of Irish leaving Ireland each year in the hope of a
new life in the United States, A ustralia, or elsewhere. As this coincided with
industrialization in the United States, this led to many flocking to Philadelphia,
where th ey f ound work in the newly enlarged i ron and steel foundries, o r in the
factories nearby.
As most of these newly arrived Irish Catholics were poor, it was not unnatural
that many sent their c hildren to the local government s chools, which in turn led
to fric tion over the read ings from th e Bible. This was the reason that was easily
explo ited by the nativists, who claimed that the Catholic child ren would prevent
Protestant s from u sing their own Bib les, thereby forcing Protestant children to
study religion as Catholics.
The Roman Catholic bishop, Francis Kenrick, was soon drawn into the dispute.
He had been born in Dublin, Ireland, had been trained at Rome, where he was
ordained, and then appointed to a chair of theology at a seminary at Bardstown,
Kentucky, in 1821. Du ring his time in Kentucky, he was involved in what is now
termed “interfaith dialogue,” whereby he worked with local Protestants. It was
precisely because of this tha t, in 1830, he was appointed to take over the diocese
of Philadelphia, which had been badly managed. He proved active in working with
a cholera epidemic that broke out in 1832.
The rioting in 1844 came as a shock to many of the Catholics in Philadelphia,
and Kenrick immediately decided to play down the situation, entrusting the
329
defense of churches to the civil authorities and temporarily stopping church serv-
ices to prevent anything said from inflaming the situation. It resulted in some
Catholic property being lost in the riots, two churches being set on fire, and
antagonism with some of the more aggressive members of the congregation. How-
ever, it did win praise from many in Philadelphia, and a number of prominent peo-
ple from the city subsequently converted to Catholicism. However, in 1848, Pope
Pius IX opposed the liberal revolutions in Europe, and this would once again lead
to antagonism between Catholics and nativists.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Clark, Dennis. The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience. Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press, 1973.
Purcell, Richard J. “Francis Patrick Kenrick.” Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 5,
339–340. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960.
German Americans
The first Germans known to have settled in the United States were some artisans who
lived in Jamestown in 1608, but the firs t place to have a significant German com-
munity was Germantown, Pennsylvania, which was established in 1683 near
Philadelphia. Initially, most of the Germans moving to North America were Protes-
tants, including many members of small religious sects who faced persecution in
Europe. Some of the Hessian soldiers who came over to fight for the British in the
American War of Independence also settled in the Americas, and indeed in the
1790 census, the first taken since independence, it appeared that some 9 percent of
the white population of the new nation were G ermans or of German descent. The
major focus of these was in Pennsylvania, where they made up about a third of the
entire population of the st ate, but until the 1810s, the overwhelming majority of
these were Protestants.
Following the end of the War of 1812, increasing numbers of Catholic Germans
were moving to North America. The Germans in Philadelphia, especially the
Catholics and the members of the small sects such as the Mennonites, Anabaptists,
and Moravians, saw the Quakers in Pennsylvania as natural allies against the
Anglican ascendancy. Some were artisans working in cities such as Philadelphia,
but many we re farmers who brought with them intensive agricultural practices
which proved successful in the fertile soils of Pennsylvania. It may seem odd that
the Germans who were Lutherans and those who were Catholic should make
330 Philadelphia Nativist Riots (1844)
common cause. These were collectively known as the Pennsylvania “Dutch,” a
corruption of “Deutsch,” but also because many of the Germans in Pen nsylvania
at the time came from the Rhineland, the Palatine, and other areas near the
Netherlands.
Many of the early German Americans in the United States were politically
aware, having left Europe for religious or political reasons. Indeed, large numbers
of Catholics who moved to Philadelphia after 1815 did so to escape the settling of
scores tha t took place in the former Confederat ion of the Rhine, the pro-French
“state” established by Napoleon between 1806 and 1813. Many more politically
conscious Germans were to migrate to the United States after the failure of the
Revolutions of 1848.
Because many of the German businessmen tended to favor members of their
community, it was not unnatural that antagonisms arose, and it was not long before
Germans became targets of hatred in the 1844 Nativist Revolts. Although many of
the Nativists focused their hatred on Roman Catholics, for Germans, they did not
seem to discriminate, as many of the Germans attacked were Protestants.
—Justin Corfield
Further Reading
Barry, Colman J. The Catholic Church and German Americans. Washington, DC: Bruce
Publishing Co., 1953.
Luebke, Frederick C. Germans in the New Wor ld . Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1990.
Wood, Ralph, ed. The Pennsylvania Germans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1942.
Philadelphia Nativist Riots (1844) 331
Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations,
and Rebellions in American History