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The ideology of nativism —favoring native inhabitants, as opposed to immigrants—has been very common and contentious within American politics for centuries. Nativist movements have been around since even before American independence, and have targeted a wide variety of nationalities. Historically, nativism was present even in colonial America. During that era, anti-German feelings ...
The American Party, known as the Native American Party before 1855 [a] and colloquially referred to as the Know Nothings, or the Know Nothing Party, was an Old Stock nativist political movement in the United States in the 1850s. Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by ...
According to Cas Mudde, a University of Georgia professor, nativism is a largely American notion that is rarely debated in Western Europe or Canada; the word originated with mid-nineteenth-century political parties in the United States, most notably the Know Nothing party, which saw Catholic immigration from nations such as Germany and Ireland as a serious threat to native-born Protestant ...
However, anti-immigrant sentiment resurged in the late 1800s as the United States faced an era of economic turmoil. [10] The strength of socialist and anarchist groups grew in the 1870s and 1880s, causing nativists to fear radicalism among the lower classes.
The term Know-Nothing Riot has been used to refer to a number of political uprisings of the Know Nothing Party in the United States of the mid-19th century. These anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic protests culminated into riots in Philadelphia in 1844; St. Louis in 1854, Cincinnati and Louisville in 1855; Baltimore in 1856; Washington, D.C., and New York City in 1857; and New Orleans in 1858.
One or two nativists were reportedly killed. George Shiffler, an 18-year-old leatherworker, was the first nativist killed in the riots of 1844. A mob of nativists attacked the Seminary of the Sisters of Charity and several Catholic homes before the riot ended. Numerous people were injured, and two more nativists were killed. [12] [13]
The Know-Nothing Party's central policies were nativist, or hostile to immigrants. Nativists feared that the immigrants would use their voting power to elect unsuitable politicians, given the generalization that immigrants were aligned with radical political groups and typically worked in low paying jobs. [2]
A plug hat worn by a rowdy Irishman in a 19th-century Thomas Nast stereotyped caricature similar to the ones worn by the Plug Uglies.. The Plug Uglies were an American Nativist criminal street gang, sometimes referred to loosely as a political club, that operated in the west side of Baltimore, Maryland, from 1854 to 1865.