ation to the great annoyance of many
citizens."[10]

Thereafter followed a number of clashes developing finally into a series
of riots of a grave nature. Innocent Negroes, attacked at first for
purposes of sport and later for sinister designs, were often badly beaten
in the streets or even cut with knives. The offenders were not punished
and if the Negroes defended themselves they were usually severely
penalized. In 1819 three white women stoned a woman of color to death.[11]
A few youths entered a Negro church in Philadelphia in 1825 and by
throwing pepper to give rise to suffocating fumes caused a panic which
resulted in the death of several Negroes.[12] When the citizens of New
Haven, Connecticut, arrayed themselves in 1831 against the plan to
establish in that city a Negro manual labor college, there was held in
Philadelphia a meeting which passed resolutions enthusiastically endorsing
this effort to rid the community of the evil of the immigration of free
Negroes. There arose also the custom of driving Negroes away from
Independence Square on the Fourth of July because they were neither
considered nor desired as a part of the body politic.[13]

It was thought that in the state of feeling of the thirties that the Negro
would be annihilated. De Tocqueville also observed that the Negroes were
more detested in the free States than in those where they were held as
slaves.[14] There had been such a reaction since 1800 that no positions of
consequence were open to Negroes, however well educated they might be, and
the education of the blacks which was once vigorously prosecuted there
became unpopular.[15] This was especially true of Harrisburg and
Philadelphia but by no means confined to large cities. The Philadelphia
press said nothing in behalf of the race. It was generally thought that
freedom had not been an advantage to the Negro and that instead of making
progress they had filled jails and almshouses and multiplied pest holes to
afflict the cities with disease and crime.

The Negroes of York carefully worked out in 1803 a plan to burn the city.
Incendiaries set on fire a number of houses, eleven of which were
destroyed, whereas there were other attempts at a general destruction of
the city. The authorities arrested a number of Negroes but ran the risk of
having the jail broken open by their sympathizing fellowmen. After a reign
of terror for half a week, order was restored and twenty of the accused
were convicted o