The Kidnapping Club by Jonathan Daniel Wells

Author:Jonathan Daniel Wells [Daniel Wells, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2020-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

By 1840, the New York Police Department, together with allies in the Irish working class, the Democratic Party, and Wall Street, combined their strengths to fight against those calling for Black civil rights. Boudinot and Jacob Hays still dominated the police force in Lower Manhattan, daily terrorizing people of color for profit. Wall Street businessmen and their journalist backers in the press like Gerard Hallock of the Journal of Commerce continued to scorn and harass anyone who even thought about placing concern for Black lives over the need to appease southern slaveholders and uphold the cotton trade.

But African American voices were fighting back against a racist press, and they particularly resented the constant support for southern slaveholders expressed in the pages of Wall Street’s Journal of Commerce. Cornish at The Colored American angrily denounced the “unrighteous and insulting remarks” the paper frequently directed toward Black residents and condemned Hallock and his paper for “the uniform consistency of that journal, in its subservience to the measures and interests of the slave-holding south.” Other Black observers accused the paper of “warring on American citizens of color.” This became even more credible when, to the horror of Black New Yorkers, the Journal of Commerce reportedly included in its pages ads for the sale of slaves.8

The Democratic Party of New York could also be counted on to defend the Union, the prosperity it fostered, and the constitutional compromise over slavery. With the help of powerful pols based in Tammany Hall, Democrats maintained a machine-like efficiency when it came to voting and elections. They had been locked in a heated political war with the opposition Whig Party since the days of Andrew Jackson, and the hyperpartisanship continued into the 1840s.

That ruthless efficiency and willingness to use violence in support of the party were embodied in Isaiah Rynders. Born in 1804 in Waterford, New York, Rynders tried his hand at a number of occupations but was most known as an avid gambler and frequent knife fighter on Mississippi River steamboats in the 1820s and early 1830s. He reportedly killed a man after a card game in Mississippi and fled to Gotham around 1837. Known for a booming voice, a powerful memory that allowed him to recite scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, and a tendency toward wild gesticulation, Rynders made an immediate and commanding impact on New York. Just as Boudinot, Riker, Nash, and other leaders of the New York Kidnapping Club were shaping their perverse business, Rynders arrived. It was good timing for Rynders, but bad timing for the city’s African Americans.9

Rynders organized his band of blowhards and thugs into the elite-sounding Empire Club, but they were known among everyday residents by more earthy names, such as the “Plug Uglies.” Under Rynders’s charismatic leadership, the Empire Club intimidated political opponents, beat up Black citizens and abolitionists, conducted outright election fraud, and harassed speakers who dared to cross Tammany. In fact, the machinations of Rynders and his gang likely resulted in the election of an American president. Rynders

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.