One thing I find interesting is the (possible?) connection between use of apes as a stand-in for "subhumans" and the theory of evolution. Do any of the cartoons here predate the publishing of the Origin of the Species in 1859? Despite the theory's controversy then and today, the idea that there might be a continuum between humans and apes (and that people or groups we don't like fall on the ape-ish end of the scale) seems to have been taken up with gusto fairly quickly. (Please note that I'm well aware that evolutionary theory says no such thing about different human groups; I'm just talking about the pseudoscientific bases of racism.)

Huh, I hadn't put that together before, but leprechauns are usually drawn just like that.

I know that occassionally in minstrel shows there were Irish acts, which were performed in the same black face. They fell out of favor earlier than those mocking Blacks, though, and were never as prevalent in the first place. As with other minstrel shows, dressing up in "Irish" mask was a way for privileged people, especially young people, to have an excuse to behave badly without social censure.

Hmm, just like St. Patrick's day today....

When it comes to the American immigrant narrative, the ebb and flow of which groups were considered acceptable and the 'hierarchy' is fascinating to me. In the early part of the last century, my own grandfather came to America via Ellis Island from Lithuania. Even though he couldn't speak a word of English, he chose to modify his family name to "sound Irish." He learned on the boat that the Irish were getting jobs and the "Russians" weren't. BUT because he couldn't speak the language, he could pull of the pretense of being English or even German. The Irish were a group that was "high" enough that he could get a job, but "low" enough that he could get away with pretending to be Irish -- i.e., the men hiring the Irish weren't exactly interested in chatting with them over tea.

Those interested in how the racial identification of the Irish changed might want to read "How the Irish Became White," by Noel Ignatiev.

I think Sander Gilman said something along the lines that the short, upturned "Irish" nose was lumped in with the characteristics of the syphilitic nose during this time period. (Later in the 1960's it (the ski jump) would become very popular.)

This is a very cool article, and it's illuminating to see how pervasive it was to mock Irish people by comparing them with other apes. That said, it's also pretty disingenuous of you to claim that the comparison of black persons with apes has nothing to do with their skin color or continent of origin. That particular trope has gone on too long, and too aggressively, for your statement to be really believable.

“[April 1748] Monday 4th. This morning Mr. Fairfax left us with Intent to go down to the Mouth of the Branch. We did two Lots & was attended by a great Company of People Men Women & Children that attended us through the Woods as we went shewing there Antick tricks. I really think they seem to be as Ignorant a Set of People as the Indians. They would never speak English but when spoken to they speak all Dutch.”

George Washington on the German settlers on the Allegheny frontier - the ones who gave us the log cabin, the covered wagon, and the Pennsylvania long rifle, icons of the American pioneer spirit.

So, there you have it. Being compared to apes is tactic of oppression totally unrelated to skin color — that is, it has nothing to do with Black people and everything to do with the effort to exert control and power.

What an oddly triumphant tone. Is this part of that larger argument that since some Irish were once oppressed and in some cases enslaved, there's no such thing as racism because it's all really just class-ism?

So, there you have it. Being compared to apes is tactic of oppression totally unrelated to skin color — that is, it has nothing to do with Black people and everything to do with the effort to exert control and power.

The British were heavily involved in the slave trade. Slavery wasn't abolished on most British colonies until 1833/1834. As far as I can tell, all these cartoons post-date the various pro-slavery cartoons in the UK press (late 18th century) which use this comparison. It would astonish me if there were no interdependence between the description of the Irish and the description of Africans/Afro-british people/slaves--if the comparison to apes were sui generis and not rooted in the colonization of Africa and the slave trade.

In other ways, in fact, Africans, slaves and Afro-British people were sometimes equated with white Britons. All men in the UK--particularly working class men--were subject to the press-gang and could be seized and impressed into the (violent, death-ridden) navy regardless of age or condition. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bury-Chains-Prophets-Rebels-Empires/dp/0618104690MBury The Chains, Adam Hochschild argues that the experience of press-ganging gave traction to the abolition movement in the UK, because there were some parallels between the experience of slavery and the experience of the pressed men.

Especially when I look at the "Shanty" cartoon above, it seems more plausible to me that the comparison of Irish people to apes is intended to recall the comparison of Africans and Afro-British people to apes, and thus to use the more-accepted oppression of one people to justify the oppression of another.

I'm not even sure how this could be unpicked--are there a wealth of comparisons of Irish people to apes which predate African slavery? I'm also confused about why it's helpful to show that this rhetorical tactic is independent of race. Surely slavery, racism and colonialism are so deeply entwined that they create and reinforce each other?

The Irish, too, have been compared to apes, suggesting that this comparison is a generalizable tactic of oppression, not one inspired by the color of the skin of Africans.
-Lisa Wade

I'm cosigning Frowner question "are there a wealth of comparisons of Irish people to apes which predate African slavery?"

However, I would slightly rephrase that commenter's next sentence to read "I’m also confused about why it’s helpful to show that this rhetorical tactic is sometimes directly independent of race."

I'd then cosign Frowner's next sentence "Surely slavery, racism and colonialism are so deeply entwined that they create and reinforce each other?"

end of quote

If this negative imagery of comparing people to apes and monkeys was first used to represent Black people, and then used for the Irish (who were then not considered to be White), then that imagery was still connected to race.

What is interesting to me is that a lot of the caricatures of the Irish presented above seem to be the inspiration of the design of the goblins and orcs of the British tabletop wargame, Warhammer... Perhaps, there was something that was evoked during the initial character designs several decades ago...

(Of course, the Warhammer goblins and orcs have fangs/tusks and are generally painted as green.)

Being Irish and damn proud of it (boy did we beat that rap!), I recall my mother telling me that "they" used to say, "An Irish person is just an [insert defamatory nickname for black people here] turned inside out."

But we could always hide our "irish-ness" if need be.

Congratulations on your first interesting post, Lisa!

It is indeed complicated, and needs to be looked at in cultural and historical perspective. In the 17th century, the Spanish speculated as to whether American natives were apes or closely related, and as late as 1700 there was serious discussion from the other direction, complete with dissection and point-by-point comparisons of anatomy, of whether orangutans were human.

There was very much discussion through the 18th century about the continuum from apes to human, and continued throughout the 19th century as the idea of various groups of humans being at different places on that continuum.

On top of that was an old tradition of mocking various groups of others as animals of one sort or another, including Englishmen referring to Frenchmen as apes, for example.

Yes, "slavery, racism and colonialism are so deeply entwined that they create and reinforce each other" but there is a much larger picture. And it is not necessarily limited to how Europeans saw other groups of people, although that has had the largest impact on the modern world. Many tribal cultures' names for themselves mean "The People" with the implication that other groups aren't really people.

I think it's called Siminanisation. It goes back to the era of 'discovery' and was a way of effectively dehumanising 'natives' i.e. anyone the English and other aristocrats wanted to colonise. Not saying the experience of colonisation was totally alike for Ireland and Africa, but there were certain parallels. Ostensibly colonists could claim the moral high ground and say they were civilising the savages, when really they were claiming/stealing land and resources.

Interesting aside - most of the Irish men in these images are dressed in tops and tails etc. As impoverished (often landless) labourers they would have recieved hand me downs from aristocrats (their landlords) as a form of charity. Notice how well dressed and groomed the English are beside them. In contrast, the Irish have wild hair and wrinkled/ill-fitting clothes. In posture too, the English are civilised, the Irish animalistic, possibly drunk. The message is that these animals don't know their place, they don't know they ought to be grateful for being allowed their (suitably lower) place in civilised society. It's classicm, combined with racism.

Comparing people to monkeys isn't limited to blacks and irish though. Similar imagery was used to depict the Germans before and during the first world war (think; the destroy this mad brute poster). It's a form of otherising.

Just before I finish, white Americans aren't immune to being compared to chimps either; http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/K/1/bush_chimps2.jpg

Check out the postures on the two women in the second image. The scene that's playing out puts one of them bending over slightly with her hands clasped together, and the other with her feet spread apart, one hand on her hip, and one arm raised in a threatening manner. The Irish woman also isn't wearing "dainty" shoes, and she has muscles and is just generally larger. Guess which one we're meant to like?

Man, there's so much going on in that picture.

"Journal of Civilization"

Ohhhhhh. These people don't know about Irish Catholic Slavery in America yet??

Well by all means - TELL THEM about it. A little research into it would do a world of good for the subject - of course it might be racially unifying, so maybe some wouldn't support your effort. >o)

They were NOT just indentured servants or immigrants.

With the LARGEST denomination in America & 2nd largest nationality - one would think people would know more about the Irish Catholic American. Just don't piss us off too much with your folly. You'll find some of the cartoons might be a matter of fact. What a riot! LOL

"I am daunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country. I don't believe they are our fault. I believe that there are not only many more of them than of old, but that they are happier, better and more comfortably fed and lodged under our rule than they ever were. But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours." Historian Charles Kingsley on visiting Ireland during the great famine, taken from intro to How the Irish saved civilisation by Thomas Cahill.

Si where's the English James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, WB Yeats, Oscar Wilde, GB Shaw? 

It's quite an overstatement to conclude  "Being compared to apes is tactic of oppression totally unrelated to skin
color — that is, it has nothing to do with Black people and everything
to do with the effort to exert control and power."
The Irish were not seen as "white people" at the time, and the use of simian imagery against Blacks continued long after the it was no longer used against Blacks.

Excellent analysis

You guys screwed up. You never should have let us in.

The parallels with this and the Scottish experience pre and post indref are chilling. It seems history is repeating itself.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2015/mar/09/steve-bells-if-

Can anyone confirm or deny that this was used on the Irish peoples first?

poem vocabulary quantity

Ohhh it has everything to do with black people, when is the last time you have seen the Irish or any other European white depicted as an ape, Whilst the Irish were originally sharing some oppression, it is quitwe a different story in modern day White Nationalism. Hence most White nationalist and white supremacists group will accept membership, including the KKK, from the Irish

Pseudoscience cant think. yes, on online wikapedia

Medicine smell nothing. Everything again. Still real.

Irish DNA is nearly identical to English. They are so identical that there is more genetic distance between the English and Danes than there is between the Irish and English. You couldn't even organize a random group of Irish and English into their respective ethnic classes by looking at them.

Thomas Nast was the only one publishing political cartoons during the period in question. We know this because he's the "father of political cartoons" and before him they didn't exist. Nast was brought up a German Catholic and for some reason couldn't recall any other parts of his childhood except for when he was getting bullied by Irish kids. He converted to Protestantism later in life and dedicated is sterling career as a cartoonist to living out his revenge fantasy. He depicted the Irish that way because, as a victim of constant bullying, an ape was just the right kind of brute he saw them for. It wasn't uncommon for him to depict others as apes, though, and it wasn't done for the reasons you'd suspect. Nast depicted Lincoln as an ape in one of his cartoons.

Catholic immigrants faced hostility in the mid-19th Century: this no one disputes. But what is conveniently ignored in these "anti-Irish" histories is the fact that the most stridently anti-"Irish" (more like anti-Catholic) in the US at the time were none other than the Irish Protestants. They played a big role in the Know-Nothing movement and participated in violent riots that nearly burned down entire sections of cities. Their descendants also happen to be the largest component of the Irish diaspora in America these days.

The attempts to exaggerate Irish-American history are not without consequences. First, the contributions of countless Irish Protestants in the early days of the republic are completely ignored. Second, by the late antebellum, no less than 300,000 enslaved African Americans were owned by Southerners of Irish descent. There are millions of black descendants of these slaves who now walk around with Irish names because their ancestors were once owned by these pseudo-victims.

And if you want to talk about prejudice, the most persistent and reoccurring theme of out-group prejudice in American history (other than the obvious enslavement of black Africans) was, in actual fact, Anglophobia, which continued to occur as late as the second world war. In this respect, the Irish had found a home in this country, whether they were fighting the British during the Revolution (more than half of Washington's army was from or had roots in Ulster), or boycotting British exports. There was one tiny blip of time when famine refugees faced hostility from nativist groups that were populated in large part by Irish Protestants, and that was it.

So why all the obsession for this little blip of Irish-American history? I think we all know the answer to that. The pseudo-historians that are promoting this new brand of fake-victimization are almost entirely far-left political activists who are trying to call the concept of race into question. Occasionally you will see a right-wing activist using the same Irish-American myths to make a supremacist argument.

Jonathan Christophers is missing a key point. The negative virws described about the Irish are actually about the old order Irish/ Irish Catholics with names beginning usually with O' or Mc...those who the English tried to exterminate...not the plantation "Irish" of protestant Scotland and England with names like Porter or Cunningham, or Adams or any of the other names of the majority of those newer invading Ulstermen. Do your research.

In this piece, I describe the experience of an Arab woman living in Israel who became "the subject of the apartheid state":

I was born at Rosh HaShanah. It was Jewish holiday season, so I spent most of my childhood with my family. My father, who works in a clothing factory, and his sister lived with their parents in a makeshift camp next door to their hometown, Kiryat Gat. There were a few other families living here as well. My father and I were raised surrounded by people who looked like our family. People called me Kike, Tzach and Shush. I'd never been much interested in Jewish holidays before I was born, other than enjoying them and knowing that I was a Kike—like, kind of like a member of the kadom—a type of Jew. "I never want to miss an Arab day!" one mother told me during our childhood. When I was seven, I decided to go back home to Tzach, who would continue to live with his mother until he turned fourteen; he's fifteen now. I wasn't going to miss any Arab days at all.

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Very interesting article - though I think the finisher is unfortunate :
"So, there you have it. Being compared to apes is tactic of oppression totally unrelated to skin color — that is, it has nothing to do with Black people and everything to do with the effort to exert control and power."
It is much more prevalent for black people, so it's important not to undermine that fact.

Read the great book; Nothing But the Same Old Story, by Liz Curtis.

Another take on this is how, in the 19th Century, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were portrayed as less than white, and as destroying the white race with polygamy and interracial marriage (including to Irish, Black, Native American) etc.

One article discussing this is found on FAIRMormon: "W. Paul Reeve: From Not White Enough to Too White: Rethinking the Mormon Racial Story."

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2015/rethinking-the-mormon-racial-story
Here are a couple of excerpts from the article showing how anti-mormonsim has turned full circle:

"So you have a black mammy in Brigham Young’s family. You also have another black wife, a couple of black children. And then, even if you look at this other wife – if any of you are familiar with the ways in which Irish immigrants are racialized in the 19th century – the suggestion was that they were more ape-like or simian than they were white. That same kind of accusation is then being projected onto the Mormons in this political cartoon. If you look at the facial angle of several of the children and this particular wife, the suggestion is that polygamy is giving rise to a degraded race, and you have Brigham Young’s interracial family here as “evidence” of this."

"The New York World published an editorial in 1865. Remember this is the end of the Civil War. Four million blacks have been freed in the South. And the New York World is fearful, then, that because, it argues, black people are racially prone to superstition and racially highly sexed, they make the prime candidates for mass conversion to Mormonism. And they will convert en masse to Mormonism and then American democracy will be at stake because you’ll have Mormons in the Intermountain West combining with these newly freed blacks who have converted to Mormonism and they will control presidential politics in the United States."

Of course now, although Church members are predominantly non-white, media portrays them as too white...politics, gotta love it : )

"Then in 2012 Lee Siegel publishes an editorial in the New York Times calling Mitt Romney “the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory.”

I find his so called ,Cartoons.hateful.
I don’t see many people ,just flat out calling it
Out for what it is.
A disgrace.pure and simple.
That’s al it is.

Have a listen
https://youtu.be/bCafNgZIgW4
https://youtu.be/T_hK_lbOHD4

Of course, as the apes are our pre human ancestors. Before we evolved to Homo Sapiens.

Aside: the most of the Irish men in these photographs are dressed in tops and tails, etc. They would have received hand-me-downs from nobles (their landlords) as a kind of charity as destitute (often landless) laborers. Take note of how well-dressed and groomed the English are in comparison. The Irish, on the other hand, have wild hair and garments that are wrinkled or ill-fitting. The English are civilized in their stance cookie clicker, whilst the Irish are animalistic and maybe intoxicated. The implication is that these creatures have no idea where they belong, and that they should be grateful for being permitted to take their (appropriately inferior) position in civilisation. It's a mix of classicism and racism.

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I was assigned "How the Irish Became White" in grad school. There is much geopolitical history regarding British domination and the general ethos of the "White Man's Burden." This cultural and racial elitism really was economics and power. Reading the comments, it struck me to connect the tyranny the English caused the Irish much prior to the slave trade. There is a true connection here of justification to subjugate a portion of a population. Do "white Americans" now justify subconscious racism by some sort of elitism, collective guilt, or plain lack of self-confidence? It's nuanced.

Back in my working days for New England Telephone Company, I met an elderly Irish woman who recalled when she was young the time she and her friends were walking past Paines Furniture store in Boston when they came across a sign in the window that read: HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY

As it was winter and there was frost on the windows, they wrote the following words with their fingers on the glass next to this sign: IN HELL.

There used to be signs posted on the Boston Common that read: NO IRISH OR DOGS ON THE GRASS.

While working for the telephone company in the Charlestown section of Boston, I was in the basement of an old house. I noticed that someone had placed pages of a very old Boston newspaper on the top of some shelves.

I went over and read a little from the first page.

There was the following description: John Kelly, that Irish bastard, etc., etc. (he had committed some crime).

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While working for the telephone company in the Charlestown section of Boston, I was in the basement of an old house. Healing Prayers I noticed that someone had placed pages of a very old Boston newspaper on the top of some shelves.

Perhaps if American students were taught about the bigotry experienced by many different nationalities over our history it would create solidarity and understanding among people, as opposed to saying that all whites are guilty in the same way for the treatment of blacks in this country. Maybe this history would create more compassion for all people /groups who have and continue to suffer from the effects of bigotry.

Perhaps if American students were taught about the bigotry experienced by many different nationalities over our history it would create solidarity and understanding among people, as opposed to saying that all whites are guilty in the same way for the treatment of blacks in this country. Maybe this history would create more compassion for all people /groups who have and continue to suffer from the effects of bigotry.

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