Louisville's Sordid History

Bloody Monday, August 6, 1855
Louisville KY

A few years ago I stumbled across a reference to an incident in Louisville's history. I was perplexed. It seemed fabricated; that couldn't happen here, not in my city. Especially with me living here so many years and not hearing about it, without it ever coming up in conversation or school in civics or history. No, surely that's a mistake, the land of urban legend and conspiracy theory. I was the one, however, that was very mistaken.

In 1855, there was a major political party known as the Know Nothing Party, uniting its constituents under the banner of Nativism, or the favoring of existing inhabitants of a region over any immigrants (a wary and ironic eye from the Chickasaw and Shawnee peoples here). Now, this is a pretty sterilized, clinical rendering of the situation; even Charleton Heston's "Damn, dirty apes!" outburst doesn't reach the cold, hard kernel of violent loathing at the heart of the Know Nothing Party, a term now synonymous with anti-immigration and xenophobia. The rise of this party coincided with the major influx of Irish and German immigrants in not only this city but the entire country, with the looming shadow of Catholicism surrounding them, and if the human condition tells us anything, it's that we fear that which is different from what we know.

In those days, newspapers were openly affiliated with political parties, and Louisville was no exception, with the Louisville Journal providing the mouthpiece for its editor, George Prentice (a current statue stands in front of Louisville's Main Public Library). He also happened to be one of the main sources of blame, fanning the embers that would result in a conflagration like this city had never seen.

It was Election Day, August 6, 1855, and the air was charged. The Know Nothing Party was in power- the mayor, most of the council, many judges, the appointed poll workers. Prentice even wrote about the “most pestilent influence of the foreign swarms”, but even in this tense climate, no precautions were taken to provide additional security at polling stations. With the view that only natural born "Americans" had the right to vote, and utter disdain for German and Irish immigrants, poll workers refused access to these foreign-born-naturalized-citizens wishing to cast their ballots. An account from the Louisville Courier, the newspaper of Democrats, states that they were "deterred from voting by direct acts of intimidation, others through fear of consequences, and a multitude from a lack of proper facilities." Altercations increased and intensified into the streets; menacing groups of people were swirling and gathering into mobs and running head first into confrontations, and by mid-afternoon, weapons were making their presence known. "Flying rumors were circulated through the city that the Germans had, with guns and muskets, taken possession of the First Ward polls, and soon thousands of men and boys were running to that portion of the city." From the Louisville Journal, the Know Nothings reacted to news of rioting and bloodshed, "with cries of vengeance upon the murderers, they sought them out and hunted them into the houses that were despoiled or destroyed."

The main areas of rioting occurred in the areas of Butchertown's Shelby and Green Streets as well as the area known then as Quinn's Row, a block at 11th and Main that was a hub of Irish living. Terror escalated with the sound of guns and the fires that were consuming buildings. Quinn's Row was destroyed by flame, as a witness described that "these houses were chiefly tenanted by Irish, and upon any of the tenants venturing out to escape the flames they were immediately shot down." Reports of beatings, stabbing, muskets, cannons, killing, fires and destruction sent a wave of fear throughout the city. Stores were looted and by midnight the glow of fire was all over the city. It was Mayor John Barbee, himself a member of the Know Nothing Party, that to his credit made impassioned speeches to try and calm some of the mobs, saving the burning of St. Martin’s Catholic Church on Shelby St. when he verified there were no stockpiles of guns present, as well as the landmark Cathedral of the Assumption on 5th St.

The rioting went on into the night, and with morning light, the city awoke in horror and disgust. Contradictory and exaggerated news reports assigning blame were carried by national newspapers. The Louisville Courier statement that rings the most true for me is that “the foreigners knew well that they were a small body in the midst of a multitude of persons ready at a moment’s warning to commit any deed of violence. They had long been threatened; throughout the day, in every effort to enjoy that right of suffrage guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws of this Commonwealth, they had been pursued by mobs of half-grown boys. Their houses were threatened, and warned by the experience of the day, they prepared to defend their lives and property.” Sifting through the records to find truth is an inexact business, with the death toll standing somewhere between 22 and 100, but enough records survive that the black eye is still visible.

It was the New York Times that stated it best in the August 11, 1855 edition, and would be well remembered today, "We trust the occurrences at Louisville will operate as a warning against the heated and maddening controversies, growing out of differences of race and religion, to which they owe their rise. It will take Louisville a long time to outlive the disgrace of the scenes just enacted within her limits."