"[1]: 109 Their deeper origins[2] lay in the combination of nativism among Protestants who had controlled the booming city since the American Revolutionary War, and tensions between the growing underclass of Irish immigrants and their kin.
– discuss] In May and June 1834, the silk merchants and ardent abolitionists Arthur Tappan and his brother Lewis stepped up their agitation for the abolition of slavery by underwriting the formation in New York of a female anti-slavery society.
[4] Reports appearing in London in The Times, taken from American newspapers, cite as the triggering cause a disturbance following a misunderstanding at the Chatham Street Chapel, a former theater converted with money from Arthur Tappan for the ministry of Charles Grandison Finney.
Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace[5] note that on July 4, an integrated group that had convened at the chapel to celebrate New York's emancipation (in 1827) of its remaining slaves was dispersed by angry spectators.
According to The Times, the secretary of the New York Sacred Music Society, which leased the chapel on Monday and Thursday evenings, gave a black congregation leave to use it on July 7 to hold a church service.
Webb's paper described the event as a Negro riot resulting from "Arthur Tappan's mad impertinence", and the Commercial Advertiser reported that gangs of blacks were preparing to set the city ablaze.
When the abolitionists, alerted, did not appear, the crowd broke in and held a counter-meeting, with preaching in mock-Negro style and calling for deportation of blacks to Africa.
Manager Thomas S. Hamblin and actor Edwin Forrest tried to calm the rioters, who demanded Farren's apology and called for the deportation of blacks.
[citation needed] According to another report, the riots were finally quelled when the New York First Division (swelled by volunteers) was called out by the Mayor on July 11 to support the police.
July 12, 1834 At the time, the riots were interpreted by some as just deserts for the abolitionist leaders, who had "taken it upon themselves to regulate public opinion upon slavery" and who showed "smutty tastes" and "temerity".
"[15] Dale Cockrell[16] partially agrees, stating that the riots were "about who would control public discourse and community values, with class at base the issue."