In his chapter, “The First Alien Wave”, Painter discusses the notion of anti-Catholicism as having “a long but often bloody national history” (Painter, 132) and one that precludes the modern day anti-black sentiment. The nativist rhetoric established in nineteenth century America caused a division between “Scotch Irish” or Irishmen who were protestant over Catholic Irish.
This rhetoric had been established since the colonial era, in which British colonies had provided various forms of anti-Catholic resentment, such as immigration barriers and extraneous taxes on religion (Painter, 133). Following the Irish potato famine, European intellectuals like Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont toured Ireland and considered the conditions they found as “the very extreme of human wretchedness” (Painter, 134). From their eyes, these intellectuals considered “the history of the poor as the history of Ireland” (Painter, 134). Moving back to American societal standards, there was a constant juxtaposition between Irish Celts and Black Negroes, centered around their assumed animalistic nature, bringing analogies such as “Am I not a horse, a half-brother?” (Painter, 135). The influx of Irish emigration to America caused a retaliatory nativist movement, accelerating the development of groups like the Native American Party to provoke anti-Catholic conspiracy theories that the Irish were just a tool of the Pope “for the sole purpose of converting [them] to the religion of the Popery” (Painter, 136). Anti-Catholicism also attacked the practices of Irish priesthood, claiming that nuns in convents were raped and beat to death by their religious superiors. Additionally, Irish were claimed to have “drank liquor, partied on the Sabbath, and had near-constant sex—especially in their convents and churches.” (Painter, 136). While none of these accusations were actually true, the feeling of Irish resentment had already surged within nativist communities.
Tensions rose to a climax as Western unemployment and poverty spurred political unrest in Europeans, insinuating the translation that class conflict meant race war (Painter, 137). There was also a large disparity in how different immigrants, in particular Germans versus Irish, were observed under the scope of American society. German immigration had a relatively non-controversial assimilation, in part due to their well-established economic status once crossing over (Painter, 138).
By the nineteenth century, anti-Irish propaganda had manifested itself into a cultural stereotype that severely damaged the image of Irish immigrants. As American intellectual Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, the “Paddy” was a figure of “drunkenness, brawling, laziness, pauperism, and crime” and one that propagated the idea that the Irish were a naturally inferior race that was considered separate from Anglo-Saxons (Painter, 139-140). Cartoons were also used to exaggerate the differences between the “civilized” Protestant and the “ape-like” Irish as well as slang terms like “paddy wagon” and “Paddy Doyle” that reinforced criminalized stereotypes (Painter, 141-142). The “black-Irish parallel” was one that highlighted throughout the course of American socio-economics. In the political spectrum, both blacks and Irish were seen as “equally unsuited for the vote during Reconstruction.” However, abolitionists identified with the common “oppression” that both parties experienced at the hands of white Protestant Americans, going as far to claim that “the Irish need only ‘black skin and wooly hair, to complete their likeness to the plantation Negro’” (Painter, 143). On the other hand, Irish immigrants moved to distinguish themselves from the black impoverished by using their skin to “elevate white…over black” (Painter, 143). In fact, the Irish were known to be proslavery and anti-abolition in order to push themselves higher up the social hierarchy, so much so that during the 1863 draft riots, Irish Americans attacked African Americans in an effort to reject black-Irish commonality (Painter, 143).
In terms of Celtic literature, French philosopher Ernest Renan and English poet Matthew Arnold both wrote works discussing the tragic histories of the Irish through exceedingly chauvinistic descriptions. In short, both write about the Irish incapacity and the deficits that they face in politics and in lifestyle (Painter, 145).
The nativist movement in America grew exponentially as numerous cases of arson against Irish churches and discriminatory literacy tests ran rampant across New England. The “know-nothing” nativist group operated under the conditions of slowing down Irish development and combatting issues such as liquor and political corruption. The group grew prominent; inciting riots and harassing “non-Americans” across the country in an attempt to retain American purity.
