Nancy Lusignan Schultz / Photo Credit: Kim Mimnaugh
Posted on 05/12/2011 2:26:21 PM PDT by NYer
.- Rhode Island lawmakers voted last week to pardon an Irish Catholic man they say was wrongfully executed in 1845. The decision closes an ugly chapter in the long history of discrimination against Catholics in the U.S.
“Anti-Catholicism was certainly one of the first religious prejudices brought to the new world, and it became widespread” in the 19th century, according to Nancy Schultz, Ph.D of Salem State University in Massachusetts.
Schultz was commenting on the May 4 decision by the Rhode Island legislature to pardon John Gordon – a 29 year-old Irish immigrant who was hanged for a murder many say he didn't commit.
Gordon was convicted in 1843 and executed two years later for allegedly killing a wealthy Rhode Island mill owner who had political connections.
Historians now believe that the evidence against Gordon was tainted and indicative of widespread discrimination against Irish Catholics. During trial, witnesses failed to positively identify Gordon and a judge instructed jurors to take “Yankee” witnesses more seriously than Irish ones.
“Catholics had difficulty getting a fair trial in New England during the nineteenth century,” said Schultz in a May 10 interview.
Schultz is an authority in English and American Literature and is author of several books on historical religious discrimination in America.
Her new book, “Mrs. Mattingly's Miracle,” (Yale, $30) traces how the more tolerant Maryland tradition in the nation’s capital of accepting Catholicism during the 1820s began to decline into “full-fledged, New England-style anti-Catholicism.”
She told CNA that from 1830 to 1860 in particular, movements such as the “Protestant Crusade” attempted to stop the spread of Catholicism in the United States.
Schultz pointed to examples of public discrimination against Catholics such as the case involving arsonists who burned down a Massachusetts convent in 1834. The trials, she said, “were an occasion for anti-Catholic mockery.”
When the mob leaders who destroyed the Charlestown convent were acquitted, there was “great rejoicing in the streets of Boston.”
Schultz also noted that Gordon’s hanging in 1845 came just nine years before a gift of a block of marble from Pope Pius IX for the construction of the Washington Monument “was thrown into the Potomac River” by members of the anti-Catholic “Know-Nothing” party.
She explained that “large numbers of Irish fleeing economic turmoil in nineteenth-century Ireland and immigrating to America” helped give rise to the nativist, or “Know-Nothing” party, which rose to national prominence in the mid 19th century.
“The name came from the response of members of this anti-Catholic secret society. When asked about their activities, they would say, 'I know nothing.'”
Schultz said that the Ku Klux Klan and the American Protective Association were 20th century remnants of the Know Nothing Party.
“Today, fear of immigrants and the attempts to legislate restriction of languages other than English have their origins in this history,” she said.
Schultz explained that the roots of anti-Catholicism in the U.S. can be traced back to the Puritans, who came to New England several centuries ago.
The Puritans would burn effigies of the Pope in the streets on Guy Fawke’s Day, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, “when the Catholic Fawkes was arrested for placing explosives under the House of Lords in England,” she said.
In 1775, George Washington ordered the practice to be stopped.
The KKK was a Southern phenomenon that occurred AFTER the Civil War.
I suppose you might draw some parallels between the two, but the one is not father to the other.
Certainly the Spanish Empire had the welcome mat out.
There was also the Portuguese Empire, France, and, of course, England and it's interests. Indonesia certainly had room for aggressive young Europeans.
Mendoza violated the treaties when he ran off the Huguenots and murdered all the women and children. He particularly liked to kill children.
I can't dignify your rant by refuting every point, but here are a few facts: 1) Religious minorities often seek assistance from co-religionists in foreign powers. The English Catholics looked to Spain. That's one reason they were persecuted under Elizabeth in England, because England was fighting for its life against His Catholic Majesty Philip of Spain. 2) There isn't a single religious or ethnic group which has not persecuted, massacred, or enslaved members of another group. To portray the Huguenots as some uniquely evil tribe which caused trouble everywhere they went is absurd. Because of the Protestant stress on self-control, literacy, thrift, and honesty, Huguenots and other Protestants tended to progress economically more than Catholics. The Industrial Revolution was largely the work of Protestants. The original American Republic was largely founded by and populated by British-American Protestants, building on historical developments in Protestant Britain. The expulsion of the educated, progressive Huguenots was a major reason why France was unable to establish a limited Republican govt. 3) The Irish Catholics have concocted a self-pitying hype about alleged persecution in America. Irish immigrants had a hard time, but largely because they were uneducated, unskilled peasants. There was little available for such people in a largely agricultural 19th century American society but brutal, exhausting, unsafe toil. The stories of signs reading "Irish need not apply" have been shown to be mythical.
The article in the OP is obviously written to push the cause of "tolerance" toward illegal Hispanic immigration. If not stopped, that trend will destroy what little is left of limited republican govt. in America.
In the Election of 1856 it was bitterly divided over slavery. It won 23% of the popular vote and carried one state, Maryland, with eight electoral votes. The pro-slavery wing of the American Party remained strong on the local and state levels in a few southern states,
here is a North American review from 1924 that points out the links between the know-nothings and the KKK
Our national history shows phenomena of more o r less identical type appearing at recurrent intervals, and with astonishing regularity. This is especially the case with the present phenomenon known as the Klu Klux Klan. With the possible exception of masks, robes and other like paraphernalia, it is an almost complete replica of the old Know Nothing movement of the 'fifties of the last century. It professes the same objects, and uses nearly the same methods. Pessimistic citizens of the present day, who look upon our country as going fast and straight to destruction, should remember this fact and take courage.
If you want to check history, check the facts for yourself. If you don't, here they are:
So, let's see in conclusion -- Huguenots first start their provocations in 1534, then in 1560 start attacking Catholic Churchs (with no provocation), then start their political support against the conservatives and start a civil war. After 12 years their side loses the civil war and yet they are still allowed to live and practise their faith (note this is the 1500s, not a nice time, yet they get this tolerance) -- but they still play political intrigues. So, one faction starts to attack and massacre the other faction
o, stop the entire "poor persecuted Huguenots" -- they brought it on themselves.
2. hellb: There isn't a single religious or ethnic group which has not persecuted, massacred, or enslaved members of another group -- true again. The Huguenots did that to Catholics in areas of France where they were the majority and repeated doing the same in Prussia, South Africa, the Netherlands, England etc.
3. hellb: To portray the Huguenots as some uniquely evil tribe which caused trouble everywhere they went is absurd. -- I apologize if that is the image conveyed, it is not what I meant, I point out, just as you that they persecuted and were persecuted and to point out the historical reasons for St. Barts which show this to be more
Huguenots had been FLEEING FRANCE since the mid 1500s and would continue to do so right up to the reign of Louis XV ~ who, among other things, was so liberal (for his time) he franchised Jews to the extent they could bear arms (which meant they could now legally defend themselves in court and bear witness against criminals) ~ and SERVE IN THE FRENCH ARMY.
There are Jews among the White Coats who sought to keep out the British invaders in New France in and about 1754. It was a great time of liberation. Louis XVI continued with the reforms and became an American ally in the Revolutionary War. Afterward Louis XVI fell on hard times when his former political allies in France (mostly his cousins) allowed him to be executed.
Most Huguenots ended up going to nearby countries throughout Europe which were dominated by Protestants, or where Protestants were tolerated. As America opened up, they came here in vast numbers.
So, do note — there were historical and socio-political reasons for this revenge attacks since the Huguenots supported one political side — the side that lost. The range of people dead is also between 5,000 to 30,000 — no one knows for sure and even the lower end figure of 5,000 is too high to modern eyes, yes.
Fur Shur more blacks were lynched by the KKK than Catholics by Protestants in America ~ by a factor of 100,000 I am sure!
The Know Nothings were a political party. The KKK sought to deprive blacks of all civil rights ~ and they enforced their ambitions with murder.
Now, let's turn our attention to Mexico ~ as I recall Sam Huston and other American Protestants were FORCED by Mexico to become Catholics in order to be allowed to settle Tejas!
This was way back there in the 1830/40 period.
Now there's a REAL "Know Nothing"/"Catholic" situation ~ but you will find, if you dig deep enough, that the Protestant dominated United States of America backed the Roman Catholic Republic of Texas to the hilt in their efforts to free themselves from the corrupt rule of Santa Anna!
This stuff was current news in those days and it could not help but fire the flames of bigotry and prejudice of the time.
I'd suggest you take up the greater part of the argument set forth by this author with the MEXICAN government ~ ask them for reparations for the FORCED CONVERSIONS!!!!
The Parisian Mob seems to have been a problem all by itself ~ and as was typical in large cities througout Europe in that time would sometimes make national policy with a local uprising.
We've learned to ignore the MOB in these modern times ~ else our politicians would be running to and fro seeking to molify this or that focus group or pollster!
Oh, guess we haven't begun to ignore the MOB either have we. Well, my mistake.
The whole thing in France started over the claim by various members of the royal family that they didn't need to attend mass at the cathedral because they had their own personal priests to take confession and administer other sacraments, and, besides, they could read, write and cipher better than any mere cleric.
That, and the adoption of polygamy by the top nobles in the 1400s set the stage for a rather abrupt break incivil re lations. The duc d'Guise's own Great Grandfather had two wives and three concubines ~ he disagreed with that custom in fact. Later, after the end of the war the King of France was provided with his first formal State Mistress!
I think part of the Catholic concern was a bunch of them imagined they'd WON but they'd lost ~ the Huguenots were still there, the King still had a harem (2 or more is a harem) and now courtesy of the national treasury, and Protestant merchants sailing under French flags could do business with Catholic merchants in other lands with which France had treaties of commerce.
My word, they must have been angry as wet hens!
Today about half the Irish ancestry in this country is through people here BEFORE the Revolution and about half the Irish ancestry is through people who came DURING the Famine period.
Irish history is bifurcated.
The other day I watched another kinsman (all Murphy family members are kinsmen) receive the Medal of Honor ~ Michael P. Murphy follows in a long line of great American warriors bearing the name Murphy ~ Audie Murphy, Timothy Murphy, and hundreds of thousands of others.
Some are Catholic, some are Protestant, some are nothing, but America has been very, very good to them, and they have reciprocated.
Of course it did, because the US as a nation has always been the safeguard of the poor and beleagured.
The KKK and the Know-Nothings were/are not representative of the US as a nation in any way.
-- of course, this was the 1500s, remember? you support the losing side in a political battle (like the Huguenots did in France, the Catholics in the UK), you die.
What they hadn't done was subdue Paris. So, when a bunch of Huguenots showed up the Mob was easily riled up.
You ever visit those palaces over on the Loire? The Parisian Mob was one of the reasons why the nobles and royals kept places SOMEWHERE ELSE.
The deGuise family (as distinct from the Guise faction) kept a series of palaces in Provence ~ where it was safer, and where there were more Huguenots. You can imagine how Italian history might have progressed if France had still had it's Huguenots to "kind of guide things along the border".
That's the spirit!
The KKK was a Southern phenomenon that occurred AFTER the Civil War.
I suppose you might draw some parallels between the two, but the one is not father to the other.
Both groups were made up of Protestants who didn't like Catholics. That's a pretty good parallel.
Sorry, does not compute. They are not the same religion ~ not even close.
You still have to overcome the quite apparent time dilation factor ~ BEFORE and AFTER are meaningful.
I wasn’t aware that I was making an argument, I merely posted a slaughter incident.
In a modern sense he still committed crimes against humanity and should have been field stripped.
Obviously Spain was doomed to lose La Florida ~ they sent only the trashiest of people to govern the one serious settlement they had. It didn't get better after that and Spain, in the end, lost all of it!
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