Lucia Lopez
In today’s world, the concept of racism is normally directly paired with the topic of skin color. What most people fail to recognize, however, is that American hatred towards other white people has also been a horrible problem in the nation’s history. Not all white people were privileged in American society, and this is seen when looking at the experiences of Irish Catholics in the Unites States in the 19th century.
Before 1820, Irish immigrants had easily fit into American society due to their Protestant religion. They had begun to call themselves “Scotch Irish” in order to distinguish themselves from the Catholic-Irish population. Catholics had been discriminated against for years in the British colonies as well as in the United States. Up until 1821, Catholics were denied citizenship in New York unless they declared faithlessness to the Pope. In Massachusetts, all people were expected to pay taxes to fund Protestant churches until 1833.
During the Irish potato famine in the 1830s and 1840s, intellectuals began to discuss the roots of the problems the Irish were facing. Although many, like essayist Thomas Carlyle, believed the Irish to be a genetically inferior race, some such as Gustave de Beaumont believed that the essence of their suffering was British policy. Since the seventeenth century, Catholics had been deprived of land ownership by Protestant English settlers. Still, most at the time believed that the Irish, like African Americans, lacked the desire to add any value to society.
Also immigrating to the United States were Germans. German Americans had more easily blended in due to their wealth and Protestantism. Meanwhile, things were getting much worse for the Irish; they had received the reputation as drunk, violent, lazy people- this archetype became known as “the Paddy”. This figure was enforced by cartoons, depicting the Irish as ape-like and contrasting their facial features to those of Anglo-Saxons.
Although color did not play a main role in race relations as the Irish were first discriminated against, it became of importance when the Irish began to be compared to the black population of America. Although both groups were seen as inferior, poor, and lazy, the Irish used their skin color to draw a distinction between themselves and African Americans and put themselves above them. They even went as far as supporting the proslavery Democratic Party. the draft riots followed, in which the Irish clearly rejected the concept of black-Irish commonality.
Soon a group arose in the political sphere that claimed they knew nothing when it came to choosing a party to associate with, dubbing themselves the “Know-Nothings”. Their distaste targeted alcohol and Catholicism mainly, and while they made efforts to enforce laws according to their views they usually did not succeed. Soon, as issues such as slavery became more pressing, members of the party began to take sides and the party slowly disappeared after losing so much of their following. Despite their disappearance, hatred towards the Catholic Irish continued for years. Nativism continued and Celts and Africans were still seen as subordinate members of society; the Irish, however, held on to their whiteness for value.
