Guy Fawkes

Meria

Elder Lister
Staff member
For over 400 years, on November 5 the British have been celebrating Guy Fawkes Night with bonfires and the burning of effigies, commemorating the foiling of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot—an attempt by a group of radical Catholics to assassinate King James I and blow up Parliament.

In Britain’s North American colonies in the eighteenth century the event had evolved into “Pope Night,” a raucous affair celebrated primarily in the coastal towns and cities of the northeast and featuring the burning of effigies of the pope and the devil. The rowdiest and most notorious of the North American Pope Night celebrations were those in Boston.

The participants in Boston’s Pope Night processions were primarily young working-class men; “the very dregs of the people,” one Bostonian complained. Each year one procession would set out from the North End bearing effigies, while another marched from the South End. When the two groups met, a violent brawl would follow, with each gang trying to capture the other’s “pope,” while battling it out with clubs and brickbats. The gang which prevailed would then carry the effigies to a bonfire on their side of town. The event always included vandalism (windows of the homes of wealthy Bostonians were smashed in unless they made a “contribution” to the celebrants), serious injuries, and occasional deaths. Attempts by authorities to stop or tone down the event were never successful.

As Pope Night approached in 1765 the city of Boston was on edge. The previous year’s processions had been particularly violent, and with the hated Stamp Act going into effect on November 1 the city seemed primed for a riot. In this tense atmosphere, wise people acted to defuse the situation. As a Boston diarist wrote, “the disorders which had been committed from time to time induced several gentlemen to try a reconciliation between the 2 parties.”

So, the leaders of the North End and South End met and worked out an agreement to put aside their rivalries as a show of solidarity against the Stamp Act. When the two processions met on the streets of Boston on Pope Night in 1765, they were carrying effigies not only of the devil and the pope, but also effigies representing tyranny and oppression. The leaders of the two factions mounted a stage with the effigies and the crowd broke out in cheers. The Northern group then marched peacefully through the south and the Southern group marched peacefully through the north, after which they all proceeded to the Liberty Tree, “under the shadow of which they refreshed themselves for a while.” Once sufficiently refreshed, they all proceeded to Cop’s Hill, lit a bonfire, and burned the effigies—all without any bashing of heads.

Ten years later, when, a few months after having been appointed commander in chief of the American army, George Washington became aware of plans to have Pope Night celebrations in 1775, he issued an order forbidding any American soldier from participating and he lashed out at the tradition:

“As the Commander in Chief has been apprised of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this juncture; at a time when we are soliciting, and have really obtained, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as brethren embarked in the same cause: the defense of the general liberty of America. At such a juncture, and in such circumstances, to be insulting their religion, is so monstrous as not to be suffered or excused; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy success over the common enemy in Canada.”

Although celebrations lingered on for a few more years at scattered places around New England, Washington’s disapproval effectively ended Pope Night in America.

The image is a 1765 Boston woodcut depicting a Pope Night procession.
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