The New York Draft Riots occurred in July 1863, when the anger of working-class New Yorkers over a new federal draft law during the Civil War sparked five days of some of the bloodiest and most destructive rioting in U.S. history. Hundreds of people were killed, many more seriously injured, and Black New Yorkers were often the target of the rioters’ violence.
New York City Divided Pre-Civil War
As the business capital of the nation, New York City had not welcomed the onset of the Civil War, as it meant losing the South as an important trading partner.
Cotton was an extremely valuable product for New York’s merchants: Before the Civil War, cotton represented 40 percent of all the goods shipped out of the city’s port. And long after the slavery trade was made illegal in 1808, the city’s underground market in enslaved people continued to thrive.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, there was even talk of New York seceding from the Union itself, so entwined were the city’s business interests with the Confederate States.
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I wonder how a Trump draft to fight a war for Israel will be received by Americans?
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