The Pilot and Slavery
Edwin G. Walker, seen here in the late 1890s, was elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1863 (Stanford, Peter Thomas, The Tragedy of the Negro in America, 1897). An attorney, Walker later became a judge. He was a friend of John Boyle O'Reilly and delivered a moving tribute to his colleague at the Tremont Hall memorial service for O'Reilly in 1890.
In 1945 The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), published a long feature on O'Reilly whom the paper recognised as being a powerful advocate of civil rights. The Crisis described O'Reilly as ‘One of the best friends and strongest champions the American Negro ever had’. The Crisis called O'Reilly ‘a poet-prophet of democracy’ who deserved ‘his place among our own contemporary fighters against the political and economic injustices forced upon racial minorities’.
In advocating civil rights O’Reilly was working against a wider tradition within Irish-America. Over the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the Irish and black communities had developed a deep antagonism towards one another. Much of this bitterness resulted from competition for employment as Irish and black labourers clashed in cities across the US. But it was not only economic rivalry which rendered the Irish hostile to blacks. The reaction of Americans to Irish immigrants during those decades was also a contributing factor. In the 1840s and 1850s the Irish in the United States were victims of a sustained campaign of hatred. This xenophobia was most clearly manifested in the form of nativism, a popular movement which was intensely hostile to Catholic immigration. One of the most common arguments which nativists used to justify violence against Catholics was that such immigrants were mere pawns of the Vatican and incapable of loyalty to the United States.
Catholics, including the Irish, responded to these claims by trying to prove their loyalty to the United States. Since slavery was a feature of many American states the Catholic hierarchy judged that its existence was a natural law of the land and, as such, that the church had nothing to gain from seeking its destruction. These attitudes were replicated in the Catholic press where the word slavery was often replaced by the insidious euphemism, ‘involuntary servitude’. In 1855 The Pilot considered the issue of slavery and the manifold indignities which accompanied it such as; ‘Inhuman treatment, - separation of families, - deprivation of right to perform ordinary Christian duties, - violence done to the marriage relation, - refusal to recognize in the negro a man’. Yet, like Bishop England, the paper argued that slavery was not, in itself, wrong and that these abuses could be removed from its application. The editorial continued: ‘When you have stripped slavery of those abuses which are accidental and do not necessarily belong to it, you have simply involuntary servitude.’ In fact, the paper claimed, when slavery was properly administered it provided food, clothing and shelter to the slave. It was, The Pilot asserted, like making the slave ‘a member of the family’.
In advocating civil rights O’Reilly was working against a wider tradition within Irish-America. Over the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the Irish and black communities had developed a deep antagonism towards one another. Much of this bitterness resulted from competition for employment as Irish and black labourers clashed in cities across the US. But it was not only economic rivalry which rendered the Irish hostile to blacks. The reaction of Americans to Irish immigrants during those decades was also a contributing factor. In the 1840s and 1850s the Irish in the United States were victims of a sustained campaign of hatred. This xenophobia was most clearly manifested in the form of nativism, a popular movement which was intensely hostile to Catholic immigration. One of the most common arguments which nativists used to justify violence against Catholics was that such immigrants were mere pawns of the Vatican and incapable of loyalty to the United States.
Catholics, including the Irish, responded to these claims by trying to prove their loyalty to the United States. Since slavery was a feature of many American states the Catholic hierarchy judged that its existence was a natural law of the land and, as such, that the church had nothing to gain from seeking its destruction. These attitudes were replicated in the Catholic press where the word slavery was often replaced by the insidious euphemism, ‘involuntary servitude’. In 1855 The Pilot considered the issue of slavery and the manifold indignities which accompanied it such as; ‘Inhuman treatment, - separation of families, - deprivation of right to perform ordinary Christian duties, - violence done to the marriage relation, - refusal to recognize in the negro a man’. Yet, like Bishop England, the paper argued that slavery was not, in itself, wrong and that these abuses could be removed from its application. The editorial continued: ‘When you have stripped slavery of those abuses which are accidental and do not necessarily belong to it, you have simply involuntary servitude.’ In fact, the paper claimed, when slavery was properly administered it provided food, clothing and shelter to the slave. It was, The Pilot asserted, like making the slave ‘a member of the family’.
'Every fair-minded man and woman and child in America ought to seize these shameful facts as a reason to make up their minds on the negro question. They ought to say that every policeman in New York or elsewhere, who dared to say he was better than his colored fellow-citizen, was unfit to wear the uniform of an American city; and that every school-girl who was so un-Christian and so unladylike as to ostracize a fellow-student because her skin was dark, was utterly unworthy of a diploma from the public schools.'
- O'Reilly attacking instances of racism in the public schools and the police, 1886.
O'Reilly the Reformer
The New York Draft Riots of 1863. The riots began as a protest against the Lincoln Administration's draft legislation which was biased in favour of wealthy individuals, who could afford to pay for a substitute. However, the protest quickly turned violent and mostly Irish mobs attacked New York's black population. In this scene, rioters burn down an orphanage (US Library of Congress).
During the 1840s and 1850s The Pilot primarily portrayed blacks as unfit for freedom. Also there was a clear fear of the competition that millions of freed black slaves could provide for Irish workers. However, the paper's tone became openly racist during the American Civil War, especially after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Although the paper supported the war against the Confederacy it supported a war to preserve the Union, not a war to end slavery. Even after the Union victory in the civil war The Pilot remained very nervous of attempts to improve the lot of former slaves, warning that: ‘We have nothing to say against efforts to elevate the Negro; but we do most earnestly protest that those efforts must not be put forth at the expense of our race.’ It took the arrival of John Boyle O’Reilly as editor in 1871 for the paper’s editorial attitude to change.
O'Reilly ignored the paper's previous history and, in one of his early editorials, responded to a reader who opposed race integration by writing that: ‘There is nothing Irish about his principles…The Pilot holds that the colored man stands on a perfect equality with the white man.’ This statement was to be a guiding principle of The Pilot under O’Reilly’s editorship and he repeatedly used the paper to condemn politicians and commentators who sought to curtail civil rights. At the same time he urged blacks to remain proud of their heritage declaring in one speech that his ‘colored fellow-citizens’ should establish ‘a brotherhood of race’: ‘Make it so strong that its members will be proud of it - proud of living as colored Americans’. It is hard to gauge how successful O’Reilly was in combatting the prejudices of his white fellow citizens but he became a hero to many black Americans. In 1890, at a funeral oration for O’Reilly, the black politician Edwin G. Walker lamented the death of his friend: ‘as long as Mr. O’Reilly lived and spoke, we felt that we had at least, outside of our own people, one true vigilant, brave and self-sacrificing friend who claimed for us just what he claimed for himself’.
O'Reilly ignored the paper's previous history and, in one of his early editorials, responded to a reader who opposed race integration by writing that: ‘There is nothing Irish about his principles…The Pilot holds that the colored man stands on a perfect equality with the white man.’ This statement was to be a guiding principle of The Pilot under O’Reilly’s editorship and he repeatedly used the paper to condemn politicians and commentators who sought to curtail civil rights. At the same time he urged blacks to remain proud of their heritage declaring in one speech that his ‘colored fellow-citizens’ should establish ‘a brotherhood of race’: ‘Make it so strong that its members will be proud of it - proud of living as colored Americans’. It is hard to gauge how successful O’Reilly was in combatting the prejudices of his white fellow citizens but he became a hero to many black Americans. In 1890, at a funeral oration for O’Reilly, the black politician Edwin G. Walker lamented the death of his friend: ‘as long as Mr. O’Reilly lived and spoke, we felt that we had at least, outside of our own people, one true vigilant, brave and self-sacrificing friend who claimed for us just what he claimed for himself’.
'With his pen, John Boyle O’Reilly sent through the columns of a newspaper that he edited in this city words in our behalf that were Christian, and anathemas that were just. Not only that, but he went on to the platform, and, in bold and defiant language, he denounced the murderers of our people, and advised us to strike the tyrants back. It was a time when the cloud was most heavy, and more threatening than at any other period since reconstruction. At that time our Wendell Phillips was stricken by the hand of death, and then some doubted that they would be ever be able to see a clear sky. But in the midst of all the gloom we could hear Mr. O’Reilly declaring his determination to stand by the colored American in all contests where his rights were at stake.'
- Speech by Edwin G. Walker following O'Reilly's death in 1890
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