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The Snow Riot was a riot and lynch mob in Washington, D.C. in August 1835. An attack on free blacks in the city by whites, the Snow Riot wreaked havoc on anything affiliated with free blacks for days by robbing and destroying all of their establishments. The name of the riot comes from the first destination the mob attacked, the restaurant owned by a free black man, Beverly Snow's Epicurean Eating House. After attacking the restaurant, the mob destroyed the school Arthur Bowen went to, because he was suspected of being taught the abolition of slavery there. The larger context of the attack on the school was the white working-class men's frustration over free blacks' ability to work, and their resentment of black competition for jobs. The clear result was the unleashing of white terror against blacks. The riot continued for days in the nation's capital, and it was not until President Andrew Jackson intervened that it stopped.
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History
The Snow Riot was a critical event that occurred 25 years before the American Civil War. In 1835, the city of Washington was facing unprecedented tension between abolitionists and slavery defenders. The tension was so high because the largest amount of fatalities caused by a slave uprising had occurred only a few years prior to the Snow Riot, with Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831. Panic and fear had since spread across the States. Because of this, there were abolitionists flooding the city with extremely loud voices and protests for the removal of slaves in the nation's capital. However, there were also a significant number of whites waiting for their moment to avenge the slave uprising of 1831.
The event that sparked the riots of Beverly Snow in 1835 was when an inebriated slave, Arthur Bowen, came into his mistress Anna Thorton's bedroom with an axe. Bowen did not strike or attempt to strike his mistress. However, the sheer fact that a slave had the opportunity to rebel against slave owners and whites infuriated slavery defenders in the city. Bowen was ultimately taken into custody without harm, as this gave proslavery advocates an opportunity to go after the man leading the production and distribution of abolitionist material, Reuben Crandall. District Attorney Francis Scott Key, writer of the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", was the leading man behind coordinating the arrest of Crandall.
A labor strike which began on 29 July 1835 at the Washington Navy Yard when Commandant Commodore Isaac Hull issued an order in response to thefts limiting workers' lunch privileges immediately exposed longstanding racial discord in the Yard. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Mahlon Dickerson, Commodore Hull stated that 175 white mechanics and workers had joined the strike. This was the first strike by federal workers.
In an undated diary entry for August 1835, African American diarist Michael Shiner confirmed intimidation by white workers and their demand that the black caulkers stop work: "Commodore Hull ishsared and evry one of them struck and said they wouldnt work anny moore and at the same time they were collered man from Baltimore by the name of Israel Jones a caulker by Trade he was the forman Caulker of those Colerded Caulkers and they where fifteen or twenty of them here at that time Caulkin on the Columbia and the Carpenters made all of them knock oft two."
Josephine Seaton, the wife of the publisher of the National Intelligencer, William Seaton, also reflected in a letter on the subsequent strike and riot: "Snow will certainly be torn to pieces by the mechanics if he be caught, and they are in full pursuit of him. Unfortunately, several hundred mechanics of the navy yard are out of employment, who, aided and abetted by their sympathizers, create the mob, — the first I have ever seen, not recollecting those of Sheffield, and it is truly alarming."
This resulted in a huge mob of whites in the capital attacking all establishments run by free blacks: schools, churches and businesses. The first destination the mob attacked was the Epicurean Eating House, a restaurant owned by Beverly Snow, who was known for serving sophisticated and luxurious food. It was ransacked by the mob, who were in search of Snow because of his status as a free black owner. However, the mob were unable to locate him.
Background of Beverly Snow
A free black who lived in Washington, D.C., Snow was different than most free blacks, as he was extremely educated, wealthy, successful, and "perhaps even a bit snobbish". He was one of a number of black entrepreneurs who owned businesses in the downtown area. His success was evidence of the strength of Washington's free black population. He was the owner of a restaurant named the Epicurean Eating House in Washington, D.C. that was located on the corner of 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. This was the site of the Snow Riot in 1835.