The Plight Of The Early Irish Immigrants To Boston Essay, Research Paper

Since its conception in the early 1600 s, Boston, the so-called City on a Hill, has opened its doors to all people of all ethnic and religious background. At times there were many who fought to prevent the immigrants, while other people, at the same time, helped those who made it to the Americas, more specifically, Boston to make a new life for themselves. The immigrants from Ireland were not unfamiliar with this trend in American history. More often than not, the Irish immigrants were met with adversity from the native Bostonians.

Founded by the Puritans in the late 1600 s, Boston and its people were not completely open to immigrants, at first, which seemed odd, considering they were once immigrants. Before the American Revolution, the majority of the predominately Protestant citizens of Boston were fairly inhospitable to persons of any different religious persuasion especially the Irish who were regarded by most Anglo-Saxons as members of an inferior race Because of these sentiments, many of the first immigrants from Ireland settled in the less populated areas of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. With one glance at the names of the towns they settled Dublin, Belfast and Limerick, to name a few you would think of their Irish counterparts in Ireland.

Many of the Irish who immigrated to Boston during the years before the American Revolution were part of a poor, hardworking class. Most could not even afford to pay their way over and came as indentured servants instead. They came from all walks of life and many different backgrounds. There were tailors, cabinet-makers, carpenters, shoemakers, and bricklayers, as well as farmhands and laborers. The one thing they all had in common was their desire to try new things, their sense of adventure, and the desire to make a new life for themselves in the New World.

Unfortunately, the Irish-Catholic immigrants were not looked very-highly upon at first. The Puritan citizens of Boston often looked those that actually expressed their religious, papist beliefs in public with suspicion and fear. These Puritans continued to regard Catholicism as both a subversive political menace as well as a fearsome religious heresy. This, considering the fact that those same Puritans and Protestants came to the Colonies in search of religious freedom, was quite bold on their parts. For example, many Roman Catholics were excluded from liberties and rights that other citizens had. They were often placed under unusually severe limitations on their everyday life especially on those actions where religious believes played and important role. Following the Revolutionary War, some tolerance for Catholics was present there was a sufficient atmosphere of forbearance in Boston to accommodate the handful of Roman Catholics who had now begun to practice heir religion openly.

This new found tolerance could not have come at better time. After the Revolutionary War, larger numbers of Irish immigrants were joining their friends and families in America. From 1825 to 1830, approximately 125,000 people emigrated from Ireland to the Americas, an average of 20,000 a year. Over 30,000 of them came to Boston and by 1830, the Irish Catholic population of Boston had grown to 8,000.

Unfortunately, this growth in the number of Irish Catholics in Boston during the late 1820 s and early 1830 s was disturbing to native Bostonians simply as a religious phenomenon. Considering the many social and economic problems they helped increase, their arrival was viewed with great alarm by the older citizens. The church warned of the dangers of Catholic revivals and preachers, such as Rev. Lyman Beecher, called upon Native Americans to be on their guard against a Catholic conspiracy on this side of the Atlantic. Violence was breaking out at times in the city.

However, this was only the beginning. The disastrous potato famine in Ireland brought new waves of immigrants seeking shelter in the New World. They came in by the tens of thousands, during what we know call the Black Forties. They would use their life savings to make the journey from Ireland in the dark, putrid holds of cargo ships, and would arrive in Boston penniless, destitute, and sick. In 1847, the city opened its doors to over 37,000 new immigrants – over seven times the four to five thousand immigrants a year that Boston had previously had.

This new wave of Irish Americans was not as sturdy or skilled as the last wave. They were looked even more down upon because of their sickly and weak conditions. Without any schooling or training, the Boston Irish became what one historian called a massive lump in the community, undigested and undigestible.

Yet, in spite of this adversity, the Irish immigrants began to triumph. As more and more Irish populated the city of Boston, the more power they began to have. Many Protestants felt threatened and smushed in the city that they built. They began to retreat to the suburbs and the Irish moved into the areas they vacated, such as the movement into South Boston. With these moves to other parts of the city, they created demands for new services for themselves and their families. With this increased population of Irish immigrants came new found strength with in the community. One could begin to see many more Irish-Americans in the political scene and in the community as a whole they were a maturing community, becoming conscious of their power and assertive of their rights.

This was the beginning of the Irish-Catholic political dominance of Boston politics that is still present today. Before the Civil War, there had only been one Irish man on the Board of Alderman and only one many with an Irish name ever recorded on the Common Council. In 1870, there were at least half a dozen Irish men on the Common Council and a few Irish had been or were on the Board of Alderman. In their new political positions, they created new schools, libraries, health facilities and fire departments. They enlarged water supplies and ran new sewer lines. They did all of these things to accommodate their increasing Irish community in Boston.

The Irish-Americans were finally beginning to carve out their own little niche in Boston. They began to prove to the natives their worth. They succeeded in pushing the natives out into the suburbs, whether or not this was purely because of prejudice or choice is unknown. Either way, I think that both the Irish-Americans and natives were content with the situation. The Irish further enriched the city that the natives had built, in spite of the adversity that the natives had shown the Irish. In the end, I honestly think it was a win-win situation for both the Irish-Americans and the natives. Both prospered after long periods of hard work, and also prospered because of each other s hard work.