Providence Newspapers and the Racist Riots of 1824 and 1831
By John Crouch, Attorney at Law,
Crouch & Crouch, Arlington, Virginia; (703)
528-6700; Copyright John Crouch 1991, 1999. Published 1999 by Cornerstone
Books, 1 Benefit St., Providence, R.I. 02904.
Other Crouch Articles
Between the American Revolution and the Dorr Rebellion of 1842, Providence,
Rhode Island was the scene of two major riots. In the Hardscrabble riot
of 1824, and again at Olney's Lane and Snow Town in 1831, white rioters
tore down several houses in black settlements. A handful of the Hardscrabble
rioters were prosecuted, and either were acquitted or got off lightly. Leading
citizens congratulated them openly. Similar riots in 1831, however, ended
with the militia killing four whites. Afterwards, nearly all written opinion
approved of suppressing the rioters to maintain order, and Providence voters
swiftly approved a charter for a city government with strong police powers.
This article tells the story of the riots. It tries to convey a little of
what Providence, its newspapers, its newspapermen, and its ruling class
as a whole were like. It also looks at the way Americans learned to use
the language of community and democracy in such a way as to justify using
government to control, supervise and disenfranchise people of other classes
and races.
Of all the records which remain for posterity, newspapers were among the
most public, representative means by which the community expressed itself.
With a few entertaining exceptions, Providence's newspapers took pains to
put their opinions in terms which would echo the perceived sentiments of
the "respectable" townspeople. In editorials they jockeyed to
define the terms of debate, and to proclaim a reasonable prevailing consensus
on every issue.
Ordinarily, in a town of Providence's size, spreading local news among the
citizenry was not an important function of newspapers. They mostly provided
advertisements, mercantile information, and news from other towns and other
continents, and served as an occasional forum for opinion or literary musings.
They also provided condensed, factual local news for papers in other towns
to reprint. However, when faced with controversial and confusing local events
(especially the 1831 riots), newspapers sought to provide readers with a
definitive account.
Then as now, journalists sometimes indicated their opinions through the
language of their factual reporting. They authoritatively provided loaded
words with which to discuss events. It is also useful to examine which issues
and facts they ignored.
Providence in the 1820s was a fast-growing port town, drawing on its hinterland's
farms and manufactures to overshadow Newport, once Rhode Island's metropolis.
Providence had about 11,750 people in 1820, possibly 15,000 in 1825, and
nearly 17,000 in 1830. Of these about 1,000 were freemen who met the property
qualification to vote in Town Meetings. This article is principally about
what these people read and wrote about their black neighbors, white rioters,
and themselves.
This group of about a thousand households was not strictly an economic class.
On the basis of long residence, personal identification with the town and
state, property, education, or reputation, its members ascribed to each
other a natural right to manage the town's affairs. Though intimate, it
was not a closed society. It welcomed self-made merchants, professionals,
craftsmen, shopkeepers and journalists, and even immigrants from distant
states who had developed a stake in the community.
At the nether end of Providence's social spectrum were about a thousand
blacks, rising from 980 in 1820 to between 1200 and 1400 in 1830 (estimates
differ). Many families had lived in Providence for generations, while others
were recent arrivals from South County. A bare majority lived with employers.
The rest were scattered, but were drawn to neighborhoods at the north end
of town, where land and rent were cheap. A proud few owned their homes.
All but four blacks were free. Their occupations were menial, often servile.
Most were female, and were often domestic servants or laundresses. A few
men were barbers or pursued other trades, but most were confined to cooking,
cleaning, carrying things, or caring for animals. Many had no steady employment
at all, but took what work they could get each day. But a good number were
sailors, often on "coasters" with small crews that were often
in port.
Some blacks gained a bit of independence, stature, and profit by renting
a room and operating a low-budget bakery, tavern or dance-hall for a transient,
racially and sexually mixed clientele. As the Rhode Island American and
Gazette complained, a black with very little capital could hire one room
for a week for $1. 50, and with enough money left over to buy fish and rum
could provide a stately pleasure dome for weary sailors. These establishments
were common in the Northeast's greater ports, and often earned the name
of "bawdyhouses" because of the business which was transacted,
though not consummated, on their premises. Bawdy-house riots, in which the
clientele of a bar or brothel gathered a crowd and knocked the house down
to protest some offense, had been a tradition in other ports on both sides
of the Atlantic throughout the previous century.
Two days before the "Hardscrabble" riots, the Providence Beacon
editorialized on "Our Black Population." The Beacon, published
almost single-handedly by William Spear, was described simply as "a
fearless paper" by one of the rioters' lawyers, Chief Justice William
Staples, in his Annals of Providence. It advocated universal suffrage and
vowed to unmask "vice, immorality and hypocrisy" indiscriminately.
Spear was sickly, prickly, righteously wrathful, and chronically short of
funds. Attorney General Duttee Pearce called him "a person of evil,
wicked, and malicious mind and disposition." He was the object of libel
suits, as well as more direct threats, from members of some of the town's
most prominent families. He believed that "the law of libel [is] a
libel on law." He called Brown University students "nauseating,"
"miserable," and "infinitely below mediocrity." Spear
often printed anonymous poems and sketches, which were thought to be thinly-veiled
accusations of prominent townspeople. He professed to have no knowledge
of the authors or their subjects.
Spear lamented that blacks were "naturally vicious and wicked,"
"profligate" and "worthless." He elaborated that groups
of blacks had taken to forcing whites off the sidewalks, and the previous
weekend they had defeated a white crowd for possession of the Smith Street
bridge, since nature had given them disproportionate "physical strength."
A stone had wounded "a respectable lady" on the breast. Spear
warned that Providence after dark was now "absolutely dangerous for
females."
In contrast, the contemporary black autobiographer William Brown later recalled
only that gangs of whites consistently forced blacks off the sidewalk, and
that blacks in general felt constrained to act timidly. If we believe Spear
at all, however, it would seem that each race had a few defiant champions,
equally determined to defend their own notions of etiquette.
Spear's Beacon went on to explain that since Providence was so tolerant
of blacks, transients had begun to feel too much at home there. While their
"extermination" was not yet necessary, he pleaded, some authority
should "rid the town of its superabundant share" of them. Spear
appealed to New England's traditional view of the poor: that each town was
responsible for those born, or previously prosperous, within its borders.
Providence felt burdened with more than its share.
Two days later, on the evening of October 18, 1824, a white mob marched
north to Hardscrabble and destroyed eleven houses. Most were speakeasies,
but all accounts agree that a few were the homes of "respectable"
black craftsmen and their families. By some accounts, including the Beacon's,
the mob comprised 400 to 500 rioters and up to 1,000 spectators, but others
estimated only 50 or 60 rioters and 100 onlookers.
The next Beacon published a short account of the violence, followed by a
romantic lamentation for the poor, innocent, hard-working black victims,
after which Spear chastised their impudence, "idleness and vice"
and proposed draconian controls on them. This article, entitled "RIOT
AND REBELLION," announced that Providence, known "for the purity
of its morals and its domestic felicity and repose," had been "disharmonized"
by the indiscriminate "atrocities" of an "abandoned and profligate
mob."
Hardscrabble, wrote Spear, was a "hamlet" of "smiling aspect"
where blacks had moved "to avoid all intercourse" with "hostile"
whites. When attacked, the "unoffending and unsuspecting inhabitants"
"were engaged in convivial sports and rural games." Their "innocent
festivity" may have involved rum, for he reported that some provident
housekeepers had enough of it on hand to buy off the mob and preserve their
houses. In the mob's wake Spear found devoted mothers, an "honest sailor"
and "an aged son of Africa," mourning "with downcast countenance"
their "humble cottages," the fruits of "honest toil,"
and gasping, "'Hope forsaken!'"
It is hard to tell with a loose cannon like Spear: the silliness about "convivial
sports and rural games" is in jest, but it seems as much a parody of
a style of writing as of the blacks themselves. The part about blacks' moving
to Hardscrabble "to avoid all intercourse with hostile whites"
can hardly have been meant as sarcasm, and the relative positions of pitying
and fearful references to blacks seem to indicate sincere, if frenzied and
confused, sentiments.
Spear predicted that blacks would seek vengeance. He protested that they
were innocent as lambs, except that they were a bit "impudent, and
often offer insults to whites." He said blacks "cannot bear the
luxuries of freedom," and were temperamentally incompatible with whites.
Therefore "let their liberties be abridged." He proposed putting
"every Negro under the immediate control of the Orphan's Court,"
and apprenticing them all to "respectable Mechanics." Some would
be "susceptible of improvement," and for others "it would
be the means of driving them from our region." This "benevolence"
would benefit both whites and blacks, while the only alternative was a cycle
of riot culminating in a "war of extermination."
The next week, Spear's sympathies were more firmly with the "injured"
blacks. He pointed out that many were the children of "noble"
Revolutionary veterans, but were now "miserable wretches," though
not nearly so miserable as in Haiti - which set him off luridly sketching
the horrors of slavery there over most of the page. He then graphically
described the results of the Haitians' "just fury," hinting that
the same could happen in the United States.
The Beacon received several letters about the riot, but declared their language
too unseemly for print. In fact, they were "committed to the flames
a few moments after they were perused." When one writer threatened
to boycott the paper if his letters were not printed, Spear replied on the
front page, "Shocking! Alarming! O La! Cease to rant silly, idle little
boy."
Other newspapers were too preoccupied with the presidential elections and
the recent visits of Lafayette, a dwarf and a mummy to give much attention
to the riot. The Jeffersonian Providence Patriot, the proto-Whig Manufacturer's
and Farmer's Journal and the old Federalist Providence Gazette were consumed
with a newspaper war among themselves, but the riot provided them no ammunition
for further disagreement. The Patriot ran a half-inch notice of the "affray,"
and after a few days reprinted the Gazette's editorial obliquely deploring
"the increase of our colored population." It noted that the Town
Council had ordered a census of blacks for the purpose of expelling the
"idle, dissolute" ones. After reviling the capacities of the race,
it allowed that most long-settled blacks were "sober, industrious and
respectable citizens."
Ten rioters were prosecuted for several serious offenses. Their defense,
led by the prominent Joseph Tillinghast, argued that they had improved "the
morals of the community" by removing a "pig-stye" of lewdness,
disorder, drunkenness and unseemly dancing. Nearly all were acquitted, and
the only convictions were on lesser charges.
Between 1824 and 1831 community leaders felt a progressive loss of influence
over the lower classes. The black and white populations grew, and a majority
of blacks lived outside of white households. Many were moving to Olney's
Lane (now Olney Street) and to Snow Town, in a hollow up against Smith Hill,
southwest of Hardscrabble. Laboring whites patronized the blacks' dance-halls
and taverns, but certain blacks evinced a proprietary interest in their
neighborhood that could appear threatening. Interracial scuffles were not
uncommon.
Gentlemen periodically called for efficient, full-time law enforcement and
supervision of the unemployed. An asylum was established and sheltered an
assortment of indigents, physical and mental invalids of three races. In
1830 a majority of voters approved a charter for a city government, but
the legislature rejected it since less than 60 percent had voted for it.
Efforts to broaden suffrage, successful elsewhere, also failed in those
years.
One expression of genteel concern was the formation of a Society for the
Encouragement of Faithful Domestic Servants in the winter of 1830-31. One
hundred men of the town's most eminent families joined in its first year.
It was intended to be an employment agency, to certify and reward good servants.
Under its auspices ladies were supposed to train prospective servants in
housekeeping and more abstract virtues, but the officers reported some difficulty
interesting "the ladies" in this work. One of their foremost concerns
was that black servants were decreasingly bound to yearly contracts, but
increasingly contracted odd jobs by the day, and lived on their own. They
aimed to reverse this trend. They counted five hundred who had yearly contracts,
out of a black population of 1200. (This, incidentally, demonstrated that
their concern was with black people, though they never said so explicitly.)
In the intervening years Providence's newspapers merged, expanded, and developed
specialized editions. All generally had small advertisements on the outside
(first and fourth) pages, and literary musings, international news, and
presidential politics on the second. Local and national news spilled from
the second onto the third page, where shipping news and advertisements resumed.
The Rhode Island American absorbed the old Gazette, the Daily Advertiser,
and the Microcosm, and published the same news and commentary under variously
combined titles for different markets. Anti-Masonic activist Benjamin F.
Hallett was the editor. Originally from Cape Cod, he had come to Providence
as a Brown University student, and stayed. He was thought pedantic, awkward,
and a bit of a self-promoting humbug, but tolerably amusing. (The Journal
called him "slimy.") He promoted Henry Clay and his "American
System" of industrialization and development. During the riots of 1831
Hallett was in Baltimore sending home lengthy manifestoes from the Anti-Masonic
convention, so local events were handled by an unnamed "friend."
The Providence Patriot and Columbia Phenix was the only paper to survive
unchanged from 1824 to 1831. Editor Josiah Jones had founded it when very
young to defend President Jefferson and his party from the Federalist Gazette,
and was still as Democratic as ever. His assistant, William Simons, was
a Bostonian educated in the newspaper business. He had worked for papers
in Boston and Newport, but had decided to let his fortunes rise with those
of Providence.
There were many excellent reasons for the Beacon to meet its demise late
in 1826. I could not tell exactly what became of Spear or his paper. None
of its rivals commented on the Beacon's passing, and Spear was not listed
in the next city directory. The hole the Beacon left was more than filled
by the Literary Subaltern. This weekly was independent, neither Masonic
nor anti-Masonic, but partial to Henry Clay. It was irrepressibly irreverent,
but upheld serious principles. Its jovial, self-conscious editor, Sylvester
Southworth, had been trained as a blacksmith in Dighton, but described himself
thereafter as "ten years a rover," affecting a Byronic image.
He had come to roost in Providence, taking to family life with the zeal
of a recent convert. His columns were deluged with literary contributions
from ladies whom he, at least, described as young.
Southworth claimed to speak for "middling republicans," the "grocer
and workingman," against the inbred local "Bourbons" who
dominated the Town Council. He satirized creaky, outmoded, authoritarian
old Puritans who anathematized ladies' gaiters and square-toes shoes, and
he confronted more serious issues in the same spirit. He appealed for a
broader suffrage, and assailed the new Dexter Asylum as a degrading "Alms
house" where "honest but unfortunate worth, disease and crime"
were jumbled "like a heap of lumber." This "coldblooded policy"
allowed the town fathers to eliminate all outdoor poor relief.
The Manufacturer's and Farmer's Journal became part of the Providence Daily
Journal family of papers, along with the Country Journal and Independent
Inquirer. Published at varying intervals for various regions and occupational
groups, they had the same editorial content and were edited by Thomas Rivers,
a popular lawyer. Rivers, about 35, was a South Carolina native who had
come north to attend Brown University, and never left. The Journal's motto
was "Encourage National Industry," and it praised John Quincy
Adams and Henry Clay unceasingly.
September of 1831 seemed a perilous time to faithful readers of the Providence
Journal. South America was in tragicomic chaos, Turkey was torn by civil
war, China was plagued with piracy and rebellion, and the King of Belgium-on
whom "civilization in Europe hinges"-had disappeared during a
Dutch invasion. America itself was plagued by "cholera morbus,"
rabies, and the presidency of Andrew Jackson, a despotic, dueling, drooling,
drunken demagogue. The Journal posed as a lonesome voice of cool-headed
moderation, rallying respectable, reasonable men amid an epoch of mindless
revolution.
On Wednesday, September 21, 1831, the Journal reprinted reports of a massive
slave revolt in North Carolina. It appeared that the slaves had taken over
Wilmington and burned it down, and a white army was gathering at Raleigh.
At the very end of the column, the editor opined that the reports were probably
exaggerated, perhaps wholly false.
That evening riots began in Olney's Lane. White sailors who had some dispute
with blacks who lived there gathered a crowd which headed up the lane to
confront them. As the Journal would later put it, "stones were thrown."
A black man stepped out of a house with a gun and warned them away, then
shot and killed a sailor. The crowd retreated to the foot of the hill, except
for five sailors. Someone shot and wounded three of them, and the mob again
advanced and began systematically knocking down houses. They destroyed two
that night, and damaged several others.
The next day's Journal ran a very small item at the end of the news columns,
reporting a fatal "affray." Amidst the confusion of a "large
mob," the "particulars" of this "melancholy termination"
could not be ascertained.
The Journal's major news of the day was the "Insurrection in North
Carolina". Again, no particulars could be ascertained, but it was "pretty
certain" that a slave insurrection was going on. There was no confirmation
of the burning of Wilmington, but it was estimated that conspirators had
slain half the town. Bands of slaves were reportedly sweeping across two
counties, burning and killing. The Journal reprinted a letter praising citizens
who took "vigorous measures" against "offenders." The
letter concluded, "I foresee that this land must become a field of
blood."
I am not aware of sufficient evidence to suggest a cause and effect relationship
between the Southern revolts and the Providence riots. Having found no published
comments originating in Providence, I can only speculate on the revolts'
effects. On the other hand, were I certain that they had no influence on
the riots, I would not have describe them here at such length. I think that
such rumors were a significant contribution to the general climate of democratic
revolt and lawlessness to which substantial, respectable New Englanders
were so sensitive throughout Jackson's presidency. Further, it is likely
that unsettling news from the South and from other continents convinced
community leaders to be increasingly vigilant and show a firm hand, so as
to forestall greater bloodshed in the future.
Any link between the news from the South and the rioters themselves is probably
quite vague. Their timing was dictated by the killing on Olney Street, not
by outside considerations. The rioters' methods did not correspond in any
way with the reported slave atrocities, but simply imitated the 1824 riot
on a grander scale. Nonetheless, news of the Southern revolts must have
pervaded the town, in print and by word of mouth, and added to the sense
of excitement.
The American gave a fuller account of the local "RIOT AND MURDER,"
blaming the sailors for starting it. But it placed ultimate blame on "the
owners of these sinks of iniquity, [who rent] them to these wretches"
on cheap, flexible terms. While it said the constables were doing a good
job of quelling "the riots which frequently happen in this vicinity,"
the American demanded a program "to stop them altogether."
That day the American published a letter, apparently from one of the rioters,
saying that the "Negroes armed themselves and fired upon four sailors,"
and that the crowd had destroyed only the houses of the "foul-blooded"
murderers. However, as the neighborhood was "worse than the celebrated
Five Points District in New York, our populace are determined to level"
the remaining houses.
This was the only published communication from the rioters, and so may not
represent the full range of their concerns. For what it is worth, though,
it must be acknowledged that the writer did not base his argument on race,
and was careful to relate each punishment inflicted by the rioters to a
specific offense. He specified that only those who actually shot the sailors
were held accountable for that crime. (If other rioters were equally particular
about not punishing blacks for the crimes of their friends and neighbors,
then they could hardly have considered punishing them for slave rebellions
at the other end of the country.)
The anonymous writer's main argument, justifying the other demolitions,
was the one that was so successful in 1824: that the neighborhood was an
evil influence that could be remedied only by urban renewal on a scale not
attempted since King Philip's War.
That evening, the 22nd, a mob of 700 or 800 dismantled six more houses in
Olney's Lane. The sheriff, constables and Town Council watched uneasily
for a few hours, now and then ordering the rioters to desist. Late at night
Governor James Fenner called out a militia company, of whom 25 arrived.
Pausing only to free rioters whom the authorities arrested, the mob finished
off Olney's Lane and proceeded to Snow Town, near what is now the University
of Rhode Island's Providence campus (as best I can tell). After leveling
two houses there, they retired around 4 a. m. The militia succeeded in jailing
seven rioters.
The next day's Journal ran a two-inch article on "RIOT" at the
end of the news columns, noting that a mob of hundreds had "defeated
civil and military authority." An article headed "NEGRO CONSPIRACY"
revealed that there was "no overt rebellion" in North Carolina,
but that most of the slaves in two counties had been plotting one. In other
news, South America was "rent with broils and deluged with blood."
A reprint from New Haven reported that the blacks there had "imbibed
the notion that they were oppressed," notwithstanding many benevolent
efforts to educate them. As in Providence, they had an inordinate concern
with "dignity," and were demanding an "equal standing in
society." Specifically, they had bought land and founded a black college.
A city meeting there resolved unanimously that such a college would support
abolition, so that to tolerate it was to violate other states' rights. Furthermore,
it would ruin Yale and the city's other schools. The citizens vowed to resist
it "by every lawful means."
The same day's Literary Subaltern showed more concern with the situation
in North Carolina. It revealed that "infatuated" Negroes had left
a trail of "bloody and horrible" vengeance across North Carolina
and Virginia, slaughtering women, burning infants and leaving them for "the
vulture and the hyena." This "massacre," second only to the
"atrocities of St. Domingo," was intentionally incited by "seditious"
and demonic abolitionists, including David Walker and William Lloyd Garrison.
We "detest" slavery, Southworth added. But it was a "Gordian
Knot" which must be undone with glacial slowness, by means as yet unknown.
Any sudden actions would unleash the blacks' thirst for vengeance. Southworth
kept returning to that note, concluding that the "ghosts" of Wilmington's
mothers and infants "cry for revenge."
Southworth also devoted more thought to the recent scenes of "RIOT
AND REBELLION" in Providence. While faintly advising otherwise, he
predicted "ten thousand fold retribution" against the black "fiends"
of Olney's Lane who had "wantonly murdered" a temperate, continent
sailor. The crowd was composed of "good men" who were "justly
indignant" at the murder, and who turned their indignation to constructive
ends. Thanks to them, "an indignant public has been awakened"
to the crimes of the landlords who countenanced the infamous "bloody
brothels" of Olney's Lane. Southworth admitted that he had collected
few facts, but promised to provide them next week.
That day, Friday the 23rd, the jailed rioters were released. However, some
of the mob were determined to storm the jail and rescue them nonetheless.
130 militiamen from six companies were on hand. With some difficulty, town
officials finally convinced the mob's belligerent spokesmen that the jail
was empty, and everyone dispersed for the day.
The next day's American was pleased to note that "precautions"
against new riots had "proved effectual." It enjoined "every
orderly citizen" to "lend his influence" to prevent further
disorder. It reprinted a lurid account of "THE BURNING OF WILMINGTON,"
-- "without attaching the least credit to it."
The Journal of the 24th published a short, factual account of the riots
at the head of the news column. Though the fallen houses all sheltered "the
same class of people," it warned that "every substantial citizen"
would quash any "attack on person or property." It admonished
the curious to stay in their homes so as not to impede the authorities.
Citizens had a "duty" not to watch riots, and would be "in
the way of being arrested" if they attended. It also reprinted an uncompromising
defense of the New Haven Negro college.
The Providence Patriot and Columbia Phenix published a relatively calm account
of the "RIOT," beginning with the "murder" attributed
to "some Negro inhabitant." It simply revealed that "a riot
took place," in the impersonal, passive and intransitive style which
was then fashionable. It ominously concluded, "Fears are entertained
that this will end in something more serious than it begun."
It did. Saturday night nearly a thousand white rioters and an equal number
of spectators marched across the Smith Street bridge and over Smith Hill
to finish off Snow Town. As the militia of 130, including some cavalry and
artillery, countermarched from the bridge to the hill and back, the crowd
encompassed them, swallowed them up, and all but disintegrated their ranks.
At one point a man grabbed a militiaman's gun and they both tumbled off
a 20-foot bank, where they continued to struggle. Several militiamen and
dozens of rioters scrambled down to aid them, and the militia barely fought
their way out. The rioters threw every stone they could find, and wounded
some militiamen.
The sheriff read the riot act, which authorized him to start shooting those
who heard it and did not disperse. As before, the crowd responded with various
insults, including "Fire and be damned." Firing into the air only
attracted greater abuse. Half the crowd began destroying a house, and the
rest tormented the militia as they tried to form a line from the bridge
up the hill. When the militia pleaded that they were about to disintegrate,
the governor, sheriff and officers announced that they would fire if the
mob would not disperse. Greeted only with defiance, Governor Fenner ordered
the militia to fire. They fired one volley, killing four young white men:
a sailor, a bookbinder, a paper-hanger and an apprentice. At once the crowd
grew silent and dispersed.
There were no Sunday newspapers, but a special Town Meeting that day attracted
3000 people (most of whom had no right to vote in it). Monday's papers devoted
much more space to the riots than before. The American emphasized the overriding
issue of respect for the law and constitutional authority. Everyone's "interests
and property" were "sacred," even those of "suspicious
reputation." The bottom line was that every citizen's duty was to enforce
"the Majesty of the Law," which had given Providence the sublime
"public tranquillity" for which it usually was renowned.
The Journal boundlessly expanded this concept of the law. On that principle
it condemned both the rioters and their victims, and heaped praise on the
militia. While giving a factual account, it put everything in abstract terms
of lawfulness and lawlessness (rather the same way in which it defined its
opposition to Jackson and his party).
The Journal recounted how and why the riots began, emphasizing the agency
of unnamed mob "leaders." As the Journal saw it, when the mob's
noise reached the discerning ears of "respectable citizens," it
led them to reflect on "the consequences of living in a land in which
lawless riots continue unchecked." Sensing their duty, they "assembled"
as a militia, "standing forth openly to defend the laws of the land."
Their civic responsibility "devolved upon [the] supreme executive officer,"
who discharged it prudently.
The Journal stressed formal details, which indeed appear to have been crucial.
The officials and militiamen fired with great reluctance, only when the
crowd seemed ready to disarm them (thereby arming itself). The rioters were
repeatedly warned, though they apparently did not believe the warnings.
They had even made a formal challenge, shouting, "Fire if you dare!"
The Journal took grim satisfaction in having "taught a rebellious portion
of our community that they owed an allegiance to the laws."
The Journal printed some of the most edifying remarks from the Town Meeting.
A judge had declared the Riot Act "a wholesome law" protecting
sacred rights of "property." He said the mob had "no excuse,"
because "they were amenable to the laws" for "redress."
They should have looked to the law to punish the murderer and to suppress
houses "of ill fame." John Whipple told the meeting that the mob
must have been "stimulated" by gentlemen "who dared not bear
the disgrace of acting openly."
In reply to such insinuations, Thomas Sekell and Ezekiell Burr placed brief
notices in the Journal denying rumors that they had secretly armed the mob.
Burr owned one of the houses the mob destroyed, and there is no record of
rioters being armed with anything ordinarily used as a weapon. This raises
questions about why anyone made such unlikely charges, and why Burr, especially,
took them so seriously.
By the 27th the Journal's attention was waning. It published a tiny, platitudinous
editorial on the riots, and went on to denounce the "bluster"
of Hallett's "anti-masonic Sanhedrin" at Baltimore and the "DISGRACEFUL
CONDUCT OF THE BELGIANS." In the conflict between the Netherlands and
Belgium, on which "civilization in Europe hinges," fifty Belgians
and no Dutchmen had perished.
That day Newport's Democratic Rhode Island Republican praised Governor Fenner's
decision to fire on the mob, noting that it differed with him only on mere
politics. It explained that liberty, law and authority were "intimately
blended," as inseparable as the Trinity. It published extracts from
Rhode Island's superannuated charter, which authorized the governor "to
kill, slay and destroy, by all fitting ways," any who "enterprize
the destruction, invasion, detriment or annoyance" of Rhode Islanders.
The American's story on "Another Riot" was either a bit schizophrenic
or extraordinarily subtle. It lamented that "this neat and beautiful
village has become one mass of ruin," and its "virtuous and orderly
citizens deprived of their dwelling." Then, referring to Olney's Lane
as "celebrated" (meaning infamous), it swung into a denunciation
of the black race. Providence's blacks had recently been "unusually
bold" and "repeatedly defied civil authority." It returned
to the theme of ultimately blaming landlords who "countenance their
dissolute habits" by renting single rooms weekly. It urged owners to
"consult the morals and peace of the community" when making economic
decisions. It saw no rightful way to punish the landlords, but neither did
it consider the issue of compensating the owners of houses destroyed in
the riots.
The Anti-Masonic American also entertained the conspiratorial theories which
had been elaborated in the Town Meeting and elsewhere. It alluded to "accomplished"
ringleaders, presumably veteran leaders of previous mobs, and "prominent"
rioters whom it was unnecessary to name.
On the 28th, the Democratic Patriot sadly approved of the militia's action.
They "have slain their best lover for the good of Rome," it sighed.
However, it was thankful for the destruction of Olney's Lane, which was
an "annoyance" to "the most respectable part" of its
immediate neighbors. Like other commentators, the Patriot was usually careful
to distinguish these respectable blacks from the operators and patrons of
the saloons.
When the weekly Subaltern appeared again, Southworth sheepishly admitted
that he had been in Boston Saturday night, and missed the fireworks. He
graciously referred his readers to the other papers. He simply appealed
for "all good men to unite to restore public tranquility," and
proceeded to other matters. He had been thoroughly scooped.
On the 29th, most papers printed the report of an investigating committee
of notables appointed at Sunday's Town meeting. The Journal gushed,
"In this community, there is no doubt
one expression is heard throughout--
decided approbation"
for the committee, the militia, and all responsible public officials.
The committee's report brought many facts together coherently, but cautioned
that it had only heard the sailors' side, and not the blacks'. This was
nearly the only printed acknowledgment that the rioters and the blacks had
sides of the story that were worth hearing. It described the riots' setting
as a Babylon of "indiscriminate mixtures of whites" and "idle
blacks of the lowest stamp," whose "midnight revels" and
"bloody affrays" disturbed the sleep of the "respectable"
every night. The blacks, however, were victims of their environment, steeped
in "bad habits" through "a want of education and example."
The "moral guilt" of their tolerant landlords was far worse.
In such circumstances, the committee granted, the approval of nearly 1,000
"satisfied and passive spectators" was understandable. Nonetheless,
it bemoaned the vocal "approbation" of certain "respectable"
onlookers. The report conveyed an impression of the sheer pressure of the
enormous crowd, which had physically forced the militia to the point of
disintegration. If the militia had broken ranks, it argued, the mob could
easily have overpowered individuals, taken their guns, and killed people.
So "they were obliged to fire." The committee did not question
the imperative of calling out the militia to uphold the law and protect
the blacks' property and lives.
The report, without comment, included a list of the owners of destroyed
houses, and of the dead and wounded. One landlord who lost a house was William
Staples, one of the lawyers for the 1824 rioters, and later Rhode Island's
Chief Justice. Nicholas Brown owned another of the houses. The houses' residents
were not listed, for the committee did not think that "any houses occupied
by respectable persons have been injured."
The committee concluded with an indictment of "the defects of our police."
If not a "City Government," Providence needed a single, accountable,
full-time "executive magistrate" who could drop in on "suspicious"
houses unexpectedly, "visit" each neighborhood each day and become
acquainted with everyone who belonged in town, and everyone who did not.
He would know everybody's business, and be the eyes of the Town Council.
This was an attempt to re-create the small traditional community in which
everyone knew everyone else.
As intended, the report rekindled the debate over a city charter. The Journal
attempted to set the tone of debate, saying the "recent melancholy
occurrences" would never have happened in a real city. It cited no
evidence, but declared that among "the supporters of the law, there
is but one opinion." The American concurred, "it is the general
opinion" that a charter "is necessary."
A letter to the American from a former charter opponent admitted that the
town was powerless to protect "comfort, order and security." "We
want a head man. I hope some of our principal and substantial citizens will
make a move."
This was exactly what some principal and substantial citizens were waiting
to hear. A series of Town Meetings quickly prepared and approved a city
charter, with councilmen elected by ward and a mayor who could jail anyone
for 24 hours, search houses and dissolve riots. At the beginning of the
process, the Journal boasted that "the greatest unanimity prevailed."
Opposition soon arose, however. A letter to the American blamed the charter-fever
on the recent excitements, caused by "a negro mob, composed of the
scums of other towns." The writer supported the committee's proposal
for a powerful "high constable." Though the problem of law enforcement
had outgrown the old system, he noted that other concerns of government
had not, and the Town Council seldom had anything to do at their meetings.
Sylvester Southworth jumped back into the fray on the 14th. He predicted
a "prodigious" scramble for "ostentatious and expensive"
offices, so that "we shall smell amazingly like a city." He reported
a theater riot in New York, which was not prevented by that city's charter.
A charter could not "work wonders," though people seemed to think
it would "remoddle the whole town, and give each man a new coat and
trousers." Encountering little success, he waxed extreme, declaring
that the charter gave the mayor more "despotic and dangerous powers"
than Napoleon ever had.
Southworth began to speak for the rioters' interests, at least as he saw
them. He called the committee's report "a good move" which pretended
to explain "how scientifically six of our townsmen were killed in the
public street, without the shadow of law." Bitterly, he noted how "with
the utmost feeling" the Town Meeting pronounced its condolences to
the widows and orphans of "the massacred citizens."
A letter to the Journal wagered that Rhode Islanders were "not yet
so profligate that they should be bound hand and foot to preserve order."
A city form of government was a "useless machine foreign to our habits,"
and the aldermen would surely perpetuate themselves "like bank directors."
Notice the derogatory use of the word "machine," and Southworth's
similar use above of the word "scientifically."
The Journal acknowledged its surprise that there were genuinely "sensible
men" opposing the charter. It responded with several new arguments.
For one thing, the mayor would have no new powers, but would merely combine
those of constables, sheriffs, and justices of the peace. In a homogeneous
"community like ours there is no danger of an abuse" of power.
Furthermore, the town was becoming newly heterogeneous. The Journal dubbed
Providence "the grand thoroughfare between two large cities,"
which gathers "the scum and froth of their population." A "necessarily
heterogeneous" city needed more "vigor" in its government.
A city government, the Journal claimed, would quickly save the town money
by expelling idlers who "do not belong to us," or making them
work in a workhouse. The local "superabundant population" were
non-producers. They "live on the town" through "charity"
or "pilfering," which were both equally evil from an economic
point of view, equally burdensome to "the industrious part of the community."
"It would be economy" to build a workhouse where they would be
"compelled to labor for their own support."
A large majority of voters, and the legislature, soon approved the charter.
The sad end of the riots had triggered the change. When Mayor Samuel Brigham
took office the next year, he declared that the new city was simply "too
heterogeneous" for its old form of government.
Modern accounts of the riots are usually set in the context of rediscovering
the history of Providence's black community. This context sees the blacks
exclusively as victims of white violence, which they were, and focuses on
the losses of the presumably non-violent "respectable" blacks
who left most written records. Contemporary journalists, however, were prone
to notice more "impudent" blacks. The relatively casual newspaper
accounts from the 1820s up through the first two days of the 1831 riots
embody a view of group violence as a continuing give-and-take between various
groupings of the laboring classes. It had gone on for centuries, especially
in cities, and indeed bore some resemblance to more recent events, whether
mundane or newsworthy.
If there is anything to be said in defense of the rioters, it is that they
did not completely take the law into their own hands. They made no attempt
on the lives of those who shot the sailors, and in fact said little about
bringing them to justice, but seemed exclusively interested in tearing down
houses.
Violence was seen as increasing as Providence grew and more lower-class
whites and blacks lived outside of their employers' households. The dominant
community's perception of the violence, as expressed in newspapers, seems
to have been changing more radically than the violence itself.
The reasons for this change were various. Journalists and other community
leaders had specific, concrete urban blights in mind. Writers referred to
drunken, violent and disorderly scenes that they had personally witnessed.
They wanted specific people run out of town, even if they no longer knew
them personally.
The element of impersonality was slowly growing in Providence. Especially
as the town became a major port, people no longer knew everyone else. Newspapers
hardly ever provided the names of the lower-class whites and blacks who
intruded into their columns, unless they wound up in court. However, members
of the enfranchised "respectable" community still recognized one
another individually, as did members of more obscure communities.
Ideas of what constituted a serious problem were changing. Authorities hesitantly
decided to call out the militia to stop house-wreckers in 1831, though such
rioters had been acquitted and congratulated in 1824. Outdoor relief, provided
to poor householders with few strings attached, was replaced with an asylum.
Finally, a growing majority of voters decided to give up their traditional
form of government for one that would efficiently expel the idle and disorderly
and prevent riots.
Newspapermen also used urban problems as vehicles for the ideas that were
foremost in their minds. William Spear, thinking in terms of traditional
New England practices, advocated placing all blacks, of all ages, in apprenticeships.
Apprenticeship was not dead yet, but there was more than a touch of nostalgia
in his system. Sylvester Southworth, likewise, called for a return to outdoor
relief, which had been thought satisfactory in his childhood. Most others
saw the problem of the poor as how to expel people more energetically, and
keep them out, in the New England municipal tradition.
Newer concerns were equally prominent, though. Papers opposed to Jackson,
especially the Journal, harped on an absolute veneration for the law which
recalled the fealty of a medieval knight to his liege. Anti-Masons envisioned
rich and powerful men who secretly raised mobs to serve the hidden designs
of secret societies. Jackson was portrayed as a Masonic demagogue who disregarded
the law when it did not suit him. A very few, like Southworth, championed
the figure of the honest white workingman, energetically defending his home
from abolitionists and other murderers. Each of these treatments of the
riots dealt with symbols, ideologies, and classes, but not with individuals.
Nearly everyone insisted on upholding the law, but nobody spoke of defending
the blacks - except when they quoted the black man who killed the sailor
as shouting, "Is this the way the blacks are to live, to be obliged
to defend themselves from stones?" Only once was there any mention
of what the rest of the blacks did during the riots (those who could not
appease the mob with rum escaped with their valuables and some furniture).
Though defending the general rights of property, none spoke of compensating
specific property-owners, even though the Town Council took care to pay
the doctor who had treated the wounded. There was no discussion of individual
rioters or militiamen, except for the dead and wounded.
The committee's vindication of the authorities' actions was thorough, factual,
and dispassionate, but entirely focused on the authorities themselves and
their perceptions. None explored the implications of the fact that the rioters,
from past experience, had learned not to take the authorities' warnings
seriously. Constables and militiamen seem to have pleaded sincerely and
earnestly with the mob, but their final warning did not mean the same thing
to the rioters as it did to the committee. It was the authorities who changed
the rules, albeit for the better. The precedent of Hardscrabble was on the
side of the rioters.
Most journalists, as well as the committee, distanced themselves from the
controversy between the blacks and the rioters, so that they could consistently,
convincingly condemn both equally. They saw the 1824 Hardscrabble riot and
other brawls as the messy, inconsequential affairs of a lower class. Once
the riots of 1831 drew their undivided attention, they identified with the
supremacy of the law over all parties.
However, this distant cool-headedness was fragile when confronted with emotional
concerns. One of these, apparently, was the status of black people.
The journalists' opinions of black people were especially complex. Many
followed Spear's tortuous path from empathy to pity to contempt to fear.
It was respectable to see blacks as intrinsically amusing and grotesque,
but it was considered more virtuous to discern that some blacks were "susceptible
of improvement." Blacks affected writers emotionally, so that some
were wholly carried away and said things they did not mean. Writers saw
them sometimes as saints, sometimes as clowns, and sometimes as dark, savage,
bloody avengers.
Dealing with the riots, most journalists transcended their partisan divisions
with a common perspective on class and order. They shared the Journal's
notions of unanimity among all respectable men, which drove most Democrats
and poorer or sinful people out of the picture, even when they were a majority.
Many unacceptable opinions and associations of otherwise respectable men
were explained as corruption: the demagoguery of leading Democrats, the
inhumanity of some slaveowners, and the scheming of Masons put them all
beyond the pale. Within Providence, journalists and community leaders increasingly
ignored the opinions of the rioting classes, and looked only to other reasonable
men for ideas on how to run the city.
Providence's voters realized that their world was increasingly heterogeneous,
and chose to govern it through a homogeneous political community in which
consensus and republican virtue were still possible. They were able to maintain
the continuity of this sense of community while modernizing the agencies
by which it governed the growing city. This led them to more impersonal,
universal conceptions of the workings of government.
There is much still to be found out about the 1831 riots. Available accounts
say little about the thoughts, or even the identities, of the rioters or
their victims. Other, less public, records might tell more about the rioters'
motivations. It would be helpful to know who the militiamen involved were,
or at least whether they represented any particular social class, and what
their relationships with the rioters were. Someone might want to inquire
whether the members of the official committee which investigated the riots
were the same people who were involved in the riots in any way, and whether
there was any basis for the vague charges of conspiracy which circulated
at the time. Certainly some important decisions were made without receiving
scrutiny in the press. Also, several important trends operated, unfortunately
for historians, in communities that were ordinarily were beneath the press's
concern.
To examine newspaper accounts, then, is only to examine the surface of events.
But in this country many important things go on at surface level. In newspapers,
which were then more abundant in the United States than anywhere else in
the world, the public found not only the news, but also the meaning, of
events in which they were not directly involved. Especially in literate,
contentious Providence, newspapers were an arena where actions were justified
or condemned, and the public's ideals, standards, symbols, hopes and fears
were invoked.
Return to: Crouch Articles | Crouch
& Crouch?
FOOTNOTES
1 Edward Field, The State of Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations at the End of the Century: a History. Boston:
Mason Publishing, 1902. p. 82.
2 See "Literary Biographies," Literary Subaltern, January 6, 1829,
p. 1.
3 Census figures from Jay Coughtry and Rhett Jones, Creative
Survival: The Providence Black Community in the 19th Century.
Providence: R. I. Black Heritage Society, ca. 1985, p. 37;
William R. Norris,The Long and Twisted Life of the City of
Providence. Providence: Brown University independent study,
1976, p. 54; William R. Staples, Annals of the Town of
Providence. Providence: 1843, p. 386. On distribution, Julian
Rammelkamp, "The Providence Negro Community 1820-1842,"Rhode
Island History 7:1 (January 1948) pp. 22-23.
4 Coughtry, p. 40-41; William J. Brown, The Life of William J. Brown. Freeport,
N. Y. : Books for Libraries Press, 1971, p. 97.
5 "ANOTHER RIOT," R. I. American & Gazette Sept. 27, 1831,
p. 1. Brown, p. 90.
6 Christine Stansell, City of Women. Chicago: U. Ill. Press, 1986. p. 61.
7 Staples, p. 552; Proceedings of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, March
Term, 1825, in Relation to Two Indictments Brought Against William S. Spear.
Providence: Spear, 1825, p. 19; Beacon, September 25, 1824.
8 "Our Black Population," The Beacon, October 16, 1824, p. 1.
9 Brown, p. 88.
10 "Our Black Population," The Beacon, October 16, 1824, p. 1.
11 Coughtry, p. 60; Beacon, Oct. 23, 1824, p. 1; Howard Chudacoff and Theodore
Hirt, "Social Turmoil and Governmental Reform in Providence, 1820-1832,"
Rhode Island History 31:1 (Winter 1972) p. 22.
12 Beacon, October 23, 1831,
13 ibid.
14ibid.
15 Beacon, October 30, 1824, p. 1.
16 ibid.
17 Providence Gazette, Oct. 23, 1824; Providence Patriot and Columbia Phenix,
Oct. 27, 1824.
18 Robert Cottrol, The Afro-Yankees. Westport: Greenwood Press,
1982. pp. 53-57; Hard-Scrabble Calendar. Providence, 1824. p. 15.
19 Coughtry, p. 60; Brown, p. 95.
20 Chudacoff and Hirt, p. 24; Providence Daily Journal, July 5, 1831, p.
2.
21 First Annual Report, 1832, Providence Society for the Encouragement of
Faithful Domestic Servants. Providence:1832. pp. 12, 13, 6.
22 The Rhode Island American and Gazette, the Daily Advertiser and American,
and the Microcosm and Weekly American, which are all hereafter referred
to as the American.
23 This and the following descriptions of newspapers are drawn from Staples'sAnnals,
pp. 545-559, and Southworth's "Literary Biographies," in the Literary
Subaltern, January 6, 1829, p. 1. Also Manufacturer's and Farmer's Journal,
November 13, 1826, p. 2.
24 ibid.
25 ibid.
26 ibid.
27 ibid.
28 Providence Journal, Sept. 21, 1831, p. 2.
29 Providence Journal, Sept. 29, 1831. p. 2.
30 Providence Journal, Sept. 22, 1831, p. 2. 31ibid.
32 American, Sept. 22, 1831.
33 ibid. The letter was addressed to "The Gazette. " The
American, having absorbed the Gazette in 1825, entitled one
of its editions The Rhode-Island American and Providence Gazette.
34 Providence Journal, Sept. 23, 1831.
35"NEGRO INSURRECTION," Literary Subaltern, Sept. 23, 1831. p.
2.
36 ibid.
37 "RIOT AND REBELLION," Literary Subaltern, Sept. 23, 1831. p.
3.
38 Providence Journal, Sept. 29, 1831. p. 2.
39 American, Sept. 24, 1831.
40 Providence Journal, Sept. 24, 1831.
41 Patriot, Sept. 24, 1831. p. 2. 42Providence Journal, Sept. 29, 1831.
43 ibid.
44 American, Sept. 26, 1831.
45 Providence Journal, Sept. 26, 1831. p. 2.
46 ibid.
47 ibid.
48 ibid.
49 ibid.
50 Providence Journal, Sept. 27, 1831.
51 Republican, September 27, 1831.
52 American, Sept. 27, 1831.
53 ibid.
54 Providence Patriot and Columbia Phenix, Sept. 28, 1831. p. 2.
55 Literary Subaltern, Sept. 30, 1831.
56 Providence Journal, Sept. 29, 1831.
57 ibid. This was published the next month as History of the Providence
Riots from Sept. 21 to Sept. 24, 1831. Providence: Town Council, 1831.
58 ibid.
59 ibid.
60 ibid.
61 ibid.
62 Providence Journal, Sept. 30, 1831. p. 2; American, Oct. 4, 1831, p.
2.
63 American, Oct. 4, 1831. p. 2.
64 Providence Journal, October 6, 1831. p. 2.
65 American, Oct. 7, 1831. p. 2.
66 Literary Subaltern, Oct. 14, 21, & 28, 1831. p. 2. 67Literary Subaltern,
Oct. 14, 1831. p. 3.
68 Providence Journal, Oct. 20, 1831.
69 Providence Journal, Oct. 17, 1831.
70 Providence Journal, Oct. 11, 1831.
71 ibid.
72 Patrick T. Conley and Paul R. Campbell, Providence, a
Pictorial History. Norfolk: Downing, 1982. p. 54.
73 I do not question this portrayal of President Jackson.
74 Chudacoff and Hirt make the same point about the Hardscrabble
trials, p. 23.
75 Providence Journal, Sept. 29, 1831, p. 2; Oct. 6, 1831, p. 2. American,
Sept. 27, 1831. p. 2.
76 Beacon, Oct. 16, 1824. p. 1.
Copyright John Crouch 1991, 1999
- John Crouch
Return to: Crouch Articles | Crouch
& Crouch?