Cincinnati riots

There has been a long history of rioting in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, since the city was founded in 1788. Some riots were fueled by racial tension, while others by issues such as employment conditions and political justice.

The first riot recorded in Cincinnati was in 1792, after a merchant named John Bartle was beaten by a soldier. Fifty people were involved in the fighting. The riot between settlers and soldiers occurred when spring flooding had driven many people out of their cabins.

By 1829, African Americans numbered almost 10% of the city's population. In the Cincinnati Riots of 1829, about 1,000 of them were driven out of the town by violent mobs. Some of the displaced people moved north to settle in Canada. After the 1829 riots, a growing number of whites became sympathetic to the rights of Negroes, as they were called then.

The Cincinnati Riots of 1836 were caused by racial tensions at a time when African Americans, some of whom had escaped from slavery in the southern states of the United States, were competing with whites for jobs. The riots occurred in April and July. The rioters attacked both Negroes and the whites who supported them. A former slave owner from Alabama, James Gillespie Birney, had become an abolitionist. In January 1836 he set up the Cincinnati Weekly and Abolitionist, a newspaper sponsored by the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. The newspaper targeted slaveholders across the Ohio River in Kentucky with anti-slavery propaganda. This angered local businessmen who were keen to do business with the southern states. A riot broke out in April in which buildings were burned and several blacks lost their lives. The riot was only brought under control when the governor intervened and declared martial law. In July, the press that printed Birney's newspaper was twice destroyed, and further damage was caused to Negro properties.

In the Cincinnati riots of 1841, a mob of white men met in the Fifth Street Market and marched on "Little Africa", or "Buck Town"an area along the riverfront that was mainly inhabited by African Americans. The African Americans were armed and ready. Whites secured a cannon, rolled it down sixth street, faced it toward Buck Town, the name of the area where African American's resided, and fired it, lives were lost. Martial law was declared, 300 black men were arrested. While they were in custody, many of their homes were attacked.

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