“Would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that, breaking out in hideous violence, would not afford you an abode on earth … What would you think to be thus used? This is the strangers’ case, and this your mountainish inhumanity.”
Sir Thomas More, William Shakespeare
St.Bartholomews Day Massacre
In 1572, Margaret, daughter of French King Henry II and Catherine d’Medici, was set to marry King Henry IV of France. This marriage may have been intended as a peacemaking gesture, the virulently Catholic Margaret on the arm of a Protestant king. Believing themselves safe, many affluent and rich Huguenots arrived in Paris for the celebrations.
The result was nothing short of slaughter.
On the eve of the Feast of St. Batholomew, Catholic mobs descended upon the Huguenots. The massacre was an act of extreme religious brutality. Homes were pillaged, the occupants murdered, their bodies thrown into the Seine. Chains were used to block the streets, parties formed to hunt down fleeing women and children. Over the following three days, Catholics took to wearing white crosses on their foreheads so they would be recognized as the ichor of carnage flowed between the cobblestones.
The massacre spreadthroughout Paris and beyond with the dead numbering somewhere between 5,000 – 30,000. In the end, King Charles IX declared that he had ordered the slaughter due to a plot by Hugunots against the royal family. They held a parade and celebrated while the victms screams echoed through the streets, barely audible over the mobs feral roar.
The Plight of the Stranger
In modern London between Bishopsgate and Bank Junction lies Threadneedle Street. In the mid-1500’s, this was the largest French speaking neighborhood in the city. As such, it became where many refugee French Huguenots found themselves after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. It was established by Edward VI who first allowed the area to be settled by Protestant immigrants during his reign, providing a much-needed safe haven for those fleeing a largely Catholic Europe.
The fleeing Huguenots were far from the only foreigners (known at the time as strangers or aliens) taking up residence in merry old England. The Romani people began to migrate into Europe during the early 16th century, the expanding trade network making roads easier to travel and profitable to skilled merchants. When Sir Francis Drake was sacking Spanish ports, many Africans escaped their enslavement and joined in with the English. In fact, between the Tudor and Stewart eras, there were at least 350 people of African origin or descent in Lisbon. Flemish, Dutch, French, Italian, and German immigrants all found their way to England, either escaping troubles back home or seeking greater gains in a land made prosperous through trade.
In many ways, England provided opportunities for incoming migrants. Dutch and Flemish weavers were highly desired as England sought to improve its cloth industry. Italian and French merchants did well through importing foreign goods such as silk, spices, dyes, and wine. Often, these foreigners came highly requested thanks to their skills and knowledge as tradesmen, merchants, and bankers. Indeed, some places even encouraged these liberties to develop because it brought economic benefits and heightened trade in the area. By the 16th century, London was a bevy of diversity, with several languages being heard in the shops and markets of the city. An estimated 2% – 6% (depending on the date) of the residents in London were ‘strangers’, or foreign-born/descended. And for the most part, they lived the same quiet lives as their neighbors. They worked, ate, got married, raised kids, built homes, and paid taxes.
But life as an alien in England was far from perfect.
Outside of Threadneedle St., most immigrants lived in small, insular communities known as ‘liberties’ outside the city limits. Despite technically being under English law, these communities did not often have civil jurisdiction. Meaning that there were no legal representatives overseeing the day-to-day operations. These liberties handled their own affair with varying degrees of success. They worked alongside people who were familiar to them and often avoided expensive and frustrating regulations that were placed on businesses within city limits.
At the same time, no oversight also meant little to no help from their adopted government. Refugees were responsible for maintaining their own sick and injured. They had their own churches, and church elders often took responsibility for maintaining a sense of peace within their populace. As their ability to work and thrive in the area was contingent on how long they would be welcomed, effort was taken to keep these liberties free from quarreling and scandal that might have a negative effect on their reputation.
The Evil May Day Riots
Immigrants were also not free from violence. In 1516, the front doors of St. Paul’s Cathedral was the recipient of what might best be referred to as the 15th-century version of putting negative posts on social media. This proclamation claimed that foreigners were profiting from the wool trade and were being unfairly enriched by the government (the King). By 1517, the Mercers Company (an influential and wealthy trade group) asked for help in ‘subduing’ the local immigrant community, whom they felt had broken city laws. John Lincoln, a broker in London, convinced a local preacher named Dr. Bell to give a horrifically xenophobic sermon that accused foreign workers of “strangers eat the bread from the poor fatherless children, and take the living from all the artificers, and the [financial] intercourse from all merchants”. He then called on Englishmen to ‘defend themselves’ and to ‘hurt and grieve’ immigrants for the good of the common.
Over the next two weeks, violence broke out on foreigners across the city. Rumors abounded that on the next May Day (the start of summer), there was going to be a riot. The local government attempted a curfew the night before, but within hours there were hundreds of young men gathered in Cheapside. They traveled to a liberty north of the Cathedral, freeing others from Newgate Prison who had been jailed for attacking strangers, and began attacking and looting the houses there. They moved on to a new site near Aldgate called Blanchappleton and repeated their cruelty on the foreign cobblers. Though they were met with resistance, it was not until the Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard arrived with 1,300 men from his private army to subdue the rioters. In the end, some 300 men were released, with 15 – 20 arriving on time for their appointment with the noose for treason, John Lincoln included.
In Springfield, OH there has been a recent population boom thanks to the Immigration Parole Program, bringing somewhere between 12k – 15k Haitian immigrants into the area. It’s a good place for people looking to start a new life. The cost of living is relatively low. There is decent work available mostly in manufacturing and warehouses, and the community as a whole has been doing its best to provide translation services, English lessons, driving courses, and other outreach that can help make moving to a whole new country a lot easier.
And despite a few outlying displays of idiocy reminiscent of the foolhardy xenophobic attitudes from over five hundred years ago, it’s going well. New restaurants and grocery stores are opening up, heightening the local cuisine scene. And as we gain a better understanding of the resources needed to balance out the increase in residents, we’ll begin to see the benefits of a well-educated, innovative population developing in Springfield through the coming years.
In the US, roughly 14% of our residents are foreign-born. Many immigrants go on to become citizens, increasing the diversity and cultural growth of the country as a whole. The freedoms and opportunities offered by living in the States allow for new businesses and increased employment in the area. When they say this country was built by immigrants (willing and unwilling) they’re not joking. Whether positive or negative, this country has its identity because of the people who did the hard work of bringing it into existence in the first place. Who knows what we can become when we respect and embrace those who can take it into the future?