immigrants were not looked very-highly upon at first. The Puritan citizens of Boston often looked those that actually expressed their religious, “papist” beliefs in public with suspicion and fear. These Puritans “continued to regard Catholicism as both a subversive political menace as well as a fearsome religious heresy.” This, considering the fact that those same Puritans and Protestants came to the Colonies in search of religious freedom, was quite bold on their parts. For example, many Roman Catholics were excluded from liberties and rights that other citizens had. They were “often placed under unusually severe limitations on their everyday life especially on those actions where religious believes played and important role.” Following the Revolutionary War, some tolerance for Catholics was present – “there was a sufficient atmosphere of forbearance in Boston to accommodate the handful of Roman Catholics who had now begun to practice heir religion openly.” This new found tolerance could not have come at better time. After the Revolutionary War, larger numbers of Irish immigrants were joining their friends and families in America. From 1825 to 1830, approximately 125,000 people emigrated from Ireland to the Americas, an average of 20,000 a year. Over 30,000 of them came to Boston and by 1830, the Irish Catholic population of Boston had grown to 8,000. Unfortunately, this growth in the number of Irish Catholics in Boston during the late 1820’s and early 1830’s was “disturbing to native Bostonians simply as a religious phenomenon.” Considering the many social and economic problems they helped increase, their arrival was viewed with great alarm by the older citizens. The church warned of the dangers of Catholic revivals and preachers, such as Rev. Lyman Beecher, “called upon ‘Native Americans’ to be on their guard against a ‘Catholic ...
