Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City (35 page)

For decades, the city had been in a state of ideological war over the issue of slavery. On the eve of the Civil War dissension had reached the point of explosion.

New York politics was dominated by merchants with last names like Astor, Havemeyer, Belmont, and Tilden, all Democrats who lined up solidly behind the South. “What would New York be without slavery?” commerce analyst James De Bow wondered. “The ships would rot at her docks; grass would grow in Wall Street and Broadway, and the glory of New York, like that of Babylon and Rome, would be numbered with the things of the past.” Aware of where their economic interests lay, these men took to calling themselves Peace Democrats and preached conciliation with the South. If that was not possible, they would side with their race. They hailed Fernando Wood’s election as mayor in 1859. A fellow Peace Democrat, Wood agreed “that the South is our best customer. She pays the best prices, and pays promptly.” Once war appeared inevitable, he proposed secession, not of South from North, but of the
city from the rest of the country. As a free city, New York could do as it pleased—support slavery, trade with the South, ignore federal tariffs.

City politicians and merchants turned unpeaceful, however, once the Confederacy decided to lower tariffs in its ports, thereby making commerce through New York expensive and undercutting the city’s trade with Europe. Feeling betrayed, they were ready to switch sides. For a time, war proved to be an economic blessing as demands grew for increased production in industries of all kinds—shipbuilding, refining, maritime engineering, clothes manufacturing, communications. The stock market went bullish. The Republican merchant-banker George Opdyke captured City Hall.

Undeterred, Peace Democrat politicians cannily played on the fears of the city’s immigrant population, who in the wake of emancipation became increasingly worried about the specter of former slave labor flooding the North in the event of a Union victory. Elected to Congress, Fernando Wood and the new Democratic governor Horatio Seymour took to proclaiming that Lincoln’s policies had substituted “niggerism for nationality.”
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In contrast, New York’s white Republicans were a varied lot, refugees from now defunct political parties. Some, like Henry Ward Beecher, had been Free Soilers and became early, enthusiastic supporters of Abraham Lincoln. Others, like Horace Greeley, were former Whigs who proceeded cautiously. Greeley’s conversion took time. He refused to endorse Lincoln until after the presidential nomination had taken place. He initially thought secession and peaceful disunion preferable to armed conflict. But by the beginning of the Civil War, even Greeley had been transformed into an ardent Unionist ready to fight to the finish.
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For the black elite, politics was a more complicated matter. Its members were divided over both strategy and goals.

Some were determined to pursue their quest for citizenship. The
state’s property qualification still denied most black men the right to vote. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that ruled black Americans unfit for citizenship, men of the elite multiplied their efforts to regain the elective franchise. Much like the
Colored American
in earlier years, the
Weekly Anglo-African
became a forum for debating strategy. In May 1860, it reported on a planning meeting organized by many of the same activists of the 1830s and ’40s: James McCune Smith, Charles Reason, Henry Highland Garnet, and others. The result was the formation of the New York City and County Suffrage Committee of Colored Citizens, which planned an all-out campaign in support of a state amendment repealing the property qualification.
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To facilitate the task of those black men who could vote, ballots on the amendment were distributed to different venues throughout the community. White voters clung to their prejudices, however, and rejected the referendum, 337,984 to 197,503, in the state, and 65,082 to 10,493 in New York County.
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In contrast, men like Alexander Crummell believed blacks should abandon the United States altogether. Still living in Liberia, Crummell returned to visit New York in 1861 and embarked on a lecture tour of the Northeast. In speech after speech, he trumpeted the virtues of Liberia, which, he asserted, was the only nation that could redeem this fallen world. Yet, without apparent irony, Crummell simultaneously reiterated his earlier claim that Africans were living in such a degraded and unenlightened state that black Americans needed to emigrate there and assist them. Using his newspaper as a podium, Frederick Douglass accused Crummell of portraying Liberia in an inconsistent light—sometimes glowing, sometimes gloomy—and promoting a brain drain of black Americans who were badly needed at home. Undeterred, Crummell pressed on, even going so far as to approach the American Colonization Society to discuss possible commercial projects in Liberia, and to back Lincoln’s obnoxious (but thankfully temporary) scheme to repatriate emancipated slaves to Liberia, Haiti, or even Panama.
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Black leaders were infuriated.

As war became increasingly inevitable, many in the black elite were perplexed over which party to support: they were skeptical of Democrats
and Republicans alike. Democrats, they knew, were unabashed proslavery men. But summing up the opinion of many, Thomas Hamilton argued that Republicans were not much better and in fact might be worse, because they were hypocritical and cowardly. “Where it is clearly in their power to do anything for the oppressed colored man,” he asserted in the
Weekly Anglo-African
, “why then they are too nice, too conservative, to do it. They find, too often, a way to slip round it—find a method how not to do it. If too hard pressed or fairly cornered by the opposite party, then it is they [who] go beyond said opposite party in their manifestations of hatred and contempt for the black man and his rights.”
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Once Lincoln declared war, however, the black elite threw its full support behind his efforts. In William Powell’s words, “never was there a greater opportunity for the American nation to put an everlasting end to Negro slavery.” When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation some eighteen months later, on January 1, 1863, they were positively jubilant. Accompanied by white activists, they came by the thousands to a mass meeting in the great hall of the Cooper Institute reminiscent of the one held in 1850 to protest the capture of James Hamlet. Henry Highland Garnet presided over the gathering, and after reading the proclamation aloud he addressed the assembly.

Garnet argued that “with his eyes set on the God of Justice” the president had now fulfilled his promise of emancipation. He then proceeded to recall how at the onset of war New York’s black men, eager to serve their country and show proof of their capacity for citizenship, had petitioned the governor for permission to join the military. Tongue in cheek, Garnet noted that “when the offer became public, the people (the white people) were horror-stricken, and some of them turned up their noses till they almost met their foreheads, fearing lest white men and black men should fight shoulder to shoulder to save the country.” Facing the opposition of Superintendent of Police Kennedy, the very same man who would soon be attacked by the mob, black leaders were forced to suspend their plans. But Garnet was determined that blacks should serve, and he warned Jefferson Davis: “Jeff must know that the black man, when he joins the army, goes to win.” In closing, Garnet
asked the audience to rise to its feet and give three cheers, in the following order, for God, Abraham Lincoln, “our native land,” the “stars and stripes,” the abolitionists, and amazingly enough, the “honored head” of the
Tribune
, Horace Greeley.
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James McCune Smith was safe in his home on North Moore Street, which was not attacked by the mob. But he must have wept upon reading the
Tribune
’s lengthy description of the destruction of the Colored Orphan Asylum. By far the best known of all the draft riots’ events, it was recounted over and over in newspapers of the day as well as in more recent histories. It’s come to symbolize the utter horror of the riots—the fiendishness of the mob, the helplessness of the victims.

Located far from the impoverished wards that were home to New York’s black population, the asylum occupied a large, handsome building on a choice piece of land on Fifth Avenue, near the opulent mansions of the Upper Tendom. The interior was spacious: there were two playrooms in the basement, a kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, and two infirmaries on the first floor, a large schoolroom in each wing. The asylum housed so many of the black community’s neediest children that few were sent to New York’s almshouses. There were an increasing number of success stories. After completing their indentures, two girls felt confident enough to ask the Board of Managers to help them enter Oberlin College so that they could train as teachers. One young man was able to buy a house and garden. Another moved to Boston and became a hairdresser.
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Success came in another form as well. On the eve of the Civil War, the asylum was moving toward greater interracial cooperation. Prominent white abolitionists like John Jay and Henry Ward Beecher had long lent their presence and name to the annual anniversary celebrations. But blacks were now increasingly involved. James McCune Smith was still the doctor in charge. A black woman, Adelaide Butler, also known as Aunt Delia, became matron in 1853. Emerging from the shadows into
public light, black women began organizing benefit fairs on behalf of the orphans. Among the 1860 fair’s “directresses” were wives, widows, daughters, and sisters of many community leaders: Mary J. Lyons, Malvina Smith, Ann Ray, Eliza Peterson, Mary Wake, Mrs. C. B. Ray, Mrs. William J. Wilson, Charlotte Ray, and yes, even Philip’s sister, Sarah Maria White.
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Colored Orphan Asylum, Fifth Avenue between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets, exterior yard with uniformed girls, 1861 (New-York Historical Society)

The
Tribune
’s account of the attack on the asylum is harrowing in its detail.

The Orphan Asylum (in Fifth Avenue, near Forty-Sixth Street) was fired about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. The infuriated mob, eager for any outrage were turned that way by the simple suggestion that the building was full of colored children. They clamored around the house like demons, filling the air with yells. A few policemen, who attempted to make a stand, were instantly overpowered—several being severely or fatally injured. While this was going on, a few of the less evil disposed gave notice to the inmates to quit the building.

The sight of the helpless creatures stayed, for a moment, even the insensate mob; but the orphans were no sooner out than the work of demolition commenced. First, the main building was gutted, and then set on fire. While it was burning, the large wing adjoining—used as a dormitory—was stripped, inside and out. Several hundred iron bedsteads were carried off—such an exodus of this article was never witnessed before perhaps. They radiated in every direction for half a mile.

Carpets were dragged away at length; desks, tools, chairs, tables, books of all kinds—everything moveable—was carried off. Even the cape and bonnets of the poor children were stolen. The writer picked up fragments of vestments for a quarter of a mile down Fifth avenue. While the rioters stripped the building of furniture, their wives and children, and hundreds who were too cowardly to assist the work of demolition, carried them off. The wing, while yet un-burning, swarmed with rioters, who seemed endowed with a demoniacal energy to rend to pieces, rob and destroy.

Shutters and doors were torn off and tumbled into the streets. These were seized and torn to pieces almost before they touched the ground, and, with everything else, carried off with surprising celerity. Several persons were injured, and it is supposed some killed, by the falling of shutters and furniture from the windows. Even the gutters were hewn off, and the chimneys tumbled down.

The fire-engines were there in great numbers, but were
not permitted to work, except upon the adjacent buildings. What was very marked, as the destruction proceeded, was the absence of excitement. Things were done quietly and coolly by the rioters as if they were saving instead of destroying property. Mingling with the crowd—which amounted, perhaps to 5,000 or 6,000 persons—were many who were evidently not of them; but except in cases of incautious utterance, they were not molested.

One or two persons who attempted a remonstrance were summarily disposed of, being beaten and trampled under foot. There were some who, though they took part in the plunder, seemed to regret the occasion, and one—a drunken Irishman too, with bloated face, a gigantic fellow—whispered in the writer’s ear, with evident good will: “Take yer watch out’ yer pocket, honey, or some o’ the b’yes will take care of it for yer.”
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