Early 18th Century: Irish, Negro + Indian Run Away Together from Boston
Blacks and Irish have often, though not always, faced similar experiences in how they were depicted, considered and treated in New England over the past four centuries.
When the Puritans settled in Boston in 1630, they believed fervently that they were the chosen ones, destined to build "a city upon a hill, with the eyes of the world upon us," as early leader John Winthrop preached. But they needed help to actually do the building, and it fell upon Africans and Irish Catholics, along with local Indigenous peoples and others, to do the work.
Historian Evan Thomas wrote in his biography of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones, "In the 18th century the world was sharply divided. There was the great chain of being, in which you were born to your caste."
In the 18th century, Irish, Africans and Native people were often cast as the lowest people on the colonial social stratum, and often found themselves in similar circumstances. New England newspapers are full of advertisements for Irish, African and Native people escaping their captivity and going on the run, especially in the first half of the century when chattel slavery for Blacks and Indigenous and indentured servitude for Irish affected these groups in various ways.
Eve of the American Revolution: "A rabble of negroes, mulattoes, Irish Teagues"
On the eve of the American Revolution, the victims of the Boston Massacre were treated in a contradictory manner. On the one hand, they were praised as martyrs to an emerging cause of liberty at odds with the British Empire, but on the other hand, many Bostonians considered the five men killed to be part of a mob of discontents of the lowest social order, as John Adams expressed when defending the soldiers. The Boston Massacre trial essentially exonerated the soldiers, and was an important demonstration of the ability of the colonies to pursue law and justice impartially. But it also revealed the caste system under which colonial Boston was operating.
Despite some progress made during the American Revolution and afterwards, the descendants of the Puritans continued to discriminate against Blacks and Irish Catholics into the 19th century, often pitting one against the other. Boston Abolitionists, for example, devoted their lives to freeing slaves in America, and rightly so, but were less supportive and sympathetic toward poor, sick and traumatized Irish Catholics who landed in Boston having been forced to flee Ireland, especially after the Famine era (1845-49).
The fact that both Blacks and Irish Catholics formed regiments out of Boston, Massachusetts to fight bravely in the Civil War went a long way in countering the nativist argument that these communities didn't deserve full citizenship and equal rights in America.
During the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, Boston was buoyed by several Irish and Black leaders who believed in the ideals and principles of an American republic, and worked together to confront prejudice and hatred whenever they could.
19th Century: The Irish +Negro Alliance in Boston
In the years after the American Civil War, Irish and Black leaders formed frequent alliances, as both communities continued to face opposition from the Boston Establishment. John Boyle O'Reilly and Frederick Douglass led the way in finding common cause, speaking on other each other's behalf, and calling for "The right to be free, the hope to be just, and the guard against selfish greed," as O'Reilly wrote in a poem dedicated to abolitionist Wendell Phillips.
But well into the 19th century and into the early 20th century, prejudice against both groups continued to manifest itself in a variety of ways, such as advertisements in local newspapers published in Boston that categorically denied the Irish and Negro to jobs and housing opportunities.
19th Century : "No Irish Catholics or Negroes Need Apply"
20th Century: "The property cannot be transferred to a negro or an Irishman"
Learn more about the Irish in Boston by visiting the Irish Heritage Trail, and about Black history by visiting the Black Heritage Trail.
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