 Dead Rabbit holding a brickbat as a weapon in July 1857 | |
| Founding location | Five Points, Manhattan, New York (present-day Worth Street, Baxter Street, and Columbus Park), Manhattan, New York City |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1830s-1860s |
| Territory | Five Points, Manhattan |
| Ethnicity | Irish and Irish-American |
| Criminal activities | Street fighting, knife fighting, assault, murder, robbery, arson, rioting |
| Allies | Chichesters, Tammany Hall, Plug Uglies, Roach Guards, Mulberry Street Boys, Municipal Police, Forty Thieves, Shirt Tails, Kerryonians |
| Rivals | Bowery Boys, Atlantic Guards, O'Connell Guards, American Guards, True Blue Americans, Empire Guards, New York City Police Department |
The Dead Rabbits were an Irish American criminal street gang active in Lower Manhattan in the 1830s to 1850s. The Dead Rabbits were so named after a dead rabbit was thrown into the center of the room during a gang meeting, prompting some members to treat this as an omen, withdraw, and form an independent gang. Their battle symbol was a dead rabbit on a pike.[1] They often clashed with Nativist political groups who viewed Irish Catholics as a threatening and criminal subculture.[2][3] The Dead Rabbits were given the nicknames of "Mulberry Boys" and the "Mulberry Street Boys" by the New York City Police Department because they were known to have operated along Mulberry Street in the Five Points.[4][5][6]
Tyler Anbinder, an American historian, claims that the Dead Rabbits did not exist as a gang and were actually misidentified members of the Roach Guards.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Buddywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Maffi, Mario.Gateway to the Promised Land: Ethnicity and Culture in New York's Lower East Side (Revealing Antiquity; 8), NYU Press; 1st edition (April 1, 1995). pg. 129. ISBN 978-0814755082
- ^ O'Kane, James. The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity, and the American Dream. Transaction Publishers; New edition (January 31, 2002), pp. 55-57; ISBN 978-0765809940
- ^ Smith, Carter F. (2017). Gangs and the Military: Gangsters, Bikers, and Terrorists with Military Training. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 11. ISBN 9781442275171.
- ^ The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0300182576.
- ^ Caldwell, Mark. (2005). New York Night: The Mystique and Its History. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. p. 146. ISBN 9780743274784.