The York Point Riot of 1849
This episode examines one of the darker chapters in the history of New Brunswick and what would become Canada - social violence in Saint John in 1849 that took up to a dozen lives. Despite the severity of this incident, and its significance in revealing the ethnic and religious tensions of the mid-19th century era, few people in the community appear to remember it. Although it has been studied by academic historians, the York Point riot is not commemorated with a plaque or any other manifestation of public history.
The fighting in 1849 was the culmination of almost a decade of sectarian animosity triggered by the increasing presence of Irish Catholic immigrants in a port city that was dominated by the descendant of Loyalists as well as more recently-arrived Irish, English and Scottish Protestants. This was made worse by an economic downturn experience in New Brunswick during the 1840s.
In the early 1800s the British military and Irish Protestants brought with them the Loyal Orange Association (LOA), also known as the Orange Lodge. Individual lodges started in Saint John and spread to other areas of the colony. The LOA, rooted in the sectarian conflicts of late 18th century Ireland, was a pro-monarchy, anti-Catholic secret society dedicated to preserving British control of Ireland. Its conspiracy theory ideas about the Catholic church and its nativist attitudes towards Irish Catholics, as well as its organizational benefits, were attractive to native-born Protestants in New Brunswick and elsewhere.
In Saint John and other communities, days such as March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), July 12 (the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland) and even the Christmas season became associated with individual acts of intimidation and violence, as well as crowd violence. In many instances, people were armed with rocks and other projectiles, clubs, and even firearms. The risks of injury and death were compounded by the rudimentary justice system of the 1840s, the lack of a professional police force, and the tendency of the courts to protect the Protestant majority and punish the Catholic minority.
Join us to hear about what happened on July 12, 1849, when several hundred Orangemen from Saint John, Portland, Carleton and as far away as Woodstock, began to parade towards the Irish Catholic immigrant ghetto of York Point. The marchers, led by a member representing their hero, King William of Orange riding on a horse, were determined to humiliate their enemies, who they regarded as undesirable aliens. The men, women and even the children of York Point were equally determined to keep the intruders off “their ground.”
Sources:
Acheson, T.W., Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984).
Houston, Cecil J. and Smyth, William. J., The Sash That Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980).
Schuyler, G.W., Saint John: Scenes from a Popular History (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Petheric Press, 1984).
See, Scott W. “The Orange Order and Social Violence in Mid-Nineteenth Century Saint John,” Acadiensis, XVII (1) (1983): 68-92
See, Scott W., Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).
Toner, P.M. ed. New Ireland Remembered: Historical essays on the Irish in New Brunswick (Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1988).
Winder, Gordon, Trouble in the North End: The Geography of Social Violence in Saint John 1840-1860,” Acadiensis, Volume 29, No. 2, (Spring 2000): 27-57
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