Strange Bedfellows: Nativism, Know-Nothings, African-Americans & School Desegregation in Antebellum Massachusetts by Stan Prager. Presented at History Camp Pioneer Valley 2017

1. STRANGE BEDFELLOWS:
Nativism, Know-Nothings, African-
Americans & School Desegregation
in Antebellum Massachusetts
Written & Presented by Stan Prager,
M.A. Public History

2. MASSACHUSETTS IN THE EARLY 1850s
Rapidly changing economic conditions fueled a bewildering
set of dislocations. The value of labor for the working class
fell. The population of the foreign born increased
exponentially, their numbers pregnant with an unfamiliar
culture & a religious faith despised by most Americans. Urban
life was beset with poverty and crime. Traditional social &
political institutions were incapable of redressing or even
containing a growing discontent. These factors & others
translated into a rage directed at the elite & their failed
institutions, spawning a populist revolt that manifested itself in
racism, hatred, xenophobia, exclusion & a determination to
overthrow the old order & start afresh. That was
Massachusetts in the early 1850s . . .
African-Americans—chafing at life at the margins in a
state that nevertheless offered the best overall quality
of life in the nation—sought equality of education for
their children in fully integrated schools. Utilizing
boycotts, non-violent tactics and an alliance with elite
whites who objected to inferior “separate but equal”
schools, a movement formed driven by a charismatic
yet unassuming leader that demanded
desegregation. That too was Massachusetts in the
early 1850s . . .

3. MASSACHUSETTS IN THE EARLY 1850s II
Massachusetts by the early 1850s had
undergone dramatic changes that had
radically upended the social, economic and
political dynamics of its very recent past.
Once a primarily agricultural state with a
thriving urban hub in Boston and its vicinity, by
the 1850s Massachusetts had become “… the
nation’s most densely populated, urbanized,
and industrialized state …” Industry boomed,
workers toiled in often abysmal conditions
from dawn to dusk for low wages with an
increasingly poorer quality of life. The
entrenched business-friendly Whig Party
ignored both the rural western part of the state
and the workers’ demands in the urban east,
catering to the wealthy elite who owned the
mills and factories and dominated the thriving
economy.

4. MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 1850s III
Business-friendly Whigs controlled the Massachusetts General Court & the office of the Governor for decades. Whig Daniel Webster’s support
for the Compromise of 1850—which included the hated Fugitive Slave Act—damaged the Whigs nationally and in Massachusetts with its strong
antislavery elements. But laissez-faire Jacksonian Democrats did not offer an attractive alternative to those frustrated with both rural neglect
& urban conditions, and Whig inaction on issues that mattered. It was primarily local issues that turned voters against the Whigs.

5. MASSACHUSETTS IN THE EARLY 1850s IV
Pro-temperance, nativist & anti-slavery elements also agitated for change while Whigs clung to power, seemingly invulnerable until a grand
coalition of anti-corporatist Democrats, disaffected Whigs & the powerful Free Soil bloc mounted a surprise coup that brought legislative
control. The result sent antislavery champion Charles Sumner to the US Senate, but little other positive change was effected, fostering an
even greater frustration & popular rage against government. The symbol of that rage became the legions of Irish immigrants who flooded the
state., & a resurgent nativism dominated the political narrative.

6. ORIGINS OF NATIVISM
Nativism is not an
aberration in America.
It is a part of our
national DNA. Thus it
rears its ugly head
again and again.

7. NATIVISM FLUCTUATES WITH FOREIGN-BORN
POPULATION & IMMIGRATION TRENDS
Spikes in nativism
coincide with rise of
percentage of foreign-
born population &
immigration trends.
From 1841 to 1850
immigration exploded
to 1,713,000 total
immigrants & at least
781,000 were Irish
fleeing potato famine
1845-49.

8. IRISH IMMIGRATION EXPLODES
Irish immigration was not new to America & their culture & religion was always suspect. But the Irish Potato Famine sent hundreds of thousands
to America with great suddenness. As a convenient port city with a booming industrial base, Boston was an attractive magnet for the starving Irish
emigrants seeking opportunity. By 1850, the Irish were the largest ethnic group in Boston, mostly poor & unskilled laborers. Although there were
plenty of jobs & no American workers were displaced by them, the newly arrived population was a perceived threat and a convenient target for
the rage and frustration already triggered by massive socio-economic changes.

9. IRISH BECAME DESPISED UNDERCLASS
Irish flooded in to
major cities like
Boston where they
took low-paying jobs
most Americans
didn’t want. But they
were stereotyped as
a dirty, lazy people
given to crime &
drunkenness.

10. IRISH WERE HATED FOR THEIR RELIGION
Protestant America
was horrified by the
infusion of Irish
Roman Catholics,
who it was believed
followed the direct
orders of the Pope—
especially at the
ballot box!

11. NATIVIST RESPONSE WAS KNOW-NOTHING PARTY
The Know-Nothings—officially known as
the American Party—was a national
movement that grew out of earlier
Native American Party. “Sam” was
Uncle Sam’s nephew & became a
symbol of the Know-Nothings. Their
“Dark Lantern” style of politics with
secret local lodges spawned the “Know-
Nothing” tag but served as a powerful
organizational tool that brought
together a variety of people with a
multiplicity of complaints who were
frustrated with a lack of political voice.
Meanwhile, a growing mass of Irish
refugees became a potent symbol of
threats to traditional lifeways. The
Know-Nothings capitalized on this to
secretly construct a huge following.

12. KNOW-NOTHINGS SWEEP MASSACHUSETTS . . .
Frustration with the inability
of the Whigs or Democrats
to address mounting social
& economic dislocations
brought on by industrialism
& other factors led to a
populist revolt that hitched
itself to the Know-Nothing
nativist wagon. In the 1854
elections, the American
Party gained control of all
but three of the 400 seats,
resulting in a Massachusetts
legislature in which only 35
members had any previous
legislative experience.

13. … AND EVEN ELECT KNOW-NOTHING GOVERNOR
Henry J. Gardner (1819-
1892) was elected
Governor as part of that
1854 Know-Nothing
electoral sweep & served
1855-58. Massachusetts
was the only state with
Know-Nothing results of
this magnitude.

14. AFRICAN-AMERICANS HAD BEST QUALITY OF
LIFE IN MASSACHUSETTS IN ANTEBELLUM ERA . . .
African-Americans had better
lifeways in Massachusetts
than anywhere else in
America in the 1850s, north
or south. It was a destination
for runaway slaves, who were
welcomed to the various
thriving black communities
across the state. This is a
post Civil War photograph of
Thomas Thomas (1817-1894),
a prominent black abolitionist
and later restaurant owner in
Springfield, Mass.

15. . . . BUT RACISM STILL REIGNED SUPREME
Racism led to an early
“separate but equal”
doctrine that kept
blacks separated in
most theaters, public
transportation & in
sub-standard black
schools, like the Abiel
Smith School in
Boston.

16. ATTY. ROBERT MORRIS
Emblematic of the enhanced status of blacks in
the state was resident Robert Morris (1823-
1882), one of the first African-American
attorneys in the United States. But that blacks
were not willing to settle for second class
citizenship was also evidenced by Morris who—
joined by future US Senator Charles Sumner—
represented a black parent who sued for equal
protection rights under the state constitution
because his daughter was barred from attending
a school near her residence and was compelled
to a long walk to Smith instead. In 1850, the
state Supreme Court ruled against them, but
the fight went on.

17. ENTER WILLIAM COOPER NELL
William Cooper Nell (1816-1874) was an acolyte
of famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.
Nell, abolitionist, integrationist, and tireless
crusader for equal rights, lobbied and led
boycotts in an effort to desegregate Boston
schools, the last place in Massachusetts where
blacks were prohibited from attending schools
alongside whites. As a boy, Nell was denied the
same academic award earned by fellow white
students, and thereafter dedicated his life to
equality in education in every other sphere of
civic life.

18. NON-VIOLENT PROTESTS, BOYCOTTS &
AGITATION CONTINUED FOR A DECADE
Nell, all but forgotten by history, led a movement for
desegregation that pioneered methods adopted by
later activists, including boycotts & petitions. When
a respected black headmaster was appointed to the
still segregated Smith School, peaceful but
persistent protesters interfered with opening day
registration to expand the boycott, until police
scattered them. When Nell gathered with these
participants that evening at the African American
Belknap Street Church next door, opponents
outside threw stones, breaking church windows.
Nell, who consistently advocated for strict
nonviolence—and whose methods and mien in
some senses prefigured by a century those of
Martin Luther King—told the crowd that the stones
will be kept “as trophies of the prowess of those
who resort to such methods of appeal.” The boycott
continued.

19. NATIVIST LEGISLATURE PROHIBITS SCHOOL
SEGREGATION
Many schools in Massachusetts had been integrated over time, but Boston remained the holdout. Using every legal
peaceful means, Nell and his allies continued to put pressure to bear on all sectors, including black families who did not
object to separate schools. He even urged a “taxpayer” boycott that led prominent blacks to move out of Boston to the
suburbs. It took over a decade of persistence, but integration came to Boston when the legislature—controlled by the
Know-Nothings—outlawed segregation in the state in 1855. How did Nell achieve this result with nativists in control?

20. FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT SEIZURES BRINGS GREATER
SYMPATHY & LEGITIMACY TO BLACK STUGGLES
The Compromise of 1850, signed off on by the
Whig Party, included a powerful Fugitive Slave Act
that put former slaves in grave jeopardy & fully
alienated antislavery Free Soilers from the Whigs.
Southern agents made well-publicized attempts
to seize & return escaped blacks to their owners,
which energized active legal and extra-legal
resistance in the state. When escaped slave
Anthony Burns—who was living & working in in
Boston—was seized in 1854 & then returned
under the law to slavery in Virginia, riots and
protests ensued. Integration efforts paled
alongside this greater crisis for African
Americans. Yet, it also brought greater sympathy
and legitimacy for their struggle to a wider
audience.

21. IN MASSACHUSETTS MANY KNOW-NOTHINGS
WERE ALSO ANTISLAVERY FREE SOILERS
Free Soiler Henry Wilson (1812-
1875) was a prominent anti-
slavery power broker who helped
propel the Know-Nothing party to
its electoral sweep. He was
rewarded by the Know-Nothing
legislature with a Senate seat in
1855. Nell had many antislavery
allies in the Free Soil party, &
many Know-Nothings in
Massachsetts were also Free
Soilers, either because they were
using the nativist party to advance
their own agenda—or because
they really were both anti-Irish &
sympathetic to blacks!

22. KNOW-NOTHINGS PASSED PROGRESSIVE
LEGISLATION TAINTED WITH ANTI-IRISH SENTIMENT
A landmark law favoring black education represented just a fraction of a host of progressive legislation
passed by the Know-Nothing legislature, including laws that provided an overall boost to public school
expenditure, made vaccination compulsory, funded libraries, took tentative steps to regulate child labor, &
strikingly improved women’s rights in property, marriage and divorce. Anti-Irish prejudice ever loomed in the
background. The small, Protestant black minority posed little threat, & one legislator bemoaned long walks
to school for blacks while local public schools were so convenient to the “dirty Irish.”

23. POPULISM CAN BE PROGRESSIVE & REACTIONARY
What can historians make of the fact that what at first glance
looks like a nativist, reactionary political entity turned into one
of the most progressive legislative forces in American history?
It could well be that populist revolts take on many faces but at
root most are simply & essentially populist revolts, striking out
against the status quo. This is underscored by the incongruity
of votes for Robert Kennedy drifting to George Wallace in
1968, & those of some Bernie Sanders voters to Donald
Trump in 2016. Historian Ronald P. Formisano argues that a
mosaic of forces can serve as engine to revolts against the
status quo, and that it did in this case, noting: “that Know-
Nothingism was populist and progressive and reactionary. It
was not progressive because it was populist, or reactionary
because it was populist. Rather, all three of these currents
came together, making it a classic case of the combination of
progressive and reactionary elements in a populist movement.

24. EPILOGUE
Preparing for the 1856 presidential race, the national Know-Nothings
met in convention & declared a position essentially agnostic on slavery,
seeking to unite the country behind nativism. But Massachusetts Know-
Nothings, however, met in Springfield in Aug. 6-7, 1855 & championed
nativism while declaring a free soil & antislavery position that came to
be called the “Springfield Platform.” This wounded the national party,
which nevertheless nominated former President Millard Fillmore, who
went down to defeat in 1856. Antislavery votes hemorrhaged from the
Know-Nothings & went in great numbers to the brand new Republican
Party. Republicans elected their first President, Abraham Lincoln, in
1860, & a great Civil War ensued that resulted in the abolition of slavery
in the United States. The rights of blacks, however, suffered after the
war, in the north as well as the south. African Americans had to fight a
long fight to desegregate Boston schools once again, more than a
century after William Cooper Nell & his movement integrated schools
the first time. Anti-Irish & anti-Catholic prejudice lingered long after the
Civil War, as well, and while the Irish have now long been assimilated
into American life, as recently as 1960 the Catholic religion of the
Democratic nominee for President, John F. Kennedy, remained a
significant liability in a very close election.

25. KNOW-NOTHINGS.COM WEBSITE LAUNCH
Strange Bedfellows: Nativism, Know-Nothings, African-Americans &
School Desegregation in Antebellum Massachusetts
Stan Prager is currently writing a scholarly article on this topic & has created a website to host
today’s presentation & future related materials at www.know-nothings.com

26. About the Author
 Stan Prager has spent a lifetime studying history and much of his
professional life in the technology arena. Stan has a M.A. in Public
History from APUS, with an emphasis on digitization. Stan’s current
focus is on the marriage of history and technology. Stan has an
online profile at www.stanprager.com
 Stan digitized & transcribed the letters of Private George W. Gould,
an ordinary Massachusetts soldier killed at the Battle of Cold
Harbor in 1864, and launched a website to showcase this project,
Stan presented this material as Resurrecting Lost Voices: The
George W. Gould Story, D.I.Y. Digital Archiving, at History Camp
Pioneer Valley 2016. More info at www.resurrectinglostvoices.com
 Stan is owner and president of GoGeeks Computer Rescue, a
computer services and manufacturing company in East
Longmeadow, MA. More info at www.gogeeks.com
 Stan serves as technology consultant and appears weekly on a
“Tech Tips” segment on Western Mass News television
 Stan, an avid reader & book collector, authors a book blog of
reviews & essays at www.regarp.com
 Stan can be reached via email at stan@stanprager.com
 Stan is writing a scholarly article on the topic of the Know-Nothings
& Massachusetts school desegregation. Today’s presentation &
future materials will be posted at www.know-nothings.com

27. CREDITS
 SLIDE 1: Know-Nothing Flag, Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Know-nothing-
flag.jpg
 SLIDE 2: Image 1: Back Bay, before 1858. Looking down from the top of Beacon Hill in Boston,
Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BackBay_pre1858_Boston.png; Image 2:
African-Americans, Unknown, circa 1870s (?), courtesy of Cliff McCarthy, personal collection
 SLIDE 3: Boston West End, circa 1850s, Public Domain,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WestEnd_ca1850s_Boston.png
 SLIDE 4: Whig Politician Daniel Webster addressing crowd, Revere House, Boston, 1850s,
http://resourcesforhistoryteachers.wikispaces.com/USI.20
 SLIDE 5: Massachusetts State House, Boston, c. 1860; Image: Courtesy of the Bostonian Society;
http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=158
 SLIDE 6: Nativism: Alexander Hamilton, letter to Timothy Pickering June 7, 1798,
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0276 ; and cited by Ron Chernow in
Alexander Hamilton, p572; Alien Friends Act, http://www.constitution.org/rf/alien_1798.htm ; John
Pintard, 1841, http://inthepastlane.com/category/quotes-histquote/; Woodrow Wilson, A History
of the American People, 1903, p212-13; Donald Trump, speech, 2015, Time Magazine, June 16,
2015, http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/.

28. CREDITS
 SLIDE 7: Foreign Born Population, US Census Bureau, “Census of Population 1850-2000,” and “American
Community Survey, 2010.”
 SLIDE 8: Emigrant Arrival at Constitution Wharf, Boston, from Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion,
October 31, 1857, Homer, Smithsonian American Art Museum. http://americanart.si.edu/collections ,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8144776.
 SLIDE 9: Irish Portrayed as Drunks, from Livia Gershon, “‘Drunkards’! How an anti-Irish stereotype began,”
Boston Globe, March 12, 2017, https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/03/12/drunkards-how-anti-
irish-stereotype-began/SL1aTTvw18blEJZpWmYnjI/story.html.
 SLIDE 10: “A strident Anti-Catholic cartoon depicting members of the Know-Nothing Party opposing the
Pope as he arrives in America,” Library of Congress, from Robert McNamera, “The Know-Nothing Party
Opposed Immigration to America,” https://www.thoughtco.com/the-know-nothing-party-1773827
 SLIDE 11: Young Sam, from Patrick Young, “The Know Nothings: From Triumph to Collapse,” Long Island
Wins, December 16, 2011, https://longislandwins.com/news/national/the-know-nothings-from-triumph-
to-collapse-2/.
 SLIDE 12: American Patriot, Know Nothing Newspaper, from Gordon Harris, “1854: Anti-immigrant Know
Nothing Party sweeps Massachusetts elections,” Stories From Ipswich, December 9, 2015,
https://storiesfromipswich.org/2015/12/09/know-nothing/.

29. CREDITS
 SLIDE 13: Governor Henry J. Gardner, Portrait by Jean Paul Selinger, 1889, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GovHenryJGardner.jpg.
 SLIDE 14: Thomas Thomas, circa 1880 (?), Courtesy of the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield
History.
 SLIDE 15: Abiel Smith School, today the “Museum of Afro-American History in front of the African Meeting
House, Beacon Hill, Smith Ct, Boston,” from Amy Cools, “Frederick Douglass Boston Sites,” Ordinary
Philosophy, April 15, 2016, https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2016/04/15/frederick-douglass-boston-
sites/.
 SLIDE 16: Robert Morris, from “Robert Morris: A Man of “Energy and Iron Will,” John J. Burns Library's
Blog, May 11, 2015, https://johnjburnslibrary.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/robert-morris/.
 SLIDE 17: William Cooper Nell, Public Domain, from “Liberator Photo Gallery,” The Liberator Files,
http://theliberatorfiles.com/liberator-photo-gallery/.
 SLIDE 18: Belknap Street Church, from JD Thomas, “Walk where Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd
Garrison once Walked,” Accessible Archives, December 17, 2011, [“The African Meeting House, also
known variously as First African Baptist Church, First Independent Baptist Church and the Belknap Street
Church”], http://www.accessible-archives.com/2011/12/walk-where-douglass-and-garrison-walked/.

30. CREDITS
 SLIDE 19: Segregation outlawed, Carleton Mabee, A Negro Boycott to Integrate Boston Schools, p356.
 SLIDE 20: Anthony Burns, Public Domain, [“A portrait of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, whose arrest and trial under the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 touched off riots and protests by abolitionists and citizens of Boston in the spring of 1854. A
bust portrait of the twenty-four-year-old Burns, "Drawn by Barry from a daguereotype [sic] by Whipple and Black," is
surrounded by scenes from his life. These include (clockwise from lower left): the sale of the youthful Burns at auction, a
whipping post with bales of cotton, his arrest in Boston on May 24, 1854, his escape from Richmond on shipboard, his
departure from Boston escorted by federal marshals and troops, Burns's "address" (to the court?), and finally Burns in
prison”] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthony_Burns_1.jpg.
 SLIDE 21: Henry Wilson, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Wilson,_VP_of_the_United_States.jpg
 SLIDE 22: Anti-Irish Sentiment, Carleton Mabee, A Negro Boycott to Integrate Boston Schools, p358.
 SLIDE 23: Populism as Progressive and Reactionary, Ronald P. Formisano, For the People: American Populist Movements
from the Revolution to the 1850s, p199; “1968: Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future,” by Lance Morrow,
Time Magazine, Monday, Jan. 11, 1988; "I'm A Bernie Sanders Voter…Here's Why I'll Vote Trump," by Tyler Durden, Oct 2,
2016,http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-02/im-bernie-sanders-voter-heres-why-ill-vote-trump; campaign
buttons, public domain.
 SLIDE 24: Springfield Platform, Springfield and the Know-Nothing Party, Catholic Journal, November 16, 2015,
http://www.catholicjournal.us/2015/11/16/springfield-and-the-know-nothing-party/
 SLIDE 25: Website launch, www.know-nothings.com