Precarious Protestant Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 42-57
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Direct Threat

This chapter recounts the nativist revolt in Philadelphia that laid siege to the Irish Catholic population and describes the riot that was stirred by leaders of the mob when they declared that they must defend America from “the bloody hand of the Pope.” It analyzes how both the Mormon and Catholic communities were considered outcasts from America's Protestant society. It also explores why many Americans in the nineteenth century perceive Catholics and Mormons as a direct threat to the nation's democratic order, while members of both denominations proclaimed that the nation's Protestant majority had failed to protect their rights as minority groups. The chapter places Mormonism's political actions during the 1840s within the context of Catholicism's similar struggle, which took place around the same time. It focuses on electoral politics as well as controversial forms of sovereignty, especially Mormonism's Council of Fifty.

“Dirt, death and disease”

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Crucial Issue ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact

This study makes use of a range of local and national British newspapers and periodicals to examine the discourses of public health during the nineteenth century. It argues that many newspapers and periodicals used a very limited and limiting discourse to present often complex details to their readership. There was a heavy reliance on the use of established experts whose language was allowed to define the journalistic coverage of the subject with the result that other voices were marginalised or unheard altogether. Certain minority groups such as the Irish and women were stigmatised and blamed for the increase in public health problems. All of this combined to constrain the reporting of this crucial issue. The impact of an increasingly competitive print media environment also propelled this form of journalism towards extremes of language and of emphasis, resulting in an even more limited discourse.

Révolte, Pouvoir, Religion: Les Hubbu du Fūta-Jalon (Guinée)

1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Botte
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic Revolution ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Eastern Province ◽  
Key Word ◽  
State Capital ◽  
Holy Man

In the middle of the nineteenth century, in Futa Jalon, the popular revolt of the Hubbu brutally revealed the underlying weaknesses of the most powerful state of its time in the region. A marabout of the Qādiriyya, Alfā Mamadu Dyuhe, took upon himself the leadership of the oppressed, the discontented, and the minority groups. The Hubbu survived for forty years, until exterminated by Samori in 1884, but the article concentrates on the movement from its inception in 1845 to the death of its founder in 1854, at the pinnacle of his success, in possession of the Futa state capital, Timbo. The Futa state, product of an Islamic revolution in the eighteenth century, had lost the fervour of its Fulbe founders in the endless contest for the position of Almamy between the rival lineages of Alfāyā and Soriyā. Based upon the jihād against paganism, upon the taxation of the conquered, and upon the slavery of more than half its population, it was rendered doubly oppressive by the political struggle for the rewards of power at all levels down to that of village headman, and doubly weak in consequence. The nomadic Fulbe, particularly angered by their treatment, were notably responsive to the preaching of Alfā Mamadu against the decadence and injustice of the rulers; so too were the Malinke of the eastern province of Fōduye-Haji. It was the breakdown of this large region into smaller and smaller chieftaincies, increasing the patronage of the reigning Almamy by multiplying the number of official predators, that created the special conditions for the Hubbu revolt. First the representations of Timbo, then the Alfāyā and the Soriyā themselves, were routed by the holy man and his increasingly numerous following. The religious leadership which had inspired the rising, however, faltered after Alfā Mamadu's death. The Hubbu, from hubb, ‘love’, the key word in the Arabic chant that bound them into a religious fraternity, failed to carry through their revolution, and instead became a community of refugees living by banditry. More important to their failure than the reform of the Futa state, undertaken by the Almamys at the insistence of their own clerics, was the fundamental inability of the movement, so characteristic of other popular revolts, to see the new society they wished to bring into existence as in any way different from the old. Slavery, for instance, was not abolished, despite the numbers of ex-slaves in the Hubbu ranks. Their failure was a failure of imagination.

Le Passé a-t-il de l'avenir devant lui? Bilan du théâtre francophone de l'Ouest canadien

1996 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-218
Author(s):  
Ingrid Joubert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Western Canada ◽  
The Past ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Relations ◽  
Anglo Indian

For the French speaking minorities of Manitoba, the struggle against oppression has often meshed with battles for justice and human rights waged by other Canadian minority groups. Over the past two decades, plays by English and French speaking playwrights have echoed theatrical themes of the nineteenth century by centring on the plight of the Métisse. Being of Amer-Indian and Franco-Canadian descent, the history of the Métisse offers a fascinating perspective on Anglo-French and Anglo-Indian relations. In many of the plays, much attention is paid to the legendary story of Louis Riel, a Métisse chief who led the fight against British expansion into Western Canada and who was executed by the Crown for the murder of Thomas Scott, a British officer. With Riel as an emblem, anglophone and francophone playwrights have forged new outlooks on the historical struggle for control of Western Canada. Furthermore, while investigating the past playwrights have uncovered ways in which conflicting interpretations of history throw light upon present-day Canadian cultural complexities.

Back to the Future? What the Politics of the Late Nineteenth Century Can Tell Us about the 2016 Election

2016 ◽  
Vol 667 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Azari ◽  
Marc J. Hetherington
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Potential Change ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Politics ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Civil War Era

The politics and party system of the late Civil War era are strikingly similar to what we have in the present day. Elections were consistently close; race, culture, immigration, and populism were salient issues; and states almost always voted for the same party in election after election. The states that supported Democrats then, however, mostly support Republicans now, and vice versa. In 1896, though, a new party system began to emerge. In this article, we evaluate bygone elections alongside contemporary ones to assess whether 2016 might be the beginning of something new in American electoral politics. Are national politics likely to follow the familiar pattern of the last four presidential races, or are Americans going to be presented altogether different choices? Our analysis suggests that race and populism are guideposts for potential change in 2016: if the concerns of race continue to define political conflict, the electoral map should change little, but if economic populism eclipses race as it did in 1896, a new political era may be ushered in in America.

Skirts Rolled Up

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Anne Eller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Gendered Violence ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Scene

This essay considers the participation of Port-au-Prince women in municipal and national politics during the later decades of the nineteenth century. The growth of Port-au-Prince changed the dynamics of these contests, as newly arrived women joined expanding popular neighborhoods, and many assumed a central role in feeding the city. Women moved freely through the heart of the capital and the immediate countryside on personal, commercial, and sometimes directly political itineraries. While formally excluded from electoral politics, working women made their political desires well known, as they exerted an influence on the military movements that toppled the administration several times. These armed contests, as well as the stratification and militarization of the political scene during peacetime, provoked gendered violence. Simultaneously, working women confronted disdain from journalists who would discipline the women’s great influence. Nevertheless, these women commanded considerable respect in political contests that often seemed to have as their stakes the very independence of the nation itself.

Testimonial Exclusions and Religious Freedom in Early America

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-492
Author(s):  
Jud Campbell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early America ◽  
Foundational Principle ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Evidence Rules ◽  
American Law ◽  
Fact Finding

In the late eighteenth century, American law treated oath-taking as an invocation of divine vengeance for sworn falsehoods. Prospective witnesses who did not believe in God or hell were not allowed to testify. But this strict evidentiary rule survived only a few more decades. Gradually at first, and then with growing speed, the theological underpinnings of oath-taking eroded across the United States in the early nineteenth century. The story of this transition, only vaguely appreciated in the current literature, illuminates and weaves together several important strands of nineteenth-century social and legal history. The common-law rule, it turns out, came into escalating conflict with American religion, particularly after a liberal offshoot of Calvinism began rejecting the existence of hell. By prevailing founding-era standards, being unable to testify did not impede or punish the exercise of religion, allowing the rule to survive an initial volley of legal challenges. But as reform efforts mounted, a neutrality-based view of religious liberty and an egalitarian conception of civil privileges began to supplant the earlier constitutional settlement. By the mid-nineteenth century, evidence rules throughout the United States no longer required belief in hell, and almost half of the states allowed atheists to testify. This transition also prompted the first widespread rethinking of American evidence law, shifting its foundational principle from reliance on the inviolability of oaths to confidence in the jury's fact-finding capacity, and laying the groundwork for further liberalization in the 1850s and 1860s that allowed testimony from black witnesses and from interested parties. Moreover, the controversy about religion-based exclusions led to a new understanding that barring testimony from particular minority groups effectively denied those groups the protection of the law.

REFORMING DISCOURSES AND POLITICAL PRACTICE IN BRITAIN, 1760–1872 History of suffrage, 1760–1867. Edited by Anna Clark and Sarah Richardson. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2000. 6 vols. Pp. xxi+351, 320, 348, 396, 341, 346. ISBN 1-85196-706-0. £495.00. Language, print and electoral politics, 1790–1832: Newcastle-under-Lyme broadsides. Edited by Hannah Barker and David Vincent. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001. ISBN 0-85115-810-2. £45.00. The diaries of Samuel Bamford. Edited by Martin Hewitt and Robert Poole. Thrupp, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000. Pp. xxxi+383. ISBN 0-7509-1735-0. £55.00.

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-499
Author(s):  
KATHRYN GLEADLE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
Semantic Problem

‘The word [reform] is a singularly vague one; it means every thing, and any thing; it conveys no positive idea whatever; but seems to have a different acceptation in each different mouth.’ So declared John Walsh, an opponent of parliamentary reform in his 1831 pamphlet, Popular opinions on parliamentary reform. Walsh's observation, which shrewdly identifies a recurring semantic problem for historians of the early nineteenth century, is but one of many illuminating texts to be reprinted in the History of suffrage, 1760–1867, edited by Anna Clark and Sarah Richardson. This publication, when read alongside the other two volumes under consideration, Hannah Barker and David Vincent's Language, print and electoral politics, 1790–1832, which reprints a plethora of electoral ephemera from pre-reform Newcastle-under-Lyme; and Martin Hewitt and Robert Poole's The diaries of Samuel Bamford provides fascinating insights into the constellation of vocabularies, strategies, and concerns that comprised the reforming project.

Identifying the Catalysts for Systematic Deprivation of Hindu Women’s Right to Property: An Appraisal from the Political Contours of Bangladesh

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-222
Author(s):  
Mollah Al-Ifran Hossain
Keyword(s):  
Present Status ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Minority ◽  
Hindu Community ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Legislative Measures

Abstract Hindu women’s limited right to inheritance in Bangladesh is a story of state-sponsored deprivation; a frustrating legacy of the political authority’s systematic indifference and failure in protecting minority women’s right to property for nearly half a century. Bangladesh, from its early decades, has experienced the resurgence of religion as one of the driving factors behind gender and minority-sensitive policy formulation and implementation. Under the veil of constitutional secularism, religion has become one of the most pervasive tools in the hands of the political authorities for methodical marginalisation of religious minority groups especially of Hindu community. Consequently, Bangladesh has failed to move forward with appropriate legislative measures for improving the present status of Hindu women’s right to property. This article argues that the underlying reasons behind such failure is intrinsically intertwined with power-centric electoral politics rather than normative socio-religious practices.

scholarly journals Outsiders on the Inside: Italian Jewish Ghettos and Cholera in the 1830s

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-49
Author(s):  
Myrna Gene Martin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Disease Management ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Italian History ◽  
Medical Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This article analyses the initial encounter with epidemic cholera in the Italian cities of Florence, Ferrara and Modena. The large body of scholarship that explores themes related to medical theory, urban infrastructure, and political and social change across the nineteenth century demonstrates the importance of the historical evaluation of cholera epidemics. There is, however, minimal scholarship exploring the relationship between dominant social structures and minority groups. This article illuminates previously unexplored connections between Jews and Christians in relation to urban disease management efforts. Scapegoating Jewish population groups during times of crisis has a long tradition in Europe. A traditional ‘outsider’ subjected to highly institutionalized segregation, the Jews of Italy were readily identifiable. As such, societal anxiety surrounding the horrors of cholera could have easily found release in violence against the Jews. Yet this did not happen during the 1830s. This article seeks to determine why this was the case. Bureaucratic records contained in the municipal archives of these cities shed light on the dynamics of both urban disease management in the early nineteenth century and the interactions between Jews and Christians during this relatively understudied period of Italian history. Analysing the traditional understanding of both disease origin and transmission, in conjunction with the realities of the urban environment, this article concludes that both of these factors mitigated the potential for scapegoating Italian Jews. Jews had been resident ‘outsiders’ in these cities for centuries. However, the quotidian realities of urban life created strong administrative connections between the Jews and the Christian authorities that ultimately overruled the confessional divisions expressed in the walls and gates of the ghettos.

Politics and Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890–1898: The Performance of the Radical Party

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Three main political parties regularly contested elections in Argentina in the late nineteenth century: the Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN), the Unión Cívica Nacional (UCN), and the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR). However, little is known about the nature of party competition, the contesting parties' electoral performances or the characteristics of their electoral support. Discussion of the electoral politics prior to 1912, when the vote became secret and compulsory for all Argentine males over 18 years of age, has been dominated by notions of corruption, repression and lack of opportunity for popular participation. While in other countries such assessments have been revised in recent years after unreformed elections were analysed in more detail, accounts of electoral repression are still dominant in discussions of the pre-1912 Argintine electoral system.

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