The cause of the riot was between two gangs: the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys. Their disputes root back Fernando Wood. Wood was affiliated with Tammany Hall, a political machine, and had much power over many groups, people, and institutions. Wood’s unpopularity by anti-Wood Democrats and Republicans intensified when he won his reelection as mayor. As a way to show their opposition towards him and a way to dismantle his power, they passed a state of regulation that did two things. It increased the cost of liquor license to prices that local saloon keepers could not afford to pay and it ordered that the city’s police department, which Wood had power over, be disbanded and replaced by state-appointed commissioners. This sparked an outrage in Irish immigrants, who were pro-Wood, because they felt like this was an attack on them by nativism. Saloons were especially important to immigrants at Five Point because compared to the immigrants’ small, and depressing tenements, saloons were social, jolly, and warm. It was a social force that brought together the immigrants so that they could leave their worries temporarily behind. Thus, when this law was passed, Irish immigrants wanted to fight back because the nativists took away the taverns that were important to them. The disagreement between the two groups, the Dead Rabbits (pro-Wood) and the Bowery Boys (anti-Wood), broke out in a riot for two days on the streets. They violently killed each other and the police and wrecked many saloons along way. One saloon they attacked was Abraham Florentine’s saloon. Florentine’s hiring only confirmed the plot of the nativists because he was affiliated with the Know Nothings, a nativist group.
I’ve never witness any racial/ethnical conflict similar to the Dead Rabbits Riot, but in present time, I’ve seen many instances of racial tension. I’ve seen videos and read articles on nativists in the country who treat people they know to be immigrants horribly, rudely, and/or violently. Sometimes its verbal abuse in which one person will be shouting names or rude statements to the other person. Or, there was the event when a white man shot two Indians in Kansas while shouting, “Get out of my country!” These moments of tension usually occur when one person believe they are superior to the other or that they have more rights in the country because they were born there. Having feelings of hate towards immigrants or another racial group can grow, like the Dead Rabbits Riot did, and result in instance of verbal and physical abuse and fights.
