The New York City Draft Riots

Historical Context Note

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Riots and violent protests

Dates

Date of occurrence 1863-07-11-1863-07-14

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The New York Draft Riots took place in July 1863 and resulted in considerable injury, loss of life and damage to property. The riot was sparked by the enforcement of the National Conscription Act ,which introduced a draft lottery for men aged between twenty and forty-five. The act was seen as discriminatory since it was possible to pay a $300 exemption fee, something clearly only available to the wealthy. Feeling unfairly treated, the white working class population of New York began to riot after the second round of draftees names were published on the 13th of July, at first attacking government buildings and police stations. But attacks soon began on African Americans, as poor workers who had resented the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 and blamed freed slaves for taking…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

144 words

Save this article