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| Northern Racism and the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 |
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Author: Kevin Kelly, Lansdowne Middle School, Baltimore County Public Schools
Grade Level: Middle/High
Duration: 1-2 periods |
Overview:
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School textbooks usually give students an overview of Southern racial attitudes during the Civil War era, but rarely do they explore the complex racial relations of the North in the same period. History tells us that abolitionists formed only a tiny minority of the Northern population, and in fact there were Whites who owned slaves in the Northern states during the Civil War. This lesson on the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 introduces students to Northern views and fears at the time. Many workers in New York did not wish to serve in a war that would free African-Americans. For, once free, those former slaves would compete with them for jobs in the North at lower wages. So in July of 1863, a mob, angered by the conscription provisions (which favored the rich over the poor), descended upon the newly opened draft offices, destroyed over a million dollars-worth of property, and killed eleven African Americans. Clearly, the Union was not unified by Lincoln's wartime policies. Using the source materials, students will learn how to connect social, economic, and political forces in order to explain the past. They will also discover the variety of class-based opinions during the war, which made Lincoln's hold on power more tenuous than commonly thought.
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