The Dead Rabbit Riot was confusing for me to understand, as its cause stemmed from several conflicts between different groups of people. It was hard to keep track of who supported who and who was leading who, but the gist of it all was an interethnic conflict between Nativists and immigrants. Nativists had tried cutting off Irish immigrants from every corner; they tried to forbid immigrants to be on the police force, there were prohibition laws they were trying to put into effect, and the Nativists tried to cut tavern service on Sundays, which was the busiest day for the Irish. They also knew that, because Sunday was the only day these immigrants did not have work, it was the only day they could convene together to have any kind of political discourse, so by trying to discontinue this day, they were effectively trying to cut the only time these immigrants could plan to go against those who were oppressing them. They were also trying to cut a considerable amount of revenue from tavern owners, and even run them out of business by trying to raise rent prices to an amount that would be nearly impossible to pay if you were an immigrant.
These grievances of the Irish accumulated in the Dead Rabbit Riot, a bloody fight that lasted two days and killed about a dozen people. The existence of the Dead Rabbits is controversial; some say that was merely a group made up by the other side as a scare tactic, while others say they were a violent branch of the Roche Guard. No matter what the side was named, it went against a side called the Bowery Boys in the 6th Ward. The Bowery Boys, Nativists and apparently on the side of the police but more against the Dead Rabbits than anything, had more weaponry on their side, and so those who died were mostly all Rabbits. In the end, Rabbits were convicted and put in prison for six months, but the Bowery boys got off clean. The clips of the movie are highly dramatized and present two groups marching straight into battle with each other for the conquest of the Five Points. Many people in the clips are shred to pieces while that was simply not the case in the true riot, where bricks were thrown at each other from afar. The nature of the fight in the movie is simplified, while in real life it was far more complex; it was not just a fight between immigrants and nativists, but also represented sides in New York politics as well as a fight over land. All these factors combined incited the riots.
