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''This article was originally published on [http://videri.org/index.php?title=How_the_Irish_Became_White| Videri.org] and is republished here with their permission.''
Ignatiev begins his investigation with a look at the response to Daniel O’Connell’s appeal to Irish immigrants in America to join the cause of abolitionism in 1841. O’Connell was a critical Irish political leader and member of the British House of Commons who held influence over Irish everywhere. In Ireland, he championed a campaign to remove a moratorium on Catholics being allowed to serve in government. He campaigned for a repeal of the Act of Union and the restoration of an Irish parliament. He was also a staunch abolitionist. Naturally, American abolitionists thought an appeal from him to his countrymen in the United States would go a long way towards convincing them to join the abolitionist cause.
Born in Dublin in 1774, Branagan’s experiences as a sailor in Africa and Antigua inspired him to write numerous works denouncing slavery and extolling the beauty and virtue of Africans. But in 1805 after having lived in Philadelphia for six years, his attitude quite radically changed when he published a new work that claimed the most significant problem slavery created was “free negroes.” Ignatiev argues that events like Toussaint L’Ouverture’s campaign to exterminate whites in Haiti had led men like Branagan to begin to see themselves as potential victims of the slaves’ struggle for freedom.
Next, Ignatiev examines the role of the Democrat Party of Andrew Jackson. He argues, “White supremacy was not a flaw in American democracy but part of its definition and the development of democracy in the Jacksonian period cannot be understood without reference to white supremacy,” (79). Returning earlier to the notion that the Democrats traded protection from nativists to the Irish in exchange for support for their peculiar institution, Ignatiev argues that rather than the existence of slavery giving the Irish something to stand on as they climbed into the ranks of the oppressor race, it was instead the inclusion of the Irish into the oppressor race that made the continued existence of slavery possible. Utilizing early nineteenth-century Philadelphia alderman John Binns as an example, Ignatiev shows how many Irish had adopted worldviews that were essentially Jacksonian. But the messiness of Binns’ political career shows the Irish affinity for the Democratic Party during this period was not as simple as jumping on a band wagonthe bandwagon. According to Ignatiev, the Democratic Party chose to reject nativism and deflected criticisms of slavery by pointing out the plight of the white worker in order to ease the assimilation of the Irish into the oppressor race and thus support the institution of slavery. In his discussion on Irish labor, Ignatiev notes that “white” for newly arrived immigrants was only one identifier among many. To truly become “white,” Ignatiev argues that the Irish first, “… had to learn to subjugate county, religious, or national animosities… to a new solidarity based on color,” (111). Because slaveholders had an interest in ensuring the degradation of free blacks and escaped slaves in the North, they allied with Northern labor. Echoing scholars like David Roediger, Ignatiev notes the “bi-polar system of color caste” allowed that all whites, no matter how low in status, could still enjoy status over the highest non-whites. This status allowed them to simultaneously work to improve their own labor conditions and keep free blacks in a subjugated status. According to Ignatiev, just as skilled white laborers forced black laborers out of artisanal jobs by refusing to work with them and newly arrived unskilled Irish immigrants forced them out of unskilled jobs by working for less pay, so too did skilled and unskilled labor force black labor out of their movement. At the same time, nativist attitudes against immigrant labor faded in favor of the solidarity of the “white worker.” Drawing on Machiavelli’s notion of the “Tumultuous Republic,” Ignatiev examines the role of rioting in Jacksonian America, in particular, the “Flying Horses Riot” in Philadelphia in 1834. A well-organized mob attacked places of race-mixing and the homes of black Philadelphians. In neighborhoods where recently arrived immigrants and blacks both lived, the homes of whites with candles placed in their windows were spared. Ignatiev argues that this type of disorder is a form of order and serves as a type of supplement to the laws of the land rather than representing an opposition to those laws. Moreover, the ability of organized rioters to both strike down overt opposition and force anyone else into silence no longer merely reflected public opinion but directly shaped it. In comparing earlier nativist and anti-Catholic riots targeting Irish immigrants to race riots targeting blacks, Ignatiev notes a key difference to emerge is the Irish being “allowed” to defend themselves. Blacks attempting to defend themselves against violence in this period of history often provoked an even greater backlash. White people, by contrast, did have the right to defend themselves. By successfully defending themselves against nativist mobs, the Irish laid claim to a right denied to blacks, thus furthering their transition to members of the white race. The first consolidated police force, created to help deal with incidents like the Flying Horse Riot, was initially composed of nativists. But through their alliance with Democrats and powerful Irish gangs, this force quickly gave way to the emergence of the Irish cop. This was a profoundly significant change, as Ignatiev argues, “It meant the Irish were officially able to defend themselves from the Nativist mobs, and at the same time carry out their own violent agenda against black people. The Protestant Ascendancy had given way to the White Republic," (189). Ignatiev’s probing look into the Irish finding their place offers a new view on the emergence of racial ideology in America. It sheds light on glaring holes left by New Labor historians like Herbert Gutman who, Ignatiev says in the Afterward of ''How the Irish Became White'', ignore troubled race relations to discover a “usable history” to guide new labor movements. In particular, Ignatiev criticizes their failure to explore the relationship of “whiteness” to labor. <i>How the Irish Became White</i> is much more in line with works like <i>The Rise and Fall of the White Republic</i> and <i>Wages of Whiteness.</i> But where Ignatiev diverges from Saxton and Roediger is the degree to which he gives the Irish agency.
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