Immigration: 1. Catholics
Within American history, the first wave of immigrants were white Protestant Europeans. Early Americans were from England, Scotland, France and Germany and predominantly Protestant.
The second wave of immigrants came in the 1800s. With famines and political upheaval in places such as Ireland and Italy, many Catholics now traveled to the new world. Catholics had long been a minority but had decent numbers in Maryland (named after Mary Queen of Scots who was Catholic) but in the 1800's Catholics started Immigrating to the United States in large numbers.
Irish Potato Famine
Since the Colombus Exchange between Europe and the Americans, the Irish people found Potatos to be easy to grow and filling. They grew reliant on the crop and their population grew. In 1845, farmers found their potatoes blackened and shriveled. It was a fungus caused by the years unusual amount of rainfall. Many countries survived because their crops were diversified. However, Ireland was overly reliant on potatoes and the people paid dearly.
Ireland at the time was part of the United Kingdom and took orders from London. Despite having the richest empire in the world, the British were resistant in helping the Irish. The Protestant British believed that the Catholic Irish were primitive, lazy and alcoholics. Many believed that the famine was God's judgment upon them.
“The famine is a punishment from God for an idle, ungrateful, and rebellious country, an indolent and un-self-reliant people. The Irish are suffering from an affliction of God’s providence,” said Charles Trevelyan in 1847, the worst year of the Famine. He was knighted in 1848 for overseeing Famine relief.
British politicians believed that the free market would solve the problem and that the government didn't need to get involved.
https://youtu.be/8W3ykqW3WK0?si=zW0v3SFpiZ28gmdX
Many families had 8-10 children. Catholism teaches that contraception of any kind is evil. Therefore, many, many families faced food shortages with 12-13 mouths to feed per household. With rations, mothers had to figure out a way to feed a baby, a toddler, two children and a teenager. Villages held funerals daily.
Many Irish people joined workhouses and lined up at soup kitchens. The food they received tasted terrible and was minimal.
From 1845 to 1851, a 6 year span. 1 million Irish were dead and over 1 million had left the country.
The British decided to give little aid to the Irish. However, word spead around the world of their suffering. Donations were taken up globally. Surprising sources include the Quackers in America, the Ottomons and
The story of Ottoman Aid to Ireland is an interesting one.
In 2010, the President of Ireland went on a diplomatic trip to the nation of Turkey. While there they shared the story, taken as history in parts of Ireland, of Ottomon charity during Ireland's hour of need.
Many dismissed the president's story as myth, meant to make the British look bad or propaganda, meant to make Muslims look good. However, the President shared letters from the 19th century. Some claimed they were forged but were they?
In the Irish port city of Drogheda, the story is personal. The cities crest includes the crescent moon and star from the Ottomons. The local football team has it on their badge and they partner with Turkish team, Trabzonspor, and wear the same colors.
Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty
Irish families evacuated Ireland, seeking refuge in the United States. Many passed through Port centers such as Ellis Island.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
https://youtu.be/bDNKHWzQiz8?si=iBKcLnRZL-v8LB9w
https://youtu.be/ucjsrdvRDiE?si=aDiW1tTGPvL-n5Ve
Mrs Cz
Once in New York, they rented a single windowless room for the whole family.
Discrimination
Irish people were seen as lesser, more primitive and distrusted. People saw them as animals and uncivilized. Many avoided the Irish and out right excluded them from social events and jobs.
Irish people disproportionately committed crimes. Irish people made up 20% of New York but committed 50% of crimes. People saw this as evidence of their violent and primitive culture, therefore increasing segregation and discrimination. This contributed to a vicious cycle that kept the Irish struggling for jobs and living in poverty.
https://youtu.be/rIIjvHqBccM?si=EhNNk80Sb5dSARor
In 1849, an acting rivalry between an American and an Irishman caused a riot in the streets outside the theater. Stones were thrown through the windows and fighting took place. When the police arrived they ordered the crowd to disburse, but they did not, therefore the police fired into the crowd. 31 rioters were killed, 48 were injured.
In New York City, a gang by the name, the Bowery Boys were an anti-Irish group. In response, the Irish formed a gang to protect the immigrants called "the Dead Rabbits".
https://youtu.be/0ftferPxUS0?si=YeWPiAmp85fsVteI - 13-16 Irish
https://youtu.be/RHPA7r0acEY?si=8e3cc_YxdJUa4vBa
No Irish Need Apply- Clover's Revenge
Italian Immigration
Around this same time, Southern Italians faced hardships. High taxes, poor farming, malnutrition, disease and alienation by Northern Italians. They too were Catholics with large families to feed. So they too evacuated to the United States.
From 1880 to 1914, 13 million Italians migrated out of Italy, making Italy the scene of one of the largest voluntary emigrations in recorded world history. They too joined the Irish in the slums of the new world. At the time, many Americans didn't consider them white.
Protestant American leaders were concerned about the large amounts of Catholics coming into the country. They said they were too different to fit in. They said they could not be patriotic because they answered to the pope. They said that Catholics were a danger to American democracy because bishops told them how to vote.
In 1891, a police officer was mysteriously murdered. 19 Italian men were arrested on the basis of their ethnicity alone. When the court failed to find the first 9 men guilty, a mob broke into the jail and shot 11 of the remaining prisoners. Nobody was ever arrested for the murders. Teddy Roosevelt, not yet president, famously said the lynching was indeed "a rather good thing". John M. Parker helped organize the lynch mob, and in 1911 was elected as governor of Louisiana. He described Italians as "just a little worse than the black people, being if anything filthier in their habits, lawless, and treacherous".
In 1884, a New York Presbyterian minister named Samuel Burchard gave a speech denouncing the Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” (referencing the Democratic party's constituency of Southerners and anti-Temperance, and Catholics) The phrase, which he meant to apply to most all recent immigrants, not just the Irish was meant to create a fear they were all drunkards whose allegiance was to the Pope and were ready to overthrow the United States government in favor of one that took its orders from the Vatican.
Many pastors preached that the Catholic church represented the strict and misguided Pharisees. They were also connected with the "Whore of Babylon" from the book of Revelations.
Know Nothings and Nativism
"The recent election has developed in an aggravated form every evil against which the American party protested. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country – men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election. Again in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result."
https://youtu.be/XMR855zb28k?si=wVV4f94ujIStk6VQ
Over time those of Irish and Italian descent became more accepted. As they became integrated, befriending and marrying other people's.
Today, St Patrick's day is hugely popular with most Americans. Italian Pizza is considered an American food. Many famous Americans are the descendants of Irish and Italian immigrants.
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